AI is concerned about the killing of Arsario Indian Gregorio Nieves and the ill-treatment of other Arsario Indians on 13 April 1993 by members of the Colombian armed forces. Eye-witness reports allege that soldiers from the La Popa battalion arrived at the Arsario community of Marocazo on 13 April; they were in pursuit of armed men who had run across the the fields where Gregorio Nieves and others were working. They reportedly shot at the Indians, believing them to be guerrillas, wounding Gregorio Nieves, whom they subsequently shot in the head and killed. They other Indians were reportedly threatened and abused and interrogated about guerilla activities. Gregorio Nieves’s wife was also threatened with death, ill-treated and accused of being a guerrilla. Her sister-in-law, who was recovering from a still-birth was also allegedly ill-treated and is now seriously ill.
