BOGOTA – An airstrike in northwestern Colombia that left four Indian civilians wounded was part of a campaign to drive residents away from the site of a major mining project, a group representing indigenous people said Tuesday.

The charge was made by William Carupe, senior councilor of the Indigenous Organization of Antioquia (province), or OIA.

“The interest of the state and of the multinationals is to displace us,” he told Efe from Medellin, capital of Antioquia and headquarters of the OIA.

Colombian President Alvaro Uribe said Monday that the armed forces are “careful” not to bomb civilian areas, while the army’s 7th Division described the raid on the Embera Katio Indian settlement as a mistake.

The incident occurred around 3:00 a.m. Sunday as the military was targeting Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, guerrillas, the army said.

The ordnance fell on Alto Guayabal, a settlement inside the Urada-Jiguamiando reservation, which lies near Careperro, a mountain sacred to the Embera Katios where U.S.-based Muriel Mining Corp. has found deposits of gold, copper and molybdenum.

Carupe said Muriel opened an office in Medellin and obtained licenses to carry out mining operations on Careperro.

But authorities granted the concession without having consulted the area’s Indian and Afro-Colombian communities, the OIA councilor said.

Citing a heavy military presence in the zone for the past two years, he said there were no guerrillas on the reservation.

Four Indians were wounded in last weekend’s bombing, including a 20-month-old child, according to the OIA, while the bombs also destroyed a dwelling, several domestic animals and around a hectare (2.2 acres) of grain crops.

The roughly 200 residents of Alto Guayabal only returned to the settlement a year ago after having been forced to leave five years earlier by fighting between the Colombian army and the FARC. EFE