People of Bojayá, Colombia
displaced by fear of impending violence
(Please note: I originally wrote this piece for the Cleveland Plain Dealer in March, 2005. Since then, the situation in the Medio Atrato has gotten even worse, as more people have been displaced from more villages, and they have been prevented from getting food from their homes by the military. The military has claimed that the people’s organizations invited them in, but the organizations have denied asking them in, saying they want all the armed groups to leave them in peace. —Steve Cagan,
Colombia’s President Uribe and President Bush are trying to present an image to the world that the armed conflict in Colombia is all but over. From the perspective of more than 1,500 peasants and villagers
displaced from their homes in communities along the Río Bojayá to the small town of Bellavista—as well as many more throughout the country—the war remains a very real and destructive force.
El Chocó, located just below Panama, is an area of low-lying tropical forests and rivers (virtually no roads), home to about 430,000 people. 80% are Afro-Colombians and 10% indigenous. It’s an area of incredible biodiversity. The people live in small villages and towns along the shores of numerous rivers and make their living fishing and planting sugar cane, bananas and other products.They have always been poor (it’s one of the poorest areas of Colombia), but not miserable. And they have always been neglected by their government.
A 74-year old woman, displaced from La Loma, sits in the classroom she shares with a dozen members of her family and wonders what will come next.
But the rich fertile lands and the strategic location of the area attracted attention, and in the 1990s the civil war came to El Chocó. Paramilitary forces, acting in the interest of those who wanted to develop huge agricultural and infrastructure projects—known locally as “mega-projects,”—came into the area. The military protected them, although technically the “paras” are an illegal force. The guerrillas, already here, engaged them in combat, and the people of the area were caught between the armed groups, supporting none, but suffering the consequences of a war in which they have no interest.
My house was broken into, my crops are damaged, my animals are gone. I can’t work to support my family,” said this man from Caimanero.
In mid-February of this year (2005) a major military and paramilitary build-up along the main river, the Rio Atrato, made clear to people living in settlements along the River Bojayá that a military confrontation between the army, the guerrilla force and the “paras” was imminent. Facing this danger, and having lived through massacres and abuses by all the armed groups, they came in small boats with all they could carry to the local capital, Bellavista, on the Río Atrato, the main artery of Chocó, which itself has a population of only 800.
