Dirty war in Colombia

"If the people of the US knew what their government was really doing 
here in Colombia there would be outrage," says a veteran human rights 
worker "Gloria". Gloria is a courageous activist who has worked in the 
Bolivar department over a long period of time. The following is an 
exclusive interview Gloria gave with News Agency New Colombia (ANNCOL).

ANNCOL: Can you give us a little background first and tell us why 
there are so many problems in Bolivar and what the main types of human 
rights abuses are?

Gloria: Well, we have all sorts of abuses in Bolivar including 
massacres, assassinations, disappearances, rapes and kidnapping. There are 
also abuses of another sort in that people are illegally evicted from their 
land and have their homes and possessions taken.

For many years most of the regions in the south and centre of Bolivar, 
which is where I have worked mostly and which is a rural and mountainous 
region, were to a great extent peaceful places where the civilian 
population could get on with their lives without fear of any of the things 
that I just mentioned.

There were guerrillas about but they didn't bother anyone and their 
relationship with local people was always quite good.

Then in the early 1990s the paramilitaries started appearing in certain 
areas in the south of Bolivar. Many of them had crossed over the river 
Magdalena from the city of Barrancabermeja where they were working with the 
military in trying to gain control of the city from the guerrillas who at 
that time almost controlled the whole place.

By 1999 they were strong enough to launch a full-scale offensive into 
southern Bolivar and from the start this was coordinated with the army.

I guess the paramilitaries had about a thousand fighters for the push into 
Bolivar at this time, and this was partly through recruiting poor kids in 
Barrancabermeja.

[This was] because, unlike the guerrillas who pay no salary to their 
members the paramilitaries pay a lot of money if you join them, but also 
because they were keen to prevent the establishment of a peace talks zone 
for the ELN in the south which was being talked about at that time.

Anyway when it started it was awful. The paramilitaries first went into the 
region around San Pablo and Simiti where they and the army killed hundreds 
of people, burnt down homes and forced thousands to leave. They said that 
everybody was a guerrilla and if you complained you were shot.

This carried on throughout 2000 and they moved into more and more 
communities. The advance was a shock to everyone as, although the 
guerrillas did try to fight them off, the army gave them such a lot of 
support that the guerrillas were forced to head into the mountains.

Once they had control the paramilitaries did two things. Firstly they set 
up front organisations like ASOCIPAZ and Movimiento No al Despeja that they 
used to campaign against the proposed peace zone.

People were told that if they didn't participate in anti-peace zone 
demonstrations then they'd be killed and although the TV showed a lot about 
the protests they never told the truth about why the people were there.

They started pushing the small miners and farmers out of areas that the 
multinationals wanted. Then those great companies came in and now there are 
only a few jobs left for miserable wages.

Before many families lived here and survived off the land but now the 
multinationals take all the materials and the profits for themselves so 
this too forces others to leave. And this is still going on. Just a few 
weeks ago the army forced hundreds of people to leave a group of 
communities around Tiquisio.

ANNCOL: Can you tell me a little more about the displacement of 
civilians in general and specifically the connections with the 
multinationals?

Gloria: We have been really hit hard by forced displacement in 
Bolivar and although it is extremely difficult to give exact figures ... I 
can tell you that during every year recently displacement in the department 
can be counted in the tens of thousands.

There are various ways that the paramilitaries will displace people. 
Firstly is through fear. Maybe they will come to a community and kill a few 
people to show that they are serious and then tell the others that they 
will return in a few days and kill the rest.

This obviously forces people to leave and when this happens over and over 
again in different communities in a region it will in many cases provoke 
mass fear and subsequent mass displacement.

Another way is that they will prevent supplies of food and medicine from 
entering certain communities whilst at the same time preventing peasants in 
those areas from leaving to sell their produce.

They also destroy harvests and kill livestock.

Essentially what they are doing is starving the communities off their land.

ANNCOL: And the relationship that multinational corporations have 
with the displacement?

Gloria: Yes, as there is lots of gold, oil, marble and other raw 
materials here in Bolivar.

The land is obviously very valuable in some places. Before the 
multinationals can get their hands on what is in the land they need to own 
the land itself and this becomes very expensive if they have to buy it from 
all the individual small farming families.

It is cheaper, and therefore the end profits for the people in New York, 
Washington and places like that are greater, to just expel the people from 
the land and then take it for themselves.

Therefore the paramilitaries force thousands from their land and the 
multinationals then take possession of it.

We have companies from Spain, Canada, the US and Britain among others that 
have all benefited from this method — the mining companies are probably 
the worst culprits here although various oil companies also have very bad 
records.

The fact that the paramilitaries also target the people who represent the 
communities also benefits the multinationals, as when all the leaders and 
peasant associations are gone there will be nobody left to represent the 
people and help them fight for their rights.

Then it will be even easier for the multinationals to grab the land, force 
people to work for low wages, etc.

ANNCOL: Can you explain what the paramilitaries do when they enter a 
town?

Gloria: Let me tell you about what happened in February 2000 in a 
small town called El Salado that is in northern part of Bolivar. It will 
give you an idea of how the paramilitaries operate.

For some days the marines and the army had been patrolling in and around 
the town and then suddenly one evening they all withdrew.

Then, the following morning, the people awoke to find the town surrounded 
by about 300 paramilitaries who then came down into the central square and 
rounded up all the residents.

The boss then sat at a table and chair in the basketball court that was in 
the square and began to call out names from a list that he had.

Some people stepped forward but others, who had stayed in their homes out 
of fear were not present and so some of the paramilitaries went searching 
for them house to house before dragging them out of their homes to the 
square.

Other paramilitaries ordered restaurants and cafes in the town to bring all 
their whiskey and rum as well as their radios for music to the square and 
local musicians were made to play their instruments.

The paramilitaries held a party and then the killing started. People were 
tortured, killed and raped whilst the paramilitaries were dancing and 
singing. People were sliced up with machetes, had their throats and 
stomachs cut open and others were beheaded or strangled with metal wires 
whilst being tortured.

Of course by this time people in other towns in the area had heard what was 
going on and they went to the army and the police and asked them to 
intervene.

They were ignored and told not to worry as it was only the guerrillas and 
the paramilitaries fighting high up in the hills. There were police and 
soldiers only a few miles from the town and they could easily have stopped 
it but they did nothing.

After the massacre nearly 3000 residents fled the area, including about 
1500 people from El Salado itself, to camps and shantytowns in the cities. 
When human rights groups went to talk to witnesses many of the people who 
spoke to them were later killed or disappeared by the same group of 
paramilitaries. Now people are too scared to talk about it at all.

What happened in El Salado is typical of their behaviour. They are animals 
with no respect for human life although if you read the media here you 
wouldn't know it.

There are many more examples like this and not just here in Bolivar. All 
over Colombia you can go into towns and see local paramilitaries drinking 
in bars with the police, living in military bases and manning joint 
roadblocks with soldiers. I've only told you a little about the areas that 
I am familiar with in Bolivar and it is just the tip of the ice-burg.

ANNCOL: Why do you think that the armed forces engage in this 
cooperation?

Gloria: The government knows all about the links between the 
paramilitaries and the army ... The problem is that the paramilitaries are 
part of a state policy to keep the people down.

For many years a small group of families, we call them the oligarchy, have 
controlled Colombia and these people are desperate to defend their 
privileges.

They do not want to share any of Colombia's wealth with the Colombian 
people and as a result of this attitude they have had willing collaboration 
from the multinationals and in turn the US Government.

This is why the US gives the military so much aid despite the human rights 
abuses — to defend the interests of the multinational corporations.

The main function of the army is to defend the elite and their interests 
and if that means that they have to work with the death squads then that is 
a price worth paying so far as the wealthy elite, the multinationals, the 
military high command and the US Government are concerned.

The mass media are complicit in this and that is why the fact that the 
paramilitaries and army are the real violators here is hidden.

ANNCOL: What contact have you had with the government authorities to 
try and lessen the human rights crises in Bolivar and have they been 
helpful?

Gloria: For the reasons I have just mentioned the government in 
general are not interested in defending the human rights of the vast 
majority of Colombian citizens.

Unless they are willing to reform the security forces and put an end to 
their relationship with the paramilitaries there is very little they can do 
to improve the situation.

Here in Bolivar in August last year when the International Caravan for Life 
came to the south of Bolivar to express solidarity with the peasant 
communities they were threatened not just by paramilitary front 
organisations like ASOCIPAZ and Movimiento No al Despeja which set up 
roadblocks near San Pablo ... but also by the local authorities who called 
them "terrorist guerrilla supporters".

A group of international volunteers who were supported by both the United 
Nations and the Red Cross and who should have been welcomed by the local 
mayors and other dignitaries were instead called terrorists by those 
people!

ANNCOL: Thank-you for taking the time to do this interview. Is there 
anything else you'd like to add?

Gloria: There are two brief things that I would like to say. One is 
an appeal and the other an aspiration, though it is an aspiration not just 
of mine but of the Colombian people too.

Firstly we are in desperate need of international solidarity in Colombia. 
In the field not just of human rights but also in the trade union movement, 
the student movement, the land reform and community organisations and all 
the other popular sectors that the state is trying to destroy.

We need people to support our struggles. We need people to come here and 
see for themselves what is really going on. I believe, that with the US in 
particular, that if their people knew what their government was really 
doing here in Colombia that there would be outrage and it would be much 
more difficult for the US to give our military, and therefore the 
paramilitaries too, all this military aid.

It is aid that is harming the people and only with the support of 
international solidarity organisations will we be able to put an end to it. 
Whatever they say in the US Government it is simply impossible to believe 
that more guns, helicopters, bullets and bombs will lead to peace in 
Colombia.

The aspiration that I have, and that as I said I believe most Colombian's 
have, is that of peace, but not just peace on its own where there continues 
to be unemployment, poverty and discrimination.

What we want and need is peace with social justice. And that, ultimately, 
is what we in the popular organisations are all fighting for here in 
Colombia.

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For the full text visit: http://www.anncol.com