Colombian War Brings Carnage to Village Altar

CSN-MADISON, MAY 15, 2002
By JUAN FORERO

BELLAVISTA, Colombia, May 8 - All that is left today of the
church in this riverbank hamlet are four bullet-scarred
walls. The roof was blown off. The wooden pews are
splintered, the statue of Jesus smashed to pieces. The
floor is covered with blood and maggots, evidence of the
worst loss of civilian life in a single day in Colombia's
seemingly endless civil conflict.

After four decades of violence, Colombians have grown
inured to battle scenes and body counts.

But as many as 117 people, including more than 40 children,
were killed here last Thursday when a rebel rocket hit the
church where they had sought refuge. The bloodshed marks a
new and disturbing stage in the war.

Leftist rebels and right-wing paramilitaries - both of them
renegade groups - are fighting for control of jungle>smuggling routes in this remote region bordered by the
Pacific Ocean and Panama.

Government forces, stretched thin by combat with insurgents
across the country, are losing command over Colombia's
northwest corner, leaving local populations exposed.

"This is the privatization of this conflict," said Eduardo
Cifuentes, the director of the government's human rights
office, which investigates violations against civilians.
"These are two illegal armed actors carrying out the
fighting in a way that threatens the civilian population."

Nicolás Guzmán, a villager, said that local people had
warned the government of the gathering danger.

"We have been unprotected," he said sadly. "We have been
waiting. But the only institution that has been with us,
trying to protect us, has been the church."

Colombia is the third largest recipient of United States
aid. Last week the Bush administration, citing mounting
pressure on the government from insurgents on the left and
the right and from drug traffickers, cleared the way for
the release of $62 million in military aid, after
addressing concerns in Congress over the armed forces'
human rights record.

President Andrés Pastrana was quick to call the attack here
a massacre by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia,
the largest leftist guerrilla group, to bolster his
campaign to be allowed to use United States funds and
equipment for counterinsurgency, in addition to
anti-narcotics operations now authorized.

Human rights groups say at least 3,500 people, the vast
majority civilians, die each year in a conflict that began
40 years ago, and hundreds of thousands have been
displaced. The violence has escalated in recent years as
the paramilitaries, with the support of wealthy landowners
and, increasingly, the drug trade, have become a powerful
force capable of taking on the rebels throughout much of
the country, sometimes with the help of rogue army units.

Here in Chocó, Colombia's poorest and arguably most
forgotten province, the contest is over the muddy Atrato
River that meanders past this jungle outpost, and a network
of other waterways. Both the rebels and the paramilitaries
are running guns and drugs in this region.

Villagers here said the trouble began when paramilitary gunmen arrived in the area on April 21. The guerrillas
reacted at first with a blockade of provisions, strangling
many river communities. Then the rebels launched a
counterattack last Wednesday, crossing from the east side
of the Atrato River and attacking Bellavista from the north
to drive the paramilitaries from the town.

As residents fled into the rain forest or in canoes, the
paramilitaries took up positions in their wooden shacks or
hid in the dirty water under the wooden boardwalks that
crisscross the often flooded hamlet. To root them out, the
rebels began to fire their missiles, which are notoriously
inaccurate, and the families in town began to search for a
place to hide.

"We went into the church, the whole family," recalled
Heiler Martínez, 28, who sought refuge with his pregnant
wife and five daughters, ages 2 to 10, in the evening on
May 1. The next day, he was the only one in his family to
walk out alive.

"They all died, all of them," he said. "With the impact, I
ran outside, then I ran back looking for my family. I was
like a crazy man."

As gunfire raged outside, 300 people huddled inside the
church, hoping that the only building made of concrete in
this fishing village of 2,000 inhabitants would offer
protection. With the government's forces nowhere to be
seen, the people could only sing hymns and pray that the
conflict would not reach their sanctuary, witnesses said in
interviews yesterday and today.

"Even though there was crossfire," said Jimmy Chaverra, who
was also in the church with his family, "people were
convinced nothing would happen to the temple."

Then, a homemade guerrilla rocket packed with shrapnel was
fired, exploding on the roof over the altar where many of
the villagers had congregated next to a statue of Jesus.
More than 100 people were wounded.

"It fell right where we had put most of the people, right
at the altar," said the Rev. Antún Ramos, a survivor.
"People were left headless, without hands. Fifty percent of
the dead were unrecognizable. We later found a head here,
an arm there, a foot over there."

President Pastrana dismissed any suggestion that the
civilians had been victims of crossfire.

"We have to be clear," he said earlier this week, "what
happened was not a confrontation" between the rebels,
called the FARC, and the paramilitaries. "What happened was
a massacre, a genocide of the FARC, who attacked the civil
population."

But villagers in this isolated community and another across
the river, Vigía del Fuerte, where most of Bellavista's
residents have fled, said the firefight was no surprise.
They said the government should have seen the warning
signals and taken action to stop the bloodshed.

The government should have reacted, said Mr. Guzmán, the
villager, who is 46, because "we knew the guerrillas were
going to do something."

Indeed, the government human rights office through its
early warning system reported to various government
agencies on April 24 that the movement of paramilitary
fighters into the town could lead to combat, a massacre or
selective assassinations.

Classifying the town as having a "high degree of
vulnerability," with an attack "imminent," the rights
office faxed warnings to the armed forces, the National
Police, the Interior Ministry and the vice president's
office, Mr. Cifuentes said.
"It is up to them to act, because there was nothing more
that we could do," Mr. Cifuentes said. "I think that is
where there was a mistake."

Mr. Pastrana deflected the accusations earlier this week,
noting that government forces have been stretched in this
large country, about twice the size of France and covered
by impenetrable jungles and Andean peaks. "We are in an
internal conflict," he said, "and we are trying to cover
all the national territory."

On Tuesday, a contingent of counterinsurgency troops landed
in the region, after air force Mirage jets bombed and
helicopters strafed a patch of jungle to clear the way for
the soldiers. There was no sign of rebels or paramilitaries
in either Bellavista or Vigía del Fuerte.

But the president's explanations and troops came too late
to soothe residents. They said leaders in Bogotá had long
ignored this region of poor descendants of African slaves
toiling on banana farms and fishing the rivers.

The fear still lingers, townspeople said. Residents
wondered what armed group would return once the soldiers
leave, and how those scarred by the violence will heal.

The anguish is worse because families were not able to give
their dead relatives funerals or proper burials. On Sunday
and Monday, several men who had fled this hamlet returned
to carry bodies rotting in the tropical heat to a mass
grave dug outside of town.

Benjamin Romaña, 37, who lost two daughters, Ercila, 10,
and Daisy, 5, was among those who undertook the grim job.

"It was horrible, horrible," he said. "Now I cannot
sleep."

http://www.nytimes.com/2002/05/09/international/americas/09COLO.html?ex=1022060218&ei=1&en=6bb56b1543d46f77

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