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Colombia
Cian O'Callaghan is on a short visit to Colombia and he's sending back news for all the SpunOut.ie crew.
Today I visited the offices of the Mining Workers Union in Bogotá, which had been bombed by the paramilitaries in May 2004. I and my 6 fellow travellers Dan Finn, Dara, Augustine, Kathleen, Kevin and David together with Gearoid (our translator) met with the president of the union and also with Debora Barros Fince a member of the Wayuu indigenous community. She spoke of the events of the 18th April 2004, which have changed her life dramatically forever.
At 3am the men in her community had left as usual to travel several miles to work in the fishing industry. Due to severe water pollution by multinationals the men in the port town had to travel a long distance to reach clean waters. At 5.30am 150 paramilitaries entered the village, many of them recognised as members of the local state military. The first house they entered was the house of Debora's aunt. They took her out of the house, cut her head off and chopped it in 2 with a machette in front of the local children.
They moved from house to house and took another aunt of Debora's from her house. This time they stuck a grenade in her mouth and made it explode. They then took 3 children aged 9, 10 and 11 and chopped them up, put them in a car and set it on fire.
Realising that the army were involved Debora and her community fled across the border to Venezuela. She told how her 5 year old son knows "that my grandmother is dead because he saw me pick up her body parts". Debora who has spoken out publicly about the massacre in her village explained how she has received numerous threats from the paramilitaries. She told the Irish delegation that she "would rather die speaking out than die in silence".
I'm meeting some incredibly brave people over here who work for human rights even though they know that many before them have been killed for undertaking such work. Makes me realise even more than before how lucky I am to be living in Ireland.
I'm going to Barracabermeja in the morning which is a city with a large number of paramilitaries, so will be quite different to Bogotá, where I am now.
More news from my travels in Colombia will follow,
By: Cian
The opinions of writers featured on SpunOut.ie do not necessarily reflect the views of the SpunOut.ie team or those of Community Creations. We try to give everyone a chance to have their opinions heard but we are not responsible for inaccuracies contained within these.
