“The population has to take sides with the authorities because the ones who have been displaced are delinquents, or guerrillas or paramilitaries. So I don’t understand the concept of neutrality.”
These are the words of a Colombian military officer in the opening scene of Fiction of War. The quote illustrates the prevailing view of the Colombian military toward the principal victims of the ongoing civil war—civilians who are not linked to any of the armed actors in the conflict. Sheila Franklin allows these victims to tell their stories in their own words and without the aid of a narrator, dramatizing the devastating nature of Colombia’s civil war.
Through these interviews, Franklin reveals that the concept of neutrality is in fact alive and well and being put into practice in Colombia’s war zones. A resident of a community for the displaced in the municipality of Turbo, for example, explains how his family was forced to flee their home by the Colombian army and the paramilitaries; like tens of thousands of campesinos who are not involved with any of the warring factions, they sought to retain their neutrality by seeking safe haven in other parts of the country. A resident of San José de Apartadó describes the struggle of this peace community to keep the men with guns at arms’ length and assert their neutrality.
Fiction of War makes its point with up-close and personal interviews. Workers at the Center for Justice and Peace, a human rights organization, describe how the military forced them to the floor at gunpoint before searching their offices. A priest describes a massacre that occurred while he was saying mass in Portacarpa that resulted in seven deaths. Another priest explains how paramilitaries entered a poor slum neighborhood on the outskirts of Barrancabermeja, killing eight people and kidnapping 40 more who were never seen or heard from again.
One of the most enlightening interviews in the film is conducted with former Colombian Army Colonel Carlos Velásquez, who explains that the paramilitaries sometimes “do the work” of the army, resulting in what he calls a “dirty” compromise for the military. He also describes how the paramilitaries force people from their land for the druglords so that they can launder their money by purchasing the vacated properties.
The sometimes unsteady hand-held camera and lack of narration enhances the impact of Fiction of War by creating a powerful intimacy between the viewer and the many victims. The film drives home the fact that the innocent civilians, especially the poor, are the principal victims of this war.
