A River of Life Looking for the Dead
A River of Life Looking for the Dead
By FOR Colombia
on Tuesday, November 26, 2013, 7:58pm
El Espectador accompanied a pilgrimage that sought to enter, without weapons, the paramilitary heart of Urabá in Antioquia Department. Here is a translation of its report.
By Camilo Segura Álvarez
On August 31, Buenaventura Hoyos, a peasant farmer from the La Hoz region of Apartadó (in Urabá, North West Colombia), was held by the paramilitary group the Gaitanista Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Gaitanistas de Colombia, or AGC). According to human rights organizations, the farmer was last seen on September 3, restrained by his captors, on the road to neighboring Córdoba. It seems Hoyos had been the victim of forced recruitment. His family fled La Hoz, just as 50 others have since the end of August, and like them, they had seen a group of more than 200 paramilitary soldiers camped between Nueva Antioquia (in Turbo, Antioquia) and the various villages that form the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó.
El Espectador accompanied a “Pilgrimage for Life” led by the Peace Community, indigenous representatives from around Colombia, human rights organizations, and international accompaniers. Some 120 people mobilized with concrete objectives: to look for the paramilitaries in their base, said by the communities to be near the village of Sabaleta; to collect eyewitness reports from people who had seen the paramilitaries in action; to discover the fate of Beunaventura Hoyos; to confront, unarmed, the paramilitaries; to hear the reasons for the threats they have made against the Peace Community; and to exercise the dignity that they have cultivated over 16 years of practicing active neutrality and non-violence in the face of the various actors of Colombia´s conflict.
The pilgrimage, which began on Sunday, October 6, divided into two groups. Both departed from San Josecito (the largest of the 11 villages of the Peace Community), destined for Nueva Antioquia, the known center of paramilitary operations in the region. The first group, of almost 70 people, travelled by mule and on foot through the village of La Unión to arrive on Monday in the town center of Nueva Antioquia. The other group, traveling by bus, would arrive at the same destination the following day. Here began the true march, which lasted four days more and which would show the Peace Community to be correct: Urabá is being taken by force by an illegal group that promises to continue the history of violence against peasant organizations under the rubric of a supposed war against subversives.
In Nueva Antioquia, it is dead calm. In this small town there are two heavily guarded police stations. A forward posting, on the hill next to the town, and a station on the main avenue tell the story of the armed conflict. At the latter, the delegation of international observers and journalists arrived, accompanying Jesuit priest Father Javier Giraldo (leader and historic supporter of the Peace Community), to talk to security forces. “I only have jurisdiction over the town itself, I cannot vouch that criminal gangs operate here [he never used the word “paramilitaries”]. In recent months, at our checkpoints, we have captured two people with criminal records. We are the state presence here, there isn’t a local authority. This is an abandoned town,” said Adolfo Renalh, who commands the station.
More:
http://forusa.org/blogs/for-colombia/river-life-looking-for-dead/12686
