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| No Sanctuary From Colombian War |
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Posted by CN Staff on May 08, 2002 at 21:24:45 PT By Scott Wilson, Washington Post Foreign Service Source: Washington Post 
Through the night and toward dawn last Thursday, Saint Paul the Apostle Church rang with prayer and song as a battle raged outside in the darkness. More than 300 townspeople filled Bellavista's only concrete building to escape house-to-house combat between Colombia's two largest irregular armies.But shortly before noon, the war found them. A crude bomb lobbed by leftist rebels collapsed the roof of the church killing 117 people, a third of them children, survivors said. "The bomb hit and the ruins fell on top of all my children," said Heiler Martinez, a farmer whose five daughters and pregnant wife died in the church, along with 16 other relatives. "With the impact, I started running outside, I was crazy. Then I returned and started looking for my family, and found them there in a group. All of them dead. They were all destroyed." The killings in the church were the largest single massacre of civilians recorded in decades of conflict in Colombia. The battle for this town also suggested another turning point in the war: With the U.S.-backed military apparently powerless to intervene, leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitary forces staged a major battle over several days without interference from the government. A two-day visit to this remote jungle region -- reached after six hours of river travel -- revealed a civilian population abandoned to its fate. Despite warnings that a battle was imminent, the Colombian military did not arrive in the area until Tuesday, after Mirage jets and Blackhawk helicopters fired on rebel positions on the banks of the muddy Atrato River and two of the jets dropped bombs in the jungle to clear landing zones. The army's first ground troops arrived in the town today. What awaited them was a scene of devastation, starting at the church. Packets of diapers, a child's purple sandal, mattresses and sheets lay in a welter of overturned pews, pots, pans and burned newspapers near the church's ruined altar. Dried blood stained the nave, covered by sunlight streaming through the ruined roof. For 38 years the fight had largely been between rebels of the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the government, but it is now becoming a broader war between the rebels and paramilitary forces of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC). The military, which has tacitly endorsed the growth of paramilitary forces in key regions as part of an anti-rebel strategy, has shown no ability to stop recent large-scale battles between the two sides. As reflected in the fighting here over the past week, the irregular armies have more money, weapons and fighters than ever before, and little or no constraints to discourage them from violating human rights. "This war is entering a very serious phase -- the privatization of this conflict," said Eduardo Cifuentes, the nation's leading human-rights official, who has characterized what happened here as a war crime. "You have two illegal armies fighting in a way that threatens the civilian population . . . in an absence of the army. This is a very weak state, and we can't ensure the safety of our people." In recent months, the FARC and AUC have squared off in large-scale confrontations in the strategic provinces of North Santander, Antioquia, Bolivar and Narino. The combat has been marked by prolonged fighting between the two groups -- with more than 33,000 troops between them -- high civilian death tolls and no Colombian military presence. Last month, the country's top human rights officials filed a "high-alert" warning with the Colombian military and other government agencies predicting that a rebel-paramilitary showdown over this village 235 northwest of the capital, Bogota, was imminent. But the military, stretched thin as combat has intensified with the recent collapse of peace efforts between the government and guerrillas, did not move additional troops to this part of Choco province even as the two irregular armies amassed an estimated 1,400 troops. The battle for this town is part of a five-year contest between the FARC and the paramilitary force, which both want to control of several important western transportation corridors that each uses to import and distribute arms and export drugs for big profits. But until now the struggle has been waged in hit-and-run engagements, and smaller-scale civilian killings by the paramilitaries to drive out guerrilla supporters. A few years ago, the paramilitary force, financed by ranchers, business interests and a thriving drug trade that also provides the guerrillas with much of their money, drove the FARC out of the Uraba region, less than 100 miles north along the river from here. This province, the poorest in Colombia, is the gateway to Uraba and the Caribbean coast. For as long as anyone can remember, the Palacio, Mosquera, Martinez and Chaverra families have lived in Bellavista and Vigia del Fuerte across the river. They are black, descendants of slaves, and live in a region known for its heavy rainfall, rich jungle ecosystem and unemployment rate that hovers near 80 percent. The families have grown pineapples and plantains, fished in the Atrato for smallmouth bass and married one another's brothers and sisters to a degree that almost every resident carries the name of one of the four original families. Those overlapping relationships in a town of 2,000 people meant that, after the massacre, some survivors had lost more than 20 relatives. In March 2000, the FARC carried out simultaneous attacks on Bellavista and Vigia del Fuerte, successfully driving out the small National Police force that was here. They have been in charge of the surrounding region since then, but on April 21, 11 boats carrying paramilitary troops docked at the two towns. "We don't know why they arrived, but they did so normally, honestly," said Miguel Angel Carmona, who has a seven-acre pineapple farm. "They didn't have any lists [of alleged guerrilla sympathizers]. Well, we heard there was a list. But they didn't kill anybody." In one way, the arrival of the paramilitary forces made life temporarily easier for the people of Bellavista. Since December, the Colombian military had restricted the supply of food, gasoline and propane cooking fuel to this region, known as the Middle Atrato. The army suspected that a portion of those supplies -- including the propane tanks that the guerrillas use to make bombs -- were destined for the FARC. Bellavista residents said the restrictions were lifted the same day the paramilitary troops arrived in their town. Almost immediately, however, the FARC began blocking food and gasoline from entering Middle Atrato to deprive the paramilitary troops of supplies. These maneuvers prompted Cifuentes, the government's People's Defender, to file a high-alert advisory on April 24 with the armed forces that warned of an impending confrontation near Bellavista. Cifuentes said the alert was one of roughly 50 his office files each year, but the military made no move to defend the town. Gen. Mario Montoya, the army's commander for the region, said today that he has received 125 early warnings this year from various agencies and acted on 80 of them. He said Cifuentes' warning was for Vigia del Fuerte, not Bellavista, and that it concerned a paramilitary attack, not one by the FARC. "It's something very routine," Montoya said. "What we can do is conduct intelligence to see if they are valid or not." On May 1, the FARC attacked paramilitary troops in Vigia del Fuerte. Witnesses said the guerrillas chased the paramilitary troops across the river, where they dug in around a basketball court in the center of town. Throughout the afternoon, FARC troops assaulted paramilitary positions from the north as the townspeople began assembling in the church, where three priests had brought food and bedding. A pile of AK-47 and M-60 shells on a wooden pathway that runs above the flooded town center is evidence of the paramilitary stand. Witnesses said that, for hours that afternoon, paramilitary troops stood chest deep in the brown water that provided them cover, propping their guns on the walkway to fire. But other paramilitary troops ran back through town, some surrounding the church and health clinic. Their leader, Commander Camilo, was killed early in the day by a shot to the face, witnesses said. The scene described by survivors suggests a frantic, frightened paramilitary retreat. Some paramilitary troops tried to enter the church seeking safety but were not allowed in. At 9 a.m. on May 2 the men, women and dozens of children inside the church were calm despite the continuing fight. After all, many said they thought at the time, they were in a church. Nicolas Guzman, 46, a provincial sanitation employee, was inside with his wife and three children. "My home is wood and I had no security," he said, explaining why he went there. "And, besides, the priests are the only ones in these situations who give us any help." Guzman said he went to the adjacent parish house that morning to talk to the priests when he heard what sounded like a mortar fired by paramilitary troops, who he knew had taken up positions near the church. At that moment, he said, he realized the church could soon be in the line of fire. He quickly returned to tell those inside that he no longer thought they were safe. No one wanted to leave, though, and 20 minutes later, Guzman said, as people gathered for a lunch of oatmeal and bread, a guerrilla bomb containing more than 40 pounds of dynamite landed on the church's ceramic roof above the altar. "I saw the most horrible things -- bodies, blood, wounded, my wife screaming: 'My children are dying!' " Guzman recalled. His wife and children survived. The type of bomb that hit the church, made from spent propane gas cylinders, is notoriously inaccurate. Two others landed on the health clinic and two wooden homes on the far side of the basketball court that day. Today, Human Rights Watch, condemned the FARC for using such weapons. In an e-mailed communique, the FARC acknowledged responsibility for the deaths and said it regretted the incident. "We never had any intention of harming the civilian population," the communique said. After the bombing, the wounded were treated by friends and neighbors in the church or carried to the home of a missionary about 50 yards away from the square, the epicenter of the fighting. Dark swirls of blood have stained the home's kitchen floor. The potent smell of decomposed bodies lingered there and throughout the town, which has been abandoned. The buzz of flies was the defining background noise. The people of Bellavista buried their dead on Sunday and Monday, wrapping them in plastic bags and putting them in two large holes, and waited for the military to arrive. It has been a heartbreaking wait for many of the survivors, who gathered along the edge of the Atrato River on Tuesday night as a camouflaged navy ship passed back and forth in front of Vigia, where many survivors have come to live. Military officials have blamed the delay on poor weather and the size of the irregular forces still in the region, but frustrated survivors suspect the worst. "The only thing we can think of is that they [ government officials] want these massacres -- that the guerrillas are here and so they want this," said Raquel Renteria Romaņa, whose 8-year-old son died in the church. "The only thing that protected any of us was God." Note: Army Was Absent During Massacre At Village Church. Source: Washington Post (DC) Related Articles & Web Site: Colombia Drug War News US Finds a Word for Military Aid to Colombia Bush Ready To Shoot Down Drug Planes in Amazon The Colombia Quandary - Patrick Leahy Home Comment Email Register Recent Comments Help |
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