melancholy and the infinite sadness

As usual, I have promised more news and reflections and have not delivered. It has been a strange almost two weeks here in Bogotá. As happened in my October convalescent stint in the capital city, after so much time in the rural countryside, I find myself overwhelmed by the easy access to news. And what’s more, this complicated country is bursting full of daily revelations that continually add complicated and intricate layers to the intricate and complicated reality of Colombia. This time, I have been alone in the office/apartment so the distractions are minimal and the time alone with the news and my reflections are unavoidable. Trying to wrap my brain around the sudden and (at least to me) unexpected demise of relations between Presidents Uribe and Chavez, around the news relating to the Feb 2005 massacre in the Peace Community, around the proofs of life of kidnap victims that were found on FARC members on their way to Venezuela – is just a lot to contextualize.

Today the news revealed that the President of Nicaragua, Daniel Ortega, has informed his country that they should be prepared in case they need to confront the Colombian army over the disputed Caribbean island of San Andres. (Which is, to be quite honest, much closer to Nicaragua). Also, Juanes sang some songs for the Nobel laureates. (I’m still miffed that Al Gore won over the Peace Community, don’t think I’d let that go so soon). The news is flooded with the important and the trivial the world over, but living in this country that is at war with itself makes it all seem a bit more intense. And now having access to the news as it breaks makes me feel that I must soak it all up. It makes me realize just how much I still don’t understand, how much I’ll never understand, about this conflict.

I have also been feeling choked up with emotion as I finally have left the community in which I had come to feel so comfortable, so at home. And, as these things sometimes play out, I left abruptly and without any of the meaningful goodbyes I was expecting. The immune system was apparently not ready to return and lasted about three weeks before throwing in the towel once again. So my departure after a year was more of a yanking than the gentle farewell I had looked forward to experiencing. In the early morning hours of the first of December I took the first flight out of Apartadó to Bogota. I felt like I was sneaking away. Something about the pre-dawn taxi ride to the airport and the fact that I didn’t even get to go back up to the house to pack my things made it feel surreptitious and just added to the fight I had in me against leaving.

I’ve been a combination of angry (at my body for failing me, at my bosses for forcing me to leave, at the sub-par doctors in Apartadó for being sub-par) and weepy. Some of the community members have called to check in on me and I can barely respond to their kind and caring inquiries without sobbing. Those of you who know me know that I am rather in touch with my emotions, so tears are no rarity in my life. I was expecting tears. I was expecting long, melancholic waves as I walked down the mountain one last time. I was imagining loving hugs and meaningful handshakes. I was going to stand still and take stock of the smells, the sights, the reality that I had been so privileged to live out this last year. You know, the type of bittersweet ending with which these out-of-this world experiences must conclude. To not have said goodbye is all the bitter and none of the sweet. When my time with FOR is over I’ll go back for the goodbyes, but for now I am in Bogotá feeling overly emotive and overly informed.

On the day I left Apartadó, my flight was obviously delayed so I spent the morning in the airport. I was listening to my walkman (yeah, so? some of us still rock walkmans, ok?) and wallowing in self-pity when I finally realized that all was quiet outside of my earphone cocoon and all eyes were focused on the lone TV in the waiting area. The morning news channels were reporting on the proof of life that had been confiscated from FARC members caught in Bogotá. Part of the negotiations that Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba and President Hugo Chavez had been working out with the FARC had included an agreement that the FARC would provide proof that the kidnap victims were still alive. Well, only days after Uribe ended the negotiation process, and the ensuing cat fight between Uribe and Chavez, the proof was on its way to Venezuela and presumably, Chavez, when it was intercepted by Colombian public forces. It included videos and pictures of the hostages and a letter from Ingrid Betancourt (kidnapped in 2002 while running for President, holds French and Colombian citizenship and is the most well know of the hostages) written to her mother. The video showed the victims in various states of animation. Some were speaking to the camera, a few just stared it down and Ingrid Betancourt sat, despondently refusing to look at the camera. The three US hostages – contractors who were taken hostage when their plane went down in 2003 – are Thomas Howes, Keith Stansell and Marc Gonsalves, the longest held US-hostages in captivity. They appeared in front of the jungle background, looking gaunt but standing and speaking. For both Ingrid and the US contractors, this is the first proof of life that has been released since 2003.

These images are hopeful – proof that the hostages are surviving and that the FARC was in the process of making good on its commitment to deliver proof to Chavez and Piedad Cordoba. Proof that the negotiations truly were progressing and finding more success than prior attempts. But at the same time, these images are incredibly heartbreaking. Uribe abruptly ended what had been the most successful attempt at negotiations to free the kidnap victims. The hostages appear to be gaunt and dispirited. And the video and pictures are a horrific reminder that this war continues to claim victims and destroy families.

And then there is the letter from Ingrid Betancourt to her mother.

A long letter full of desperation and love and frustration and gratitude. She speaks about her children and her country and her hopes and fears and at one point offers up her vacant apartment to a friend who might need it. The practical alongside the poetic. She names the public officials who have not given up on negotiations for her release, pointedly not mentioning Uribe, and she talks about the despair of captivity, how her will has been broken. My tears spilled out as I read her incredibly tender and tired words and tried to comprehend this kind of reality. The pain that was pouring off the page felt so familiar, so like the stories I came to know from the community. It is all tied up together. From the iconic hostage to the humble farmer – there is so much pain in this country. And the wounds are open. How do you heal open wounds?

(If you read Spanish I highly recommend reading the letter, found here. If you don’t, the folks over at the CIP Colombia program translated some excerpts found here.)

The Community was Right

Last week, news came out that an arrest warrant had been issued for a Captain in the Colombian army in relation to the February 2005 massacre of 8 people in one of the humanitarian zones of the Peace Community. Below is a translation of the article that appeared in the national news magazine, Semana. For the original version in Spanish click here.

The Community was Right

Paramilitaries and Soldiers would have acted together in the massacre of San José de Apartadó. So much so, that last week an Army Captain was issued an arrest warrant.

In February of 2005, when the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó said that members of the [Colombian] Army had participated in the massacre in the district of La Resbalosa, where two families were cruelly assassinated; almost no one believed them. It seemed unbelievable that members of the Armed Forces could have participated in a crime against seven rural farmers, among them three children, two of who were slashed in the throat and the other, beheaded.

Few believed them, because the Armed Forces attempted to show that their men were not at the site of the crime, and even better they suggested that the denouncements made by the [community’s] spokespersons, Gloria Cuartas and the Jesuit priest Javier Giraldo, were part of the “political war” that supposedly the guerrillas develop against institutions.

But three year later, it seems that justice is beginning to demonstrate that the Community was right. This past Wednesday, a State prosecutor from the human rights unit announced a warrant was to be issued for Army Captain Guillermo Armando Gordillo Sanchez for being a co-author of the murder, an accomplice in criminal behavior and terrorism. Gordillo was the officer in charge of the Alacrán Company, assigned to the 17th Brigade based in Urabá. He and his men patrol the region in which the massacre occurred. And even though he alleged his innocence before Public Prosecutors, the testimonies and evidence that incriminate him are sufficiently profound.

The confession of a demobilized paramilitary became the key piece to tie together the puzzles of this case; one that has provoked some of the most focused international attention. Adriano José Cano Arteaga patrolled with the group Héroes de Tolová , that belonged to “Don Berna” [a now demobilized paramilitary leader]and operated between Córdoba and Urabá and was not yet demobilized when the massacre occurred. Cano assured that a paramilitary known as “44” directed the massacre and that another known as “Pirulo” cut the children’s throats. The paramilitaries were, according to his story, joined with some 50 soldiers under the command of Captain Gordillo, who would have stayed “holding down the scrubland or while the paramilitaries went ahead to commit the crime.


They first killed Luis Eduardo Guerra, a known leader of the Peace Community, his son Deyner Andrés Guerra (11 years old), and Beyaniera Areiza. After killing them with machetes they left their bodies strewn in the mountainside. Then they killed Alfonso Bolívar Tuberquia: his children Natalia (5 years old) and Santiago (2 years old); his wife, Sandra Milena Muñoz, and a worker from the farm named Alejandro Pérez. The four also died by machete. The children, according to the autopsy “by slashing the throat with a knife”.

According to [Cano], Gordillo would have said to another member of the paramilitaries that “44” had “f**ked up” to have killed these people in his jurisdiction.

Extremely Serious

Why did this massacre occur? Was it planned? Was there a cover-up? Apparently, the investigation still has not produced answers to these questions. But there is a hypothesis from investigators that aims to establish that the terrible acts would have been motivated by retaliation for a FARC attack against the Army that two weeks earlier had taken the lives of 17 soldiers in Mutatá. Criminal experts assure that the modus operandi of this massacre was not only marked by hate, but also with the intention to send a message of terror to the other members of the Community.

In spite of the fact that the detainment of Captain Gordillo does not implicate him as guilty, sources from the Public Prosecutor’s office have assured SEMANA that the investigation of his involvement points to soldiers acting as coauthors of the crime. The national and international implications of this crime are enormous.

On one hand, this constitutes one of the most serious violations of human rights committed in recent years. Especially because this community, that has declared itself neutral in the face of the conflict, has been handed down cautionary measures that obligate the Colombian State to protect it in special manner. If it can be shown that those who had the mission to provide protection – the military – were the co-authors of the crime, the sanction for this country on the international scene will undoubtedly be waiting.
But the Public Prosecutor seems to back up not only this Community in regards to this massacre. The testimonies of various paramilitaries, including that of Cano, make clear that which NGOs have warned about, that the Military has participated in joint operations with the paramilitary, especially in the Urabá region. The Ministry of Defense has given complete support to the Public Prosecutors and has insisted on ensuring due process for Captain Gordillo.

Beyond the sanctions that the Colombian state could feel for this act, the Armed Forces require a profound reflection on two crucial aspects: the stigmatization of peace communities and the control mechanisms and tracking of its troops.

In some sectors of the Armed Forces, it is suggested in a low voice that peace communities and many of the NGOs are screens for armed groups. This has set the stage for the term “political war” and its use in referring to most of the public denouncements from the communities that are made through legitimate and legal means. The risk of this stigmatization is that officers end up thinking, mistakenly, that they can resort to criminal methods to combat a supposed enemy.

As far as control of the troops, it is worth the effort to remember that for more than a decade, many sources – including the military – have called attention to the coexistence of members of the 17th Brigade with the paramilitaries. The internal investigations, nevertheless, never bring results.

If Captain Gordillo and others from the Military are eventually found guilty of this crime, the Armed Forces will be forced to confront one of the largest embarrassments in their history.