Colombia: A Monumental Act of Mourning

COLOMBIA

A Monumental Act of Mourning

Drug lords, death squads and government soldiers used to fight for control of western Colombia. Today, the Telegraph wrote, the lush region has become a magnet for birdwatchers.

But memories of the South American country’s violent days remain vivid. That’s especially true after Colombian lawmakers recently opened a debate over whether to censure their defense minister after his top commander, Gen. Nicacio Martínez Espinel, ordered troops to double the numbers of kills, captures or surrenders of guerrillas, paramilitary groups and criminals.

A New York Times investigation reported that the new orders sent “chills” down the spines of officers because they harked back to the days when security forces killed thousands of innocent civilians in the decades-long civil war between the government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the communist rebels who financed their campaign with illegal drug revenue.

General Martínez’s orders were seen as a sign of frustration within the military over a lack of progress in achieving peace since the government signed a peace deal with FARC in 2016.

Some former FARC leaders, like newly elected Congressman Seuxis Hernandez, who is wanted in the United States on drug charges, appear committed to the peace plan, the Associated Press reported. But FARC offshoots, drug cartel thugs and other paramilitary groups are still fighting the central government or have seized control of remote regions where FARC once ruled.

Adding to the controversy, Martínez held a top post in a brigade that is under investigation for at least 283 alleged extrajudicial executions between 2004 and 2006. These cases allegedly included killings of innocent civilians who were made to look like rebels in the “false positives” scandal, reported El País, a Spanish newspaper.

Human Rights Watch also linked Martínez to the brigade’s abuses. He counters that he only served in an administrative role.

More recently, InSight Crime, which follows corruption in Latin America, noted that a Colombian soldier murdered a demobilized FARC member in a reintegration camp established under the peace deal.

The fear is that the military has no interest in peace – a concern that was amplified recently when Colombia’s Senate promoted Martínez to a four-star general. To some, that suggested that Colombian leaders might share the military’s supposed misgivings about peace.

Martínez has tried to allay those fears, insisting that officers are trained to respect human rights and international humanitarian law, the Colombian newspaper El Tiempo reported. “We have no intention of returning to the ‘false positives,’” he said.

Recently, a Colombian artist produced an installation in the capital, Bogotá, called Quebrantos – or Shattered, a word that in Spanish also means sorrow or loss, Al Jazeera reported. In the work, folks used broken glass to spell out the names of community leaders who had been killed – often by criminal gangs, paramilitaries and dissident rebels fighting over territories once controlled by FARC – after they spoke out against illegal mining, deforestation or drug trafficking.

The artist says the glass, like life, is fragile and that once broken, it can’t be mended. It’s no different for communities. The collaborative installation, she added, is leading to reflection on why this is happening in the country.

But more importantly, it’s “a monumental act of mourning.”

W