Years after their displacement, the communities return to their land in Chocó.
Article published in the special Newsletter '15 years of PBI', October 2009
Bianca Bauer, volunteer from Germany (2009)
As a consequence of Operation Genesis, more than 10.000 small farmers are forcibly displaced from the Lower Atrato (Department of Chocó).
PBI talked to Danilo Rueda about Operation Genesis and the opening of the PBI office in Turbo. He is a member of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission (CIJP) which has worked in the Urabá region since 1996.
PBI: What do you remember about Operation Genesis?
Danilo Rueda: The Genesis military operation was carried out in the area of the Cacarica and Salaquí rivers between 24 and 27 February 1997. It was part of a strategy to exert control over the population and territory by implementing the paramilitary strategy, led by the army’s 17th Brigade. It was carried out in four ways – through bombardment, attacks by air and land, the murder of Marino López and the forced displacement of over 10.000 campesinos.
Marino López was an ordinary small farmer; he wasn’t an opposition party activist. According to his family and the people closest to him, he was a shy person, a worker from the countryside, an Afro-Colombian, who didn’t get involved very much in political activities or the community leadership. He had a nice family, with two children. They killed him because they wanted to instil terror and he was the man chosen for that purpose.
He was decapitated, his body cut up into several pieces, and thrown in the river. After they had cut off his head, they played football with it. It’s a crime which has shocked a lot of people who have heard eye-witness accounts of it, and it has inspired poems, songs, music and deep reflection.
PBI: To what extent has there been justice in the wake of Operation Genesis?
DR: There was total impunity. Now, General Rito Alejo del Río Rojas is behind bars, pending trial. The General is subject to legal proceedings for the crime against Marino López, but this investigation can not be divorced from the issue of forced displacement and the paramilitary operation carried out in the Lower Atrato region.
PBI: Why is the civilian population repressed to this extent in the region?
DR: They’re aiming to steal the land through the displacements, and most people have decided to keep quiet and accept this dispossession, which is associated with businesses linked to palm-oil, bananas, cattle-ranching and deforestation. The extraction of natural resources is being carried out through mining, as has occurred in the north of the Chocó, and as may happen in the Lower Atrato. In addition, there are infrastructure schemes such as the Pan-American Highway. They want to impose a social and economic model, and the indigenous, mestizo, and Afro-Colombian population which does not fit within the logic of this development model has to either leave or die.
PBI: Why did you request accompaniment by PBI?