The local priest was first to challenge the dark-
ness in Guintar by stringing Christmas lights
from the church steeple. Then someone hung
lights above a nearby door and window. On the day
I visited this village of 2,000 in central Colombia,
Robert opened his coffee shop for the first time in
four months, and light from this single door spilled
onto a lovely, deserted and dark central square.
Last August, paramilitaries seized Guintar and
accused its residents of supporting leftist insurgents.
The men, heavily armed and dressed in fatigues,
forced everyone from their homes, then chose one
man and cut off his nose. A paramilitary told Robert
and other store owners that if they opened their
doors again, he would return, cut them open alive
and string their entrails from the manicured bushes
in the square. The reason? Store owners probably
sold to middlemen for the Revolutionary Armed
Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrillas that have oper-
ated in these dry mountains for decades.
Weeks later, the FARC returned, and vowed that
the paramilitaries would never win. To underscore
their power, they killed the mayor, a town council-
man and a resident of the nearby town of Anzu,
who they accused of supporting paramilitaries.
Seven families left Guintar the next day, joining the
thousands forced to flee their homes because of
political violence in Colombia.
Robert, though, holds on. He says he has no choice.
“I have 11 people in my family, so how are we sup-
posed to live?” he asked as we stood near his store.
The only one to reopen since August, Robert knew
he was risking his life and the lives of his family. A
mixture of fury, fear and humiliation twisted his boy-
ish features. “The minute we see them coming again,
we are going to run for our lives.”
This drama is repeated in thousands of villages
and towns throughout Colombia, where war is not
fought between armed and uniformed combatants,
but against the civilian population. Although many
have died in the hills around Guintar, few wear a
uniform or even profess an allegiance to one or
another side. It is store owners like TI gathered at a crowded camp at
Robert, truck drivers, peasants, Pavarando Grande, which lacked
teachers, doctors, community lead- 4 sufficient food, water and health ers, food vendors and washer- _____ 1 care. Even while they were in the women who run the highest risks r _____ 4 camp, paramilitaries threatened in today’s Colombia. ______ _______ to kill them and reportedly assas-
According to the nongovern- I sinated several people in nearby
mental Council on Human Rights I I towns. and Displacement, between 1985 .. The Samper Administration and 1996. 920,000 people have ” I responded to mass displacement
been displaced by violence one by creating the post of “presiden- in every 40 Colombians. Seventy- tial counselor for the displaced” two percent are children. last April, adopting a revised
Although forced displacement has I national plan on displacement in
been going on for over a decade, May, and promulgating Law 387 in
1997 was marked by movements July, which deals specifically with
of entire populations. For instance, assistance, protection and preven-
last March, more than 13,000 peo- tion issues. Advocates for the dis-
pie, mostly from Afro-Colombian placed claim that the government communities along the Pacific ispromotingthereturnofthedis-
coast, began fleeing their homes A woman and her children forced to flee
placed to their homes without
after paramilitaries took control of the violence in Uraba province in 1
997 rest guaranteeing their safety.
the region. Those who tried to inarefugeecamp. What can be done? Barring
hold on later suffered army rocket peace and intense government
attacks, which they claimed targeted guerrilla investment in rebuilding burned towns, bombed
encampments as well as villages and farms. roads and abandoned fields, Maria Villegas, the Indeed, the close coordination of paramilitaries Public Ombudsperson for
the department of
with the army continues to be a leading cause of Antioquia, adopts a pra
gmatic approach. Since the
political violence. Although the government and paramilitaries killed Gu
itar’s telephone operator and Colombia’s military leaders deny that they promote cut the lines, she wi
ll try to shame the authorities into or even tolerate paramilitaries, the abundant installing a single pay te
lephone for the town, so that
evidence reflected in hundreds of investigations car- residents can call out, but no one can be accused of
ned out by the attorney general’s office, the UN, the placing calls for
one or another side. She will send
Organization of American States, Human Rights books and toys for a Chris
tmas party for the children,
Watch, Amnesty International and even the U.S. State but it will be held
in the town square, so no home
Department is consistent and terrifying. Through its owner can be accused of rebelling against edicts. And armed forces and particularly the army, the when families flee, she will
do her best to get them
Colombian government continues to tolerate and the pots, blankets and cl
othing they will need to start
often openly promote paramilitary atrocities in the new lives as refugee
s.
hopes of vanquishing a decades-old insurgency. I inquire about Robert, and Villegas shakes her
The price is murder, forced disappearance and mass head. “By opening his
store,” she says, “he has signed
displacement. In 1997, many Pacific coast refugees his own death certificate.”
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