Massacre in Putumayo

Five adults and four children were massacred on a farm located in the municipality of Puerto Asis in the department of Putumayo. According to the story appearing in El Tiempo, Colonel Harold Martín Jara Concha, the local police commander claimed the owner of the farm had received threats from the Frente 48 of the Farc, because he had failed to pay extortion money to the Farc.

Editor’s note: The police colonel (all too typically) is quick to blame the Farc. El Tiempo’s story failed to mention that the paramilitaries have a well documented history of committing massacres and other human rights abuses in this region as recently as 2006.

Chronicle of a death foretold

No, not the novel by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, but a real-life story of the mayor of El Roble, Sucre: Eudaldo ‘Tito’ Díaz, who in a nationally televised town-hall type meeting with president Uribe, warned of the extent of paramilitary control of government institutions in Sucre and predicted his imminent death. Two months later, after having been kidnapped by the paramilitaries in April 2003, he requested paper and pencil from his abductors with the aim of writing a letter to paramilitary boss ‘Comandante Rodrigo’ in a final desperate effort to save his life. However realizing the inevitable, he never handed his captors the letter, and instead placed it inside his shoe. Several days later the mayor’s body, which showed signs of torture, was found in the position of a crucifix bearing nine bullet wounds and his mayoral credentials on his forehead. The parapolitica scandal has led to arrest warrants for the ex-governor of Sucre Salvador Arana, the founder of paramilitary groups in Sucre.

Following is the note that was found in mayor Díaz’ shoe:

8 de abril de 2003
Comandante Rodrigo:
Greetings.

I beg the favor of permitting me to speak with you today, since my situation is terrible-you can imagine what my family is going through. What could they be thinking? What could they be imagining?
Dont forget that I am the father of three children and part of 4 and that all of them together, with my wife, depend on me, more than anyone, because as you know I am a hard working man, who like you, am self-made after many sacrifices and personal efforts. Above all, I should not be living this nightmare. I beg that you understand and that you put yourself in my skin. May God allow you to hear me and that we may talk like two civilized people. You are intelligent and I believe you understand perfectly. I hope you will put your hand on your bosom and think about the suffering my family and I have gone through. May God bless you and give you wisdom.

I appreciate and respect you.

Tito Díaz Salgado.

The Lost War

Interesting article in today’s Washington Post on the futility of the “drug war” waged by successive U.S. administrations for the past 36 years. Regarding “Plan Colombia” the story says:

According to the Government Accountability Office, 70 percent of the money allotted to Plan Colombia never leaves the United States. It is used to buy U.S.-built helicopters and other weapons for the military, and a large chunk is paid to the security firm DynCorp. Britain and other E.U. countries have so far resisted spraying Afghan poppy fields with chemicals. But for several years, DynCorp has been spraying the herbicide glyphosate on thousands of acres of coca in Colombia.

Betting on child boxers in Quindío

Just when one couldn’t imagine that the level of depravity in Colombia could possibly reach greater depths, we read about citizens in the town of Montenegro, Quindío who are alleged to have bet on the outcome of child boxing matches. They offer children modest sums of around 3,000 pesos (less than 2 US dollars) for winning a fight. Some of the children have ended up in the local medical center, including an 11-year old boy with a broken nose.

Father Ernesto Gómez, from the parish of San José said that members of their community reported the fights, and the police were subsequently notified. Father Gómez said, “we Colombians have learned to not see, not hear, and not say anything, when confronted by violence…there are some who take advantage of the naivety and poverty of children who only wish to take some money home. Ignorant parents who pretend not to notice.”

Alas, where is the country within reach of the children?

For a Country Within Reach of the Children

An excerpt translated from the Gabriel Garcia Marquez essay “For a Country Within Reach of the Children”:

We believe that the conditions exist now more than ever, for change in our societies, and that education shall be the master organ. An education, from the crib to the tomb, that is nonconformist and reflexive, that inspires us to a new way of thinking and incites us to discover who we are in a society that loves itself more. That takes advantage to the maximum extent of our tireless creativity and that conceives an ethic, and possibly an aesthetic, for our unbridled and legitimate thirst for bettering ourselves. That integrates the sciences and the arts to the family breadbasket, in agreement with the designs of a great poet of our time who called for not loving the two separately like two estranged sisters. That canalizes toward life, the immense creative energy that during centuries we have pilfered in depredation and violence, and that opens in the end a second opportunity over the earth that the disgraced lineage of colonel Aureliano Buendía never had. For the prosperous and just country that we dream of: within reach of the children.

Gabriel Garcia Marquez