CPTnet
10 July 2007
NARIÑO, COLOMBIA: A Minefield

by Suzanna Collerd

A local partner of Christian Peacemaker Teams in the department of Nariño
compared the current conflict there to a minefield: pressure from all sides
is building up so much that one misstep could cause an explosion. Combat
between two guerrilla groups--the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia) and the ELN (National Liberation Army)--military operations, the
rearmament of demobilized paramilitaries, fumigations, and a multitude of
economic interests converge in Nariño. Those who suffer, as always in
war, are the civilians who make a misstep in this minefield.

To top it off, various armed actors have planted actual landmines and others
have bombed the area, leaving live explosives scattered throughout
communities, creating a literal minefield.

This partner continued, "It would not be accurate to say there are 300
deaths per day in Nariño, but it is true that every day 300 more people
have their lives destroyed." Since the year 2000, increasing activity by
the guerrilla, paramilitary, and military groups have caused massive
displacement throughout the zone, tearing indigenous, afro-descendant, and
peasant families away from their land to a life of desperation in urban
centers. Recently 1,500 families were displaced in a coastal municipality,
El Charco. In the municipality of Ricaurte, where the CPT team was located,
eighty indigenous families remain displaced more than six months later
without the option of returning to their land. Families who remain on their
farms cannot produce crops at a normal rate because of mines planted in
their fields and the movements of armed groups.

In 2003, citizens of Nariño hoped that violence would slow down when the
AUC
(United Self-defense Forces of Colombia) branch called "Liberators of the
South" officially demobilized. This group was notorious in Nariño for
causing disappearances, assassinations, massacres, torture, rape,
displacement, and home invasions.

Unfortunately, as is the case in the rest of Colombia, the "Peace process"
with the AUC has changed the mode of operations without ending paramilitary
violence. On Wednesday, 6 June 2007, a group of social, indigenous and
Catholic organizations received a direct threat from an email address
titled, "New Generation." The text called members of these organizations
guerrilla communist collaborators and declared them military targets. This
e-mail is the second death threat sent to these organizations from this
group in 2007.

"New Generation" is one of many reformed groups of paramilitaries.
"Rastrojos" and "Aguilas Negras" are two other manifestations of this
paramilitary phenomenon: same people, same work, new names. These groups
have taken over the coca production and exportation business in Nariño, as
well as the work of displacing families and communities to open their lands
for African palm investment, and the persecution of social, human rights,
church, indigenous, and afro-descendant organizations. These groups are
more dangerous than the AUC because they do not have the identifiable,
centralized political structure that guided, and in some ways limited, the
actions of paramilitaries. Yet their deadly handiwork---the minefield of
violence--remains the same.