A group of Indians has declared war against the government in Bogotá, according to spokesmen of a Wayuu indigenous community of the peninsula of La Guajira in northern Colombia.

During the last three years the community has suffered attacks and assassinations at the hands of paramilitary groups supported by troops of the Colombian Army's Second Brigade, based in the city of Barranquilla. The persecution culminated on April 18 this year with the sack of the village of Bahía de Portete, and a massacre where a dozen people were murdered.

According to Amnesty International, the paramilitaries arrived at the village, where they interrogated a number of children on the whereabouts of their parents, killing some of them on the suspicion that they were lying. According to the reports, the paramilitaries also tortured some of the adults that they killed. More than 300 Wayuu (photo) were able to flee across the border to Venezuela, walking for more than 24 hours.

Dismembered alive with a chainsaw

"Oh, brother, I feel as if my heart is coming out my mouth. You can not imagine how it is to have to escape on the run so that they won't kill you, and then hear the cries of the kids, of my two little sons who they burned alive with out me being able to do anything", said one of the survivors, named Alberto, to the Venezuelan newspaper Últimas Noticias.

"They burned them alive inside my pick up. Also, they beheaded my mother and cut my nephews to pieces. They didn't shoot them, they tortured them so we would hear their screams, and they cut them up alive with a chain saw", said Alberto.

Colombian authorities deny that the incident has occurred. The public prosecutor of the nearby city of Rio Hacha says that he has proof of the death of only two persons. According to the press office of the Army's First Division, the Army is only sowing "seeds of friendship with the population" of La Guajira.

"How can they say this? Are we only animals to them?", asked Alberto.

The Wayuus go to war

According to Juchi, a spokesman of this Wayuu community, who now is in exile in Venezuela, the Wayuuu have no other alternative than to go to war against the regime.

"The Guajira people [Wayuu] have reached a decision: they have created this problem, therefore the war has been declared. We are going to respond in such a forceful manner that they will have no desire to return to our lands. We will apply our own law, because the justice of the courts only serves to help them, the assassins", declared the spokesman to the Venezuelan newspaper.

"We want President Uribe, who gives so much help to the paramilitaries, to know that we still exist, that we are human beings even if he doesn't like it, and that we will make him respect our rights, even if hundreds our thousands of the Wayuu have to die for it", declared Juchi.