The following are excerpts from an interview that appeared in the October 30, 1994 issue of the Bogota daily El Tiempo:
Since 1984 Gloria Cuartas has been involved in working in Uraba, i.e. with Community Development of Antioquia, Future for Children, the Antioquia Energy Company, and directing a regional housing program.
You took specialized training in neighborhood rehabilitation in Israel. What similarities are there between the social dynamic in Israel and that in Uraba?
Although it may sound strange, for me Apartadó is a little Israel, because it is also a promised land. This is not from a religious or political view, but for it being a territory of high confrontations, for its strategic position, and for the advantages which Uraba offers for all sectors.
This is a territory with people from all regions of Colombia, and only now do we have a stable residential population; 25 years ago Uraba had a mobile population.
Have you received threats urging you leave the region?
I have worked in all parts of Uraba and never been threatened. However, a week ago there was an attempt at destablization; while I was at a meeting in Cali, there were rumors here of threats and of my death. When I returned I found the people meeting in the headquarters of EPL and they thought that I was a ghost!
Are you not afraid that they will kill you?
I think one reaps what one sows. I have always been open to very conflictive situations and I am not afraid of dying. I have always said that pacts with life do not exclude death. I have told the people of consensus, with me or without me, a path has been started.
Is there an explanation for the war in Uraba?
I think the conflicts have to be depolarized- we have McCarthyized them and abandoned them to 2 or 3 political groups. I think the problem in Uraba is much bigger than 2 or 3 political antagonisms. It is an entire process of appropriation of territory where many forces are found: economic investments, influences of the international market, the military forces, the political groups, the citizens, the common criminals, and organized crime. To speak of war and death here I would not speak of just one actor, I would call attention to all those actors in Uraba because all of us have a certain amount of responsibility for the conflict, and there are things that deserve an explanation because a region which has so much investment of the State in the economy of war ought at least to explore other paths of peace.
What is your relationship to the military, the banana business owners, the guerrilla?
"I think that the military forces are indispensable actors within the peace process and to now I have not had problems with them. Through the banana business owners I wish to seek investment in other sectors; the banana business owners are changing compared to the workers and unions. All of us civil servants who live in this region have found ourselves on some occasion with the guerrilla. They are a real force in the region and we cannot ignore it.
What have you done to handle the antagonistic political forces in the region, the PC-UP (Communist Party - Patriotic Union) and the EPL?
I think that we are just beginning a new political reconversion of the country, by understanding there are no hegemonic forces. Here retaliation is a key phenomenon: you offend me and I offend you; people here do not speak as a person but as a party. With some leaders such as Mario Agudelo and Gustavo Arenas we have begun to develop more thoughful discusion. I ask myself: Who is certain that the massacres where the 2 political forces have been implicated, are really their responsibility? I trust in Jose Antonio Lopez, Naun Orrego and in several of the detained persons whom I know.
How has the political life of Apartadó been affected by the detention of these leaders, among them Mayor Nelson Campo Nuņez?
With the arrest of these leaders, many people who trusted them now feel politically disadvantaged. It is not the same today, with people of the Policarpa neighborhood now with Naun Orrego gone. I respect very much the investigations by the Attorney General into the massacres. A citizen who dies, a "no name" in politics, deserves to have clarity about why they killed him.
Do you believe that the investigation of the Attorney General's office [of La Chinita massacre] and the order of capture against these leaders have been just?
There are two positions. One is that of the people who wish justice for their people. No one is asking that they not punish those who commited the crime, whomever they be. The other is that the process has to have an end. Here there is the matter of psychological torture with this legal process; if you walk over there and speak with someone they will tell you be careful because you might appear on the list of the Attorney General. Yes, I speak of justice for all sides, that those who commit the crime receive the punishment.
When they proposed that you be the only candidate for mayor, what did you think?
" All of the political groups separately began to call me to tell me they wished I be their candidate. Afterwards Monseņor Isaias Duarte called me and explained: 'Gloria, after 3 days of very hard work, the only person who had the right back-ground, who has no political links with anyone and in whom the people believe, is you. Please accept.' I have to be honest about what I felt. I felt like a gift of God; for me it was marvelous be-cause I love this region. For me it was an award for the things which I had put in motion always from obscurity.