Stories from the Magdalena Medio

7.10.05

I looked at myself in the mirror today, and said: “I can’t give up. Not ever.” What I am feeling now – this rage, this hope, this spirit – can’t be just a “passing phase,” as all the adults would say.

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I had just returned to Puerto Matilde from San Francisco, two small towns along the Cimitarra River. Maybe it was the extreme heat of the sun that got my head thinking such crazy, abstract thoughts. Or maybe it was the thought of possibly contracting malaria after so many mosquito bites. Or maybe not. Maybe it was all the stories that I have been hearing these days. Most likely, to the average citizen in the United States or in the northern part of Bogotá, these stories would be shocking, as they are to me. But, strangely, here in this part of the world, in this part of the conflict, they are simply normal and even mundane.
Stories like how the army goes from village to village with hooded men and known paramilitaries, trying to catch supposed guerrilla members or their sympathizers. In one village, in the Nordeste Antioqueño, a campesino who was taken prisoner by the army told me that one of those hooded men, an ex-guerrilla fighter now part of Uribe’s “informant network,” after openly denouncing the campesino as a guerrilla helper, quietly came up to him and told him: “Man, just tell them (the army) that all this stuff (farm and home appliances) belongs to the guerrilla. I’ll get good money and maybe get enough to work in Cali.” For every person captured (or killed) through the tips of an informant, the government pays the informant. The informants are usually disgruntled ex-combatants who find it easier to finger out a campesino rather than actually point out where the guerrilla have their supposed camps and hiding areas. Maybe if these informants had other options for jobs, they wouldn’t have to say that a campesino is a guerrilla supporter, just because of the fact that once long ago, when they were guerrilla fighters, they forced the campesino, perhaps at gun-point, to give them a meal when they were hungry or water when they were thirsty. Poverty perhaps can make people do crazy things. Especially when they have the support of the government’s killing squads, in the case of the Magdalena Medio, the Army’s 5th and 14th brigades.
Or maybe stories like that of Sandra*, who, between tears, told me that she had had enough, that if it was true that the army had sacked her house again, she would leave. Her husband, a community leader, didn’t want to leave, she told me; he’d rather stay and continue organizing the community, even though the army will continue to persecute community leaders. They would separate. I didn’t know what else to say to her except that even if she decided to leave him, she shouldn’t be angry with her husband. It’s not his fault that the government wants to kill social leaders. Maybe that wasn’t the best thing to say, but it came to me at the time. I was just sad to see another family broken because of this violence.
Or maybe the time when I had just been goofing off with some people, cracking jokes and laughing my sides off, when a man approached me and asked to talk to me alone. We walked a little bit and he handed me a piece of paper with a name on it and some phone numbers. He began to explain to me that the name belonged to an 18-year-old woman who had been killed 3 days earlier in Barrancabermeja by the paramilitaries, but he couldn’t continue, because he choked up and tears began to run down his face. He wasn’t family to her, he said, but it hurt him so much that someone he had seen grow up in his village was taken away so suddenly and for no other reason than because she lived in a zone of guerrilla influence. I took some more notes and thanked him and walked away, my shoulders slumped and my smile gone.
Or stories like the time we went to the village of El Tamar, and asked the soldiers why they were going around with paramilitaries. They said it was a lie, the campesinos who said that were lying. To them, and the world, the campesinos are always lying. I learned later that one of the soldiers had told the campesinos present at the time that he sent us up alone to talk to the commander of the group to see “if the sentinel on duty would shoot them” (since we would be going up alone without an escort). It’s too bad they hate us so much. I guess I hate them sometimes, too, when they cause problems and kill my friends.
We talked to some of the soldiers, some only 19- and 20-years-old. They are great kids. I wonder what they would do if they knew that to be able to get a job in Colombia, it isn’t that one has to serve time in the national army, “defending the nation.” Rather, they have to serve time in a mercenary force, defending the interests of a few fat cats in the cities, who want more land and more gold (recently, in the lands of Sur de Bolívar and parts of the Nordeste Antioqueño, Uribe granted exploratory rights to a South African gold-mining corporation, AngloGold Ashanti; it is no surprise that soon after, this current, huge military operation was set into effect) and are willing to sacrifice many poor young kids in the process. Governments and businessmen make me sick.
Or the story of Doña Angela*, who always receives me in her house and greets me with a cool glass of lemonade with panela after a long, hot walk to her house, or with a plate of rice, beans, yucca and meat with a hot cup of coffee even when I am not hungry. Whenever we talk we usually end up talking about her brother and sister who were killed by the paramilitaries in Barrancabermeja. This time she told me how her brother used to live nearby, but for unknown reasons, the guerrilla told him he had to leave. He begged them to let him stay and work, because in the city, he knew he would be a military object of the paramilitaries.
Or the family of seven whose house was recently destroyed by the army in the village of No Te Pases. I looked into the father’s face and saw bitterness and helplessness. They had nothing left; the army even destroyed their clothes.
Or the story of Tito, a 16-year-old boy from the village of Paso de la Mula. About two months ago, in a house in the Nordeste Antioqueño, Tito, myself and other friends stayed up late one night telling dirty jokes. We laughed so much that night. Tito was quiet, but laughed too, and the jokes he told were, well… we laughed because we didn’t understand them. This time when I was in the area, someone asked me, “Hey, remember Tito? About 15 days ago, the ‘paras’ (paramilitaries) caught him and beat him to death with sticks and stones.” I wonder how long I will hold onto the memory to Tito. I don’t want to forget him.
I remember one story, a fresh one, kind of a more light-hearted one. It’s about a little chat I had with a 12-year-old named Michael*. I wanted to write this article in peace, but he came up to me and started to ask a million questions. To tell the truth, I wanted to ignore him, but I’m glad I didn’t. We talked about music, mostly. I told him when he goes back to Bucaramanga (the capital of the department of Santander), he has to look up Rage Against the Machine, ‘cuz they rock. He says he wants to learn guitar, but according to him, the bad thing about Colombia is that “they (the people) don’t take advantage of the good things one can offer.” To make the dreams of a 12-year-old come true in the Colombian countryside, one has to have a lot of luck. I told him that because he asks so many questions, he could be a field reporter for the ACVC (Asociación Campesina del Valle del Rio Cimitarra, the organization we accompany in the region). When I asked him what he thought about this conflict, he said: “those sons-of-bitches in the army are the ones who fuck with us the most.” A year ago, Michael’s father was “disappeared” by paramilitaries, leaving him alone with his mother and younger brother.

I guess I don’t know where this will all end. Hopefully, we will save lives. I wonder, however if, in the long run, the pressure and the killing will be too much and the people who remain will displace to the cities, and all this land and its wealth will be devoured by the stinky businessmen. It’s a scary thought…

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For now, I’ll try not to think about that. For now, I will keep looking at myself in the mirror and telling myself: “I won’t give up. Not ever.”

• Names changed to protect identities

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