CPTnet
March 15, 2002
COLOMBIA: A Dirty Stinking War

by Bob Holmes

It was a hot dusty trail that CPTers Lena Siegers, Scott Kerr and I set out
on in the Cienaga area. We were following up a rumour of violence in the
small eight-family village of La Reforma not far from the Opon River where
we accompany families living under constant threat of such violence. A
young boy on horseback was our guide until he turned off saying, "Go that
way."

We learned that on Tuesday March 5 the paramilitaries had come to La
Reforma and abducted Pedro Vegas as he returned from working in the fields.
He was taken along a trail and shot dead. We prayed at the blood-stained
site. Pedro had no family in the area. Was this farmer a guerilla in
disguise? Was he a civilian supporter of the guerillas? Did he have a
brother or sister in the guerillas? Or was his a random murder calculated
to intimidate the families in the area? No one we spoke to knew, or would
say, but there was no doubt about the palpable fear engendered.

La Reforma is near the abandoned village of Cienaga. Those who lived there
are now refugees in Barranca. A month ago Manuel Navarro, a leader of this
displaced community, was abducted in the city port. He is believed dead.
CPT is committed to accompanying the community's return, but with Manuel
disappeared and another leader forced to flee for his life two weeks ago,
the community has postponed their return. The murder of Pedro will
re-enforce their fear.

There is an on-going war in Colombia between the guerillas and the
Colombian army. Since the breakdown in the peace process it has heated up
in the south of the country. Here, the army stages occasional operations in
guerilla-held territory during which the guerillas generally melt into the
forests.

But there is another war going on, a dirty war. It targets the civilian
population. It's waged with threats and death lists, abductions and
assassinations, massacres and displacements. The guerillas have done all
these things at one time or another. For the paramilitaries though, it is
their preferred mode of operation. Illegal, and therefore not accountable
to any authority, the paras act as vigilantes, taking the law into their
own hands. They target, not the elusive guerillas, but their clandestine
support networks, their hidden sympathizers among the civilian population.
Community leaders are always high on the lists. It's called, "drying up the
water where the fish swim," - a method taught to Latin American military
officers at the SOA (School of the Americas) at Fort Benning, Georgia USA
and used with terrorizing effectiveness in the counterinsurgency wars in El
Salvador, Guatemala, Chiapas, etc.

It's a dirty, stinking war - Pedro and the families of La Reforma are
among its latest victims.