Minor Ortíz Delgado, a leader of the Bribri indigenous people in Salitre, Puntarenas province, Costa Rica, describes an attack on the indigenous community on 4 January 2013. He was shot for a third time in February 2020. Photo: Jeffery López / YouTube
Minor Ortíz Delgado, a leader of the Bribri indigenous people in Salitre, Puntarenas province, Costa Rica, describes an attack on the indigenous community on 4 January 2013. He was shot for a third time in February 2020. Photo: Jeffery López / YouTube

By Nina Lakhani
17 February 2020

(The Guardian) – An indigenous leader leading his people’s effort to reclaim ancestral land in Costa Rica has been wounded in a gun attack – the latest in a spate of targeted violence which has gone unpunished by authorities.

Mainor Ortiz Delgado, 29, a leader of the Bribri indigenous people in Salitre, Puntarenas province, was shot in the right leg earlier this month – the third time Ortiz has been shot allegedly by members of the same family in 14 months.

The suspected gunman, who carried out the gun attack in broad daylight in front of Delgado’s 13-year-old son, was detained but released within 24 hours.

Costa Rica, an eco-tourism hub with 5 million inhabitants, is Central America’s safest and most equitable country.

But in recent years, the Bribri people attempting to recoup lost land have been subject to dozens of violent attacks, racist harassment and trumped-up retaliatory lawsuits with almost total impunity.

As a result, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued precautionary measures in 2015, calling on Costa Rican authorities to protect the lives and physical integrity of the Bribri and their indigenous neighbours, the Brörán people.

Sergio Rojas, an indigenous land activist, is pictured during a interview in Salitre, Buenos Aires de Puntarenas, Costa Rica, on 2 October 2015. On 19 March 2020, the government announced that he had been murdered by unknown attackers. No arrests were ever made. Photo: La Nacion / REUTERS
Sergio Rojas, an indigenous land activist, is pictured during a interview in Salitre, Buenos Aires de Puntarenas, Costa Rica, on 2 October 2015. On 19 March 2020, the government announced that he had been murdered by unknown attackers. No arrests were ever made. Photo: La Nacion / REUTERS

But the violence continued because the state failed to take action, according to Vanessa Jiménez, a lawyer with the not-for-profit organization Forest Peoples Programme who works with the indigenous communities.

This latest gun attack comes less than a year after 59-year-old Sergio Rojas Ortiz, an internationally acclaimed Bribri land and human rights defender, was shot dead at home in Salitre following years of death threats, harassment and assaults linked to his work.

At the time, the government acknowledged the growing violence against the country’s indigenous peoples involved in conflicts with mestizo families who have illegally occupied their ancestral lands, and pledged to deliver justice. Rojas Ortiz’s killers remain at large, and the land disputes remain unresolved.

“The state has relinquished its duty and has abandoned these indigenous people to seek justice in the court system which also fails them,” Jiménez told the Guardian. “The impunity has empowered those who want to do harm to the Bribri and Brörán.” […]

Last year, Magdalena Figueroa Morales, a Bribri elder, was seriously injured after a disgruntled neighbour threw liquid pesticide in her face. Shortly after, the elderly woman’s makeshift shack was burned down in a suspected arson attack. No one was arrested. [more]

Costa Rica indigenous leader shot amid tensions over land rights