Luis Fernando Arias, Colombian indigenous leader, dead at 41

Like so many Indigenous people in Colombia, Luis Fernando Arias suffered acutely from the armed conflict that tore his nation apart for decades. Paramilitary fighters in 2001 rolled into his community and killed his grandfather. Three years later they killed an uncle of his and threatened his father, forcing his family to flee to the capital, Bogotá.

“He had to live with all the pain of the Indigenous people in the country,” his father, Jaime Arias, said in an interview. “But he wasn’t scared. It gave him strength to fight. It was from that moment he wanted to fight for the rights of his people.”

Luis Arias rose to become senior adviser to the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia, an influential voice for Indigenous rights, peace and environmental preservation. His role effectively made him its president.

He died Feb. 13 in a clinic in the coastal city of Barranquilla after having a heart attack, family members and Indigenous leaders said. They attributed his death as well to complications of the Coronavirus. He was 41.

“He left us with beautiful memories, so we don’t have to live on crying,” Eulalia Yagarí, a co-founder of the Indigenous organization and a member of the Embera people, said in a statement. “They’re memories of strength and bravery.”

Arias, a member of the Kankuamo people, was born Nov. 4, 1979, in the town of Chemes-quemena, in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada. His father was a tribal leader, and his mother, Fanny Arias, was a farmer and artist.

Along with his father, Arias is survived by his mother; his siblings; his wife, Sindy Paola Arias; and his two children, Jaime Luis and Luis Manuel.

THE NEW YORK TIMES A photo provided by the National Indigenous Organization of Colombia shows Luis Fernando Arias who was motivated by violence inflicted on his family by paramilitaries and became the leading voice in a coalition of Colombia’s Indigenous peoples.