Coffee leaves and dignity grow in Tolima

12.03.10

By Eva Lewis – IPO

Entering the Tolima department of Colombia one passes a beautiful landscape slowly converting from plains to mountains. The cool climate allows for a large variety of crops, the most profitable of which, coffee, can be seen growing for miles and miles along the highway. This same highway, entering into the municipality of Dolores in the southern part of the department is a dirt road but it is well kept, a fact that might mislead you to think that this is a well-developed region. It is a rich region; it can’t be denied; boasting petroleum deposits, water sources, a forest reserve and incredibly fertile soil. When I entered Dolores however, at the end of 2009, I quickly learned that what most characterizes the region is not development but armed conflict and an overwhelming military presence.

My first full day in the municipality of Dolores, my colleague and I awoke in the village of Las Pavas. There we met with community members to explain the work of the International Peace Observatory (IPO) and to listen to testimony about the current human rights situation. The community, together with the Working Farmers Association of Tolima (ASTRACATOL), had just declared a state of Early Alert; a judicial mechanism used in Colombia to pressure government officials to action when a community believes that they are at risk or in danger.

The motive for this early alert was in large part the actions of the 21st Mobile Brigade of the National Army on November 10th, 13th and 30th. On these dates they had entered the community of Las Pavas, as well as other neighboring villages going from house to house illegally registering and interrogating residents in the name of conducting a so-called “Census. They had preformed illegal searches, had been seen without identification and at times even with ski masks. Given the history of Para-militarism in Colombia and the notorious links between paramilitaries and the army, this last infraction is perhaps the most terrifying. Many community members also denounced the continuous presence of army units on private farms and the fact that the soldiers repeatedly bathe and wash their clothes in the community water sources. This problem is aggravated by the fact that the Municipal government has still not completed the long promised water project that would allow the entire community access to clean drinking water.

Las Pavas is a small village but everyone who attended the meeting had a story to tell. One young woman, 7 or 8 months pregnant told a very disturbing tale. In early November, 4 cars carrying 13 agents of the DAS or Administrative Department of Security (the Colombian equivalent of the FBI) arrived at her mother’s house. The agents asked for her and when they did not find her there, went into town to her house. They told her that she needed to come with them and demobilize from the guerilla, even though she did not belong to any armed group. They promoted the benefits of the government demobilization program and told her that this was the way to make a better life for her family. With a trembling voice, filled with indignity, she recalled to us how, “I told them no, that why was I going to demobilize if I wasn’t anything?! … I had a daughter, I was pregnant, I was living with my husband, what armed actor could I be?…I told them if they had an arrest warrant then fine they could take me away, but if they had an arrest warrant they should show it to me…their response was that they didn’t have it there.”

In Colombian it is illegal to arrest someone without a warrant, unless they are in the middle of committing a crime. In the story of this young woman, however, little appears to have been legal. She informed us that, “They told me that they were going to take me away, and if they had to force me, then they were going to take me by force.” They told her that her arrest warrant had been filed with the 13th sectional district attorney of Ibagué for robbery. If this was so, why were they telling her to demobilize? Crying, she told the captain, “If anything happens to me, if anything happens to my son, anything at all, you will be completely responsible.” With that she went to pack her clothes, when suddenly they said that they were not going to take her away. When she asked why, they said that her arrest warrant was no longer in effect. That same day she went to Ibagué, visiting with a lawyer the district attorneys office, the courts and the DAS offices; nowhere was there an arrest warrant in her name. In the DAS offices the director told her lawyer that he had sent men to Las Pavas but that their orders had not been to detain anyone.

When I asked her what she thought the men were trying to do, her response was, “Some people have told me they were trying to disappear me…that’s what I think, or that they were trying to tie me up legally.” She told us that she had filed a legal complaint with the Ombudsman’s office but had as of yet no response.

Others approached us to tell their stories as well. One woman even showed us to her farm where an army unit had been camped as of several days before. There we found food and trash, as well as an army identification badge with the name Echevarria, scattered on the ground near her house. The National Army is subject to International Humanitarian Law as defined in the Geneva Conventions, including the principal of distinction, which requires them to maintain a prudential distance from civilians at all times, so as not to put them at risk. In Tolima however, it is common practice for the army, and especially in Dolores for the 28th Mobile Brigade, to camp on private farms. The woman who took us to her farm told us that she was sure they had withdrawn from Las Pavas because they had heard that “the human rights defenders were coming through”. She said that “It’s scary, with those people there, what if [the guerilla] were to come and attack them.” She told us how she had fled paramilitary violence in the Meta department looking for a better life, and since economically she could not survive in the city she had settled in Tolima. Peace, however, was not to be found. “One always lives very nervous because you never know what [will happen] from one day to the next,” she said.

The next day we made our way over hilltops of coffee plants and passion fruit arbors to the neighboring village of Las Vegas de Café. There we had been told, the National Army was using the community water system from which they retrieved their drinking water, to bathe and wash clothes. Soldiers had even been seen dipping inside of the community water tank to bathe. We walked through the hills of the village until we reached the first camp of soldiers, members of the 21st Mobile Brigade. They were camped in the middle of the public path, near the farmhouse of one of the village residents and right beside the water tank. We spoke with the corporal in charge, a young man with braces on his teeth. We introduced ourselves and explained that we were very concerned that they were violating International Humanitarian law by camping inside of a village, next to a house and contaminating a protected civilian item. It occurred to me to ask him if he was not bothered by the fact that further upstream more of his fellow soldiers were contaminating the water that he was drinking, but I refrained. He acted as if he had no idea that he was breaking numerous international laws and treaties and very politely excused himself and his men.

We continued along the same path until we found the second encampment, a hundred yards from the village school, where the soldiers had left cell phones charging. We talked with the lieutenant colonel, in charge of all the troops in the area, expressing the same concerns for the civilian population of the village, and emphasizing the added risk of their camping so close to the village school. The lieutenant colonel was more reluctant than his subordinate had been to admit that he was breaking the law, insisting that this was the only place his men could camp as the area was full of land mines. We insisted, however, that be that as it may, the National Army still had a responsibility to obey the treaties signed by the Colombian government.

The next morning the troops had withdrawn from the village, but reports of violations continued to reach us. Word came that in a nearby town, Montoso, the army had illegally detained 2 farmers without arrest-warrants. Soon thereafter a man came to see us. He told us that he was from Las Vegas de Café, but that the day before, December 22nd, he had also been in Montoso, just before the 2 men were arrested. While shopping in a large store an armed man dressed as a civilian approached him and aggressively began demanding to know where the other person he had come with had gone. The man insisted that he had come with his daughter and no one else, at which point the storeowner intervened on his behalf saying that she knew him and he had not come in with anyone else. The armed man then apologized saying that he had made a mistake. He left but shortly thereafter returned; this time in a soldier’s uniform, apologizing again and saying that it had been a mistake. The conclusion drawn by some villagers was that this soldier was passing himself off as a paramilitary. This is especially chilling considering that in Las Vegas del Café, soldiers had recently threatened community members saying that before the end of the year paramilitaries would enter and there would be a massacre.

Dolores has in recent years escaped the horrors of paramilitary violence, but the fear is there and the violations of human rights continue to increase. Since about 20 months ago the region has been increasingly militarized and in November of 2008 there were massive displacements due to army extra-judicial killings and other human rights abuses. When I left Tolima I was saddened to know that the situation only seems to be getting worse and as always it is the civilians who seem to be suffering most. Passing the fields of coffee on my way back to Bogotá, I thought about how there could be so much life amongst so much misery and I thought of the incredibly brave farmers I had met who even after so many outrages still have the strength to resist.

*No names were used in this article to protect the identities of those mentioned.

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