Report by Patricia Forner written from Barranquilla,
February 27, 2005
The road to El Salado, a bucolic farming community, begins at the bank of a polluted stream and garbage dump on the outskirts of El Carmen de Bolivar, a bustling city in the interior of Colombia . Tire tracks (more like caked gullies in the dry season) are pounded into deep chasms in the season of torrential rains. Bed rock is exposed from time to time, usually on steep perpendicular hills, forcing our jeep into 4-wheel drive and the passengers to hang on for dear life to the old blue Toyota 's rusty roof bars. The stretch of roughly 10 miles between El Carmen and El Salado takes an hour by jeep in good weather.
Dick Junkin, Mañuel Ramos, the chairman of the Deaconite committee for the Presbyterian Church in Colombia (IPC), his daughter Luzelena, a journalist from Caribe TV, her friend and camera man, Angel, Padre Rafael Torres and Maria del Pillar Gallo from Cartagena and I are on our way to commemorate the two massacres the community in El Salado suffered, once in 1997 and again in 2000 when they were forced off their land by a savage band of paramilitary vigilantes. We are also going to celebrate the return of the displaced families to their community in 2002.
We hurdle down the road for about 3 miles when we suddenly come upon a small military installation of the Colombian army bivouacked under tarps and mosquito netting. The regulars come out and stop us and Padre Rafael hops down from his bench in the back of the jeep to explain who we are, where we are going and what we are going to do when we get there. The young soldier asks us to wait there in the middle of the trail. It is around 9:00 in the morning and the sun is already scorching the back of our necks. In a few minutes the ¨teniente” (lieutenant) Reyes comes over and talks to Padre Rafael for about five minutes and then assures us that we will have a safe trip. There are military helicopters patrolling the area. We don't have to fear attacks from the guerrillas hiding in the surrounding hills.
When we arrive in El Salado another teniente, Juan Carlos Morales, stops us at the end of the road which is also the entry into the little hamlet. We go through the same routine. Morales whips out his walkie-talkie and checks with his CO and in five minutes he gives us the go-ahead. We disperse into the settlement of El Salado. On our right is the concrete playing field where the paramilitaries held their kangaroo court during their inquisition of the villagers in the 1997 and 2000 massacres. They came with lists of names of people they believed to be sympathizers with the guerrillas. They ordered the town's pub to supply them with a constant supply of beer and proceeded to assemble the community to one side of the field where they engaged in torture and executions of husbands, fathers and brothers in front of their families. They engaged in multiple rapes before killing their victims. In the El Salado massacre of 2000, the Colombian military set up a road block preventing human rights workers and relief groups from entering the village so that they could rescue the residents.
Padre Rafael went directly to the village church to prepare for mass. An old woman explained that the people of the village have been neglecting the church. Immediately women set off to find brooms to sweep the church. A boy of 12 or 14 years old climbed the concrete lattice work up to the belfry where he tied one end of a rope we found in our jeep to the bell and strung the other end around a metal hook. Soon the bell was peeling out over the surrounding hills and fields calling people to church. It was Friday, February 25. Padre Rafael plugged his extension cord into the one electric outlet of the church and connected it to his amplifier and microphone. Soon his sonorous voice flowed out across the village inviting its inhabitants to the special mass commemorating the massacres and the return of the displaced citizens of El Salado to their homes.
While this was taking place, Dick and I were walking around with Luzelena and Angel as they interviewed and videotaped villagers who were willing to speak with them about the two massacres. One of the villagers described how his father and brother were tortured in front of him. He broke down and wept and spoke of how he felt guilty that he did not die with them. He showed us the mass graves where they were buried. The graves rest on the side of a grassy slope that undulated over shallow depressions in the ground. “Four are buried together over there, seven up there, 4 more down there. My brother is in this one. My father is in that one.”
He told us that after the massacre in 2000, that the villagers were too frightened to bury their dead whose bodies lay strewn and bloody on the playing field. After all, the paramilitaries were still about. It took three days for the young man to convince them that it was a desecration to leave the bodies out in the open for the vultures, so they took up their shovels and began to dig the graves fearing death at the hands of the “paras.” Some families were able to bury their dead in the local cemetery. Then, the village departed en mass. The paras made it clear that the village belonged to them and that they must leave or that even worse things would happen to them. Some went to Cartagena, the capital city of Bolivar . Others went to Barranquilla and Sincelejo.
Because of the work of churches, and the presence of international and local non-governmental organizations and the National Association of Displaced People in Colombia, the citizens of El Salado were able to reoccupy their village once again in 2002. As horrendous as it may seem, the people of El Salado want their children to know what happened. Thus it was that Dick and I went to El Salado for the commemorative mass with the Deaconite of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia. This is what accompaniment is all about. To be in solidarity with God's people in distress and to show compassion for them.
There was no mistaking that we were in a holy place. Padre Rafael announced that we would be participating in the Way of the Cross because it was the period of Cuaresma (Lent). He told us that Christ knows the agony of the people of El Salado because of his own agony on the cross. Father Rafael held up a rough hewn crooked wooden cross about four feet high and weighing between 15 and 20 pounds . He invited a child from the congregation to come and “lift up the cross.” As she stood transfixed holding the cross, the Padre began recounting a story of one of the tortured and murdered inhabitants, a young woman who was the El Solado's one and only health worker. Then we sang responsively, “Perdone tu pueblo Señor, perdone nos, perdone me Señor,” (Forgive your people oh Lord, forgive us, forgive me oh Lord). We repeated a prayer in response asking Christ to redeem his people. At each station of the cross, Padre Rafael invited a different person from the community to come and lift up the cross – a young boy, a mother, a father, a grandmother, a grandfather, a male community leader, a female community leader, then he called all from the congregation who wanted to participate to come and lift up the cross. About 25 people got up.
Each time a different person took up the cross, Padre Rafael told a different story of someone who sacrificed their life for justice and peace in Latin America . He called Dick Junkin to lift up the cross. He called me to lift up the cross. He called Mañuel Ramos, the head of the Deaconite of the Presbyterian Church in Colombia to lift up the cross. At the final station, he called everyone in the church to come forward and place their hands on one another and the cross. Then he concluded the homily with the story of the martyrdom of Arch Bishop Romero in El Salvador who was murdered 25 years ago while he celebrated mass. Romero was the champion of the poor (most of the citizens of El Salvador ) and for spoke out against government and military oppression against God's most vulnerable people.
El Salvador 's history serves as a window into US involvement with Colombia today where 80% of the rural population lives in poverty and where 65% of the urban population is impoverished. Almost 80% of US aid dollars is designated for strengthening Colombia 's military and other security networks. About 20% is designated for democratic initiatives that account for justice programs and some for humanitarian aid.
The sun was high in the sky and streamed through the concrete lattice work to illuminate the rose colored walls of the humble village church. People wept and people laughed and they celebrated the fact that they were back in their homes. “Look how much we have accomplished in just three years!” The hope and joy along with the pain and sorrow were mixed in such a way that I could not distinguish where one ended and the other began.
I think about the community of El Salado. Perched atop the verdant hills overlooking the settlement of El Salado are military command posts to the north, south, east and west. Under palm thatched roofs “tenientes” and their troops look down on the people of El Salado. Imagine state security forces looking at you through their field glasses as you carry on your normal family activities in your home. How would you feel? I wonder how safe the people of El Salado really are.
I pray hard for the tenientes and I hope that because they are young, that they have a different dream and vision for their country. I pray they want an end to the centuries of impunity and authoritarianism that has achieved power and domination by way of violence. I pray for the ordinary citizens of Colombia that they will learn how to organize themselves in civil society. Most of all, I pray for the safety of my brave sisters and brothers in the Colombian Presbyterian Church and the Catholics, Lutherans, Baptists and other social organizations that are doing nothing illegal by fighting for the human rights of Colombia's most marginalized citizens - the poor and forcibly displaced. It is, after all, the church that brings the light of Christ into this dark world.
Patricia Forner, a former missionary and later Latin America advocate in Washington, DC, and Dick Junkin, a retired Professor of Theology, volunteered in Barranquilla with the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship Volunteer Colombia Accompaniment Program. They provided direct accompaniment for the Colombian Presbyterian Church and the institutions the church supports, including LWR partner the Red Ecumenica (Ecumenical Network). We thank her for sharing this powerful testimony with us all.
