Paya is a community with 530 indigenous residents located in the mountains of Pinogana and about 2 hours from the Colombian border. After the attack, there was only 50 residents remaining in Paya. The rest of the town was seeking refuge in the Boca de Cupe community or in the nearby mountains. Pucuro, a close by village, was entirely abandoned by its 20 residents. The paramilitaries arrived in Pucuro, burnt 5 houses down, and after finding no residents assassinated Gilberto Vasquez, who had been taken prisoner in Paya.

ACERCA/ASEJ received this action alert from The Kuna Youth Indigenous Movement asking for international solidarity to conndemn the violence of Plan Colombia that has contributed to this murder of indigenous leaders in Panama. We translated the artilce from
http://www.prensa.com/hoy/portada/853397.html
brendan@asej.org

What you can do?
1) Please circulate this article far and wide to inform people of this violence of Plan Colombia leading to the death of 4 Kuna Indigenous Leaders in Panama.
2) Stay tuned for follow-up messages and action alerts
3) Stop the violence in Colombia, by getting involved with the March
23rd/24th Colombia Mobilization http://www.colombiamobilization.org
and the April 10th-15th Latin American Solidarity Coalition
http://lasolidarity.org