[NOTE: Just to humor (or should I say humour) the thinly
disguised disdain of The Economist's editorial
staff for trade-unionism, as a card-carrying
member of the American Federation of Teachers
(AFL-CIO), I can confirm that ALL trade-unionists
I know are gun-carrying!:-) -DG]
========================================
Barrancabermeja was still reeling from a
paramilitary massacre of some 30 people
there in May, an event that prompted a
series of strikes by gun-carrying trade-
unionists and left the city sporadically
isolated from the rest of the country.
_______________________ ========================================
THE ECONOMIST [London]
September 5, 1998
The Colombian clearances
------------------------
BARRANCABERMEJA, Colombia -- Hundreds of thousands of Colombians have been
driven from their homes by civil war. How and why? Here is the story of
the latest exodus.
IT WAS early June when the heavily armed paramilitary forces arrived. They
drove into a group of villages near the Serrania de San Lucas, in the
province of Bolivar. They butchered a few civilians. Over the following
days they returned to continue the killing, and to leave bloodthirsty
threats daubed on walls; threats that left the villagers, accused of being
too friendly with Colombia's Marxist guerrillas, in little doubt that the
only sure way to stay alive was to pack up and go. They went.
By the end of June 6,000 people had fled their homes, adding to the
hundreds of thousands already displaced by rural violence --the violence
of the left-wing guerrillas, the official armed forces fighting them, but
above all of the paramilitary groups. This latest wave of desplazados
tried first to take refuge in other rural areas. But lack of facilities
and food pushed them eventually to the city of Barrancabermeja, the centre
of Colombia's troubled oil industry.
The atmosphere was already tense as the new desplazados arrived.
Barrancabermeja was still reeling from a paramilitary massacre of some 30
people there in May, an event that prompted a series of strikes by
gun-carrying trade-unionists and left the city sporadically isolated from
the rest of the country. Since the May killings, sniper fire on the
streets has been commonplace, and Colombia's second-largest guerrilla
group, the National Liberation Army (ELN), has been taking pot-shots at
army posts guarding key infrastructure. Today, overcrowding, violence and
fear, added to the city's sweltering tropical heat, have brought
Barrancabermeja to boiling point.
The tension and killings there spring from the economics of oil. The ELN,
which wants more of Colombia's oil wealth to reach the pockets of ordinary
Colombians rather than the coffers of multinationals, operates urban
militias in the city. It is rumoured that these were planning to cut oil
supplies to the capital, Bogota, in the run-up to the two rounds of the
presidential election in late May and in June, and that the paramilitary
attack in May was intended to stop this. Be that true or false, just
before President Ernesto Samper stepped down in early August a ``truth
commission'' within the prosecutor' s office accused one member of the
armed forces of involvement in the May massacre, and nine more of failing
in their duties in the face of it. This too may be fair or unfair, but
certainly it reignited claims that the army, the paramilitary groups and
big business are lined up against the guerrillas and their civilian
supporters or sympathisers.
The city's 6,000 unwilling new residents have had little help from the
state. The church and voluntary organisations have housed some as best
they can, and try to meet some of their basic needs. Others simply took
over public buildings such as schools. But they have to live, and food is
short-medical help and medicines too. Since their arrival the refugees
have been calling for a meeting with Colombia' s new president, Andres
Pastrana, and with senior government officials to discuss not only their
immediate plight, but long-term proposals for restoring calm to
Barrancabermeja and Bolivar province.
After two months of clamour, they did last week get a meeting with the new
interior minister, Nestor Martinez, and the prosecutor-general, Jaime
Bernal. Some of the desplazados' demands sound fair enough: for example,
that military installations be separated from civilian ones. Critics have
often claimed that housing soldiers next to schools and community centres
is a cowardly tactic that endangers civilians. Reasonable or not, other
demands-some of them highly political, such as a public admission from the
state that it has been responsible for the setting up and financing of
illegal paramilitary groups-make any meeting of minds unlikely.
Meantime, rural Bolivar has become a theatre of war. With the local
population out of the way, the paramilitary groups and the guerrillas have
been fighting for control of the region, a traditional stronghold of the
ELN. The paramilitaries' national leader, Carlos Castano, has made plain
to journalists that his aim is to smash the ELN and take control of its
stamping-grounds. Indeed his threats, and his history of carrying them
through with ruthless vigour, are said to have much to do with the ELN's
keenness to set a peace process in motion-albeit one from which, say the
guerrillas, he and his like must be firmly excluded.
In the countryside too economics plays its role alongside ideology. The
Serrania de San Lucas is rich in gold. It produces12 tonnes a year-about
$110m-worth, at current prices-and using modern mining methods it could
produce five or six times as much. The government is keen to induce
foreign companies to take part in exploiting the region's reserves.
This week the armed forces joined the fray in the province, with aerial
bombardments and land sweeps aimed, they said, at driving all warring
factions from the area. But while the government and the armed forces
continue to deny that they share an agenda with the paramiltary forces,
representatives of Barrancabermeja's desplazados note that the new regime
and the business forces that back it will be none too sorry if Mr Castano
achieves his aims in Bolivar: the result would be land ripe for
exploitation, cheap, free of guerrillas-and of ordinary people.
Copyright 1998 The Economist Newspaper Group, Inc
_________________________________________________________________________
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[PEN-L:105] THE ECONOMIST: The Colombian clearances
Colombian Labor Monitor Thu, 10 Sep 1998 17:14:16 -0500 (CDT)
