CPTnet
10 March, 2004

COLOMBIA: A toy boat and a massacre

Tim Nafziger

Last week, while I ate breakfast with a family in the Opon, our conversation
crystallized thoughts I had been turning over in my head about the Colombian
military. Alfredo*, a four year-old boy was playing with a little
balsa-wood boat made by his father. Someone asked him if the boat was a
Piranha, the small navy gunboats that patrol the river. For most little boys
in the U.S. this suggestion would have made the imaginary voyages across the
patio a little more glamorous and exciting. Alfredo, on the other hand,
quickly assured us that no, this was a chalupa, the civilian version of the
same craft.

I would not have thought too much about this incident if it had not been for
the events of the week before. On Monday, February 21, Luis Eduardo Guerra,
a leader of the San Jos