COLOMBIA: A Painful
Pilgrimage
By Diana Cariboni and
Constanza Vieira*
BELLAVISTA, Colombia,
(IPS) - "Father Antún!
Father Antún is back!"
were the happy,
surprised shouts heard
by the IPS news team
accompanying Catholic
priest Antún Ramos as he
returned to his former
parish in the village of
Bellavista in
northwestern Colombia.
Local residents came up
to hug him warmly or
shake his hand with
respect. Antún is seen
as a hero in the area
along the Atrato river,
which runs through the
jungles of the province
of Chocó, where
Bellavista is located in
the district of Bojayá.
Chocó, on Colombia’s
Pacific coast, also
borders Panama and the
Caribbean sea to the
north.
But the 34-year-old
Antún denies that he is
any sort of hero.
He still cries when he
remembers the 119
villagers killed and 98
wounded in his small
church in the
Afro-Colombian community
of Bellavista.
"This story would take a
whole month to tell,"
says one of the
survivors of the May 2,
2002 massacre that put
the district of Bojayá
and the village of
Bellavista on the global
map of war crimes.
That day, Antún led the
evacuation of around 650
survivors through the
crossfire between the
leftist Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia
(FARC) and the far-right
paramilitary United
Self-Defence Forces of
Colombia (AUC). The
civilians in the
motorboats were waving
white flags and
chanting: "Who are we?
Civilians. What are we
asking for? Respect for
our lives."
Shortly before they
fled, the FARC, which
was lobbing home-made
mortars at paramilitary
fighters who had set up
camp behind the church,
hit the building with a
gas cylinder bomb.
Some 300 civilians had
taken refuge in the
church. Of the 119
people killed, 44 were
children.
The stage for the
tragedy began to be set
in late April 2002. On
Apr. 23, Freddy Rendón,
alias "El Alemán" ("The
German"), commander of
the Elmer Cárdenas
paramilitary bloc,
showed up at the parish
house in Bellavista. In
his tense meeting with
Antún, the paramilitary
leader and the priest
each made their position
clear.
"I had heard a lot about
him, because of all the
atrocities he
committed," recalled the
priest. The diocese of
Quibdo, the provincial
capital of Chocó,
documented 700 murders
in the area by the AUC
between 1996 and 2000.
The priest was struck by
the paramilitary
leader’s imposing
presence. "He's around
two metres tall and
looks totally European,
with green eyes…"
After boating along the
river for 228 km,
heading north from
Quibdó, the IPS team
reached Bellavista in
the early afternoon of
Sept. 14.
From the pier at the
empty port, we followed
a 90-metre cement
walkway to the church
where the massacre
occurred, in a painful
pilgrimage. As soon as
he entered the door, the
priest kneeled to pray,
his hands clasped behind
him.
The year of 2002 marked
Father Antún deeply. Two
months before the
tragedy, his mother died
of a heart attack on the
street in Quibdó, in the
middle of a shootout
between the guerrillas
and the army. Later, one
of his brothers was
kidnapped and held for
45 days by the National
Liberation Army (ELN).
The priest had to
negotiate the ransom
payment, which the
family did not have.
On the morning of Sept.
15, 2007, Antún was
sitting on the step
which was once the
altar, next to what is
left of a plaster statue
of Jesus, a mute witness
to what happened.
He recounted the tragedy
for IPS, while a
four-year-old boy ran
around with a cart in
the empty, pewless
church, imitating the
noise of an engine: "Brrrruuuuummmm!
Brrrrruuuuuumm!"
The little boy has
either visited a larger
town or has seen cars on
TV. There are no roads
in the Medio Atrato
region. There is only
the main route of
transport -- the wide,
brown waters of the
Atrato river, in this
territory where the
population is
overwhelmingly black,
and the poverty rate
stands at around 80
percent.
But even when the river
overflows its banks and
floods all the way up to
the floors of the houses
on stilts, families
trapped in their homes
can be seen watching TV
in the afternoon.
The boy’s playful noises
seem to grow louder as
Antún, describing the
moment of the explosion,
makes a lengthy pause.
"What are you
remembering, Father?"
"The number of pregnant
women; I think nine or
10 died. And the tiny
unborn babies. They
found them stuck to the
walls" as a result of
the shock wave of the
explosion, he explained.
In his view, that is one
of the reasons for the
village’s failure to
overcome the past and
move on.
The local custom "when a
child under 12 dies is
to hold a kind of party,
to dance with the dead
child; it's like a game"
in which the child’s
godfather is the first
to pick up the little
body and dance with it,
to the rhythm of drums
and chants.
The roots of the
tradition go back to the
days of slavery, when
the slaves celebrated
the "liberation" of the
children from their
bonds.
"See how beautiful he
looks/They’re bringing
him down/With bouquets
of flowers/They are
crowning him/" are the
words of a traditional
funeral song of the
black community in the
Chocó region.
But no funeral rites
were possible for the
children and unborn
babies who died in the
church. "People here
believe that their
children are not resting
in peace. They might
look happy to you, but
that's not the case,"
said Antún.
Nor were they able to
pray the novena for the
adults who died, a
tradition in which a
soloist -- an older
woman -- sings and the
rest of the women
respond in chorus.
"In the local black
culture, the dead have a
tremendous importance
and influence. They end
up determining the
existence of the
living," sociologist
Jimmy Viera explained to
IPS in Bogotá.
But in Bellavista, Antún
was not able to return
until two days later,
with five other men, to
"pick up and try to put
together the parts of
the bodies," and dig "a
hole next to the river
to throw them into."
A May 20, 2002 report by
the United Nations High
Commissioner for Human
Rights office in
Colombia pointed out
that the authorities had
been notified several
times prior to the
disaster of the dangers
faced by the civilian
population as a result
of the presence of
members of paramilitary
groups in the village.
The report also noted
that the security forces
were perfectly aware
that the paramilitaries
had set up camp in the
middle of the village,
which was within
territory under FARC
control. (The rebel
group controls an
estimated 40 percent of
the national territory,
mainly in rural,
sparsely populated
areas.)
Nevertheless, it took
the army five days to
show up after the
massacre.
"Father, the community
wants to clear up this
doubt: why was so much
time wasted before the
security forces arrived
(in 2002), and now they
appear whenever the
slightest little thing
happens," one local
resident asked the
priest.
But the question went
unanswered.
Starting in September
2002, Antún began to
accompany the displaced
local residents as they
returned to Bellavista.
But a year later he
began to have problems.
After undergoing
psychological treatment,
he was sent by the
Church to study social
communication for three
years in Italy.
"Returning here brings
me great joy," he said.
The local community
"gives me a strength
that perhaps I don't
have."
A NEW VILLAGE WITHOUT A
PAST
Nuevo (new) Bellavista
was built by the
government one kilometre
south of the old one, as
part of the reparations
for the survivors of the
massacre. President
Álvaro Uribe inaugurated
the new installations on
Oct. 13.
After 30 days of
flooding at the site of
the massacre, some 1,200
Bellavista residents
agreed in mid-September
to move into 264 cement
block houses built on an
embankment.
They now live in
neighbourhoods without a
past, whose names come
from the number of
housing units built by
each contractor: "Las
80" or "Las 50", for
example.
Nuevo Bellavista was
designed as a model for
the entire Atrato
region, because the
embankment, for which
750,000 cubic metres of
earth were moved, is
above flood level and
located at a safe
distance from the river.
The last group of
families moved in three
days before the visit by
IPS. A few youngsters
were enjoying the new
gymnasium, a rarity in
the Atrato region, but
which was already strewn
with trash.
Running water in the new
village comes and goes.
Some pipes have already
been broken. The
engineers say that’s
"normal." The
electricity comes from a
plant on the outskirts
of the village, which
provides power from 6:00
to 11:00 PM.
But "we are 80 percent
better off than in
Bellavista. We have
amenities that we didn't
have before," said Ariel
Correa, a 37-year-old
shopkeeper and father of
four who recently moved
into his family’s new
house.
A sign in the window of
another house reads: "it
is hard to deceive
people who stick
together in unity."
Nothing will be left in
the old village except
for the church. Any
houses that aren't
dismantled by their
former inhabitants will
be razed to the ground
by a government
bulldozer. As a result,
people are constantly
coming and going between
the old and new
villages, salvaging
boards, tiles and
toilets, for example,
that can be reused.
But no relocation
assistance has been
offered to 12 families
displaced from the
hamlet of Carrillo, two
hours from Bellavista
along a river deep in
the jungle. They are
still living in houses
that will be torn down,
in a ghost village to
which they fled in
terror in September
2003, escaping the
fighting.
"We don't have anything,
as you can see. That’s
how things are. They
won't let us build
houses there (in Nuevo
Bellavista). Talk about
that, tell that," one
anguished elderly man
told IPS.
It’s as if there was an
attempt to rub out
Bellavista, not only
wipe it off the map but
out of people’s
memories, despite a sign
hung up by the army
several years ago, which
blamed the tragedy
squarely on the FARC,
saying "Let us never
forget!"
After the massacre, the
army was investigated
for "omission" by the
military justice system
and and the Procuraduría
General de la Nación
(inspector-general’s
office). Only one
officer was punished.
But the government paid
the survivors up to
40,000 dollars per
person in monetary
damages.
"Everyone went crazy
with the money, buying
this, that and
everything. And you
know, it came from the
dead, and now it’s all
just disappearing," said
60-year-old Bellavista
amateur songwriter
Domingo Valencia.
"There were people who
spent eight days on a
drinking spree --
drinking up the money of
the dead," he said.
"They went out and
bought sound systems,
some of which are
already broken. And the
outboard motors too.
While the dead are
forgotten and
abandoned…"
"When people have little
education and receive no
advice or assistance,
you can hardly expect
them to invest their
money well," said Antún.
Because with 40,000
dollars, "at least in
these parts, you can
really get back on your
feet."
THE FORGOTTEN
In the coverage of civil
war-torn Colombia, IPS
had never seen a more
neglected cemetery than
the one in Bellavista,
except for mass graves
where paramilitary
groups dump the bodies
of their victims.
It is difficult to reach
the cemetery, on a hill
between the old and the
new villages, to which
the victims’ remains
were eventually moved.
Sticking out from the
overgrown vegetation are
tattered white flags or
rotting wooden grave
markers with the numbers
that were assigned to
each body after the
remains were identified
by experts from the
office of the public
prosecutor. Only three
have anything like a
gravestone. A few names
can be read next to some
of the numbers.
"That neglect is part of
the hapless condition in
which these communities
live. Their dead are
simply abandoned, and
their spirits in turn
abandon the villages,"
said Viera, the
sociologist.
Valencia, who doesn't
know how to read,
composes his songs in
his mind and commits
them to memory. He sings
about painful,
underlying truths, and
says he lives in peace,
because he respects the
traditions and rituals
surrounding death.
He said he won't move
with his wife to Nuevo
Bellavista because
living next to the river
inspires him to write
his songs.
"How it hurts/When I go
to the cemetery/To see
my fellow
townspeople/Who died in
the
church//Abandoned/Like
the dead with no one to
mourn them//They grabbed
the money/And never
thought about them
again//The wooden grave
markers have
collapsed/The flags have
rotted away//Many ask
me/Because I do still
remember".
To the question: "Is it
better to forget these
painful things, or to
remember?" he responds:
"It's better to
remember."
When Valencia is
requested to sing
another song, Antún asks
"But where are the
drums?"
"There are no drums
here," said the singer.
"Since you left, Father,
all of that came to an
end. The cockroaches and
rats must have eaten
them."
"Turning their backs on
the drums, their legacy
from Africa, is
tremendous," said Viera.
"In Bojayá there has
been a terrible cultural
rupture. These people
have seen their culture
destroyed. Who can fix
that?"
(*This article is part
of a series about the
Millennium Development
Goals in Chocó. The
project that gave rise
to this effort was the
winner of the AVINA
Investigative Journalism
scholarship. The AVINA
Foundation is not
responsible for the
ideas, opinions or other
aspects of the content.)
(END/2007)
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