Ana Teresa Rueda from the OFP with Spanish volunteer Paco Simón
Article published in the special Newsletter '15 years of PBI', October 2009
Paco Simon Conejos, volunteer from Spain (2000-2)
The paramilitaries capture this city and impose political, economic and social domination. The incursion causes deaths and disappearances.
Barrancabermeja had the sad privilege of becoming one of the most violent cities in the world in the year 2000. There were 567 assassinations and the crime rate was 227 deaths per 100.000 inhabitants1. This population, which emerged at the beginning of the 20th Century parallel to the mining of oilfields, is home to the main oil refinery in the country. Since its origins Barrancabermeja was an epicentre for the Colombian social movement and there was a strong presence of the FARC and ELN guerrilla movements in its neighbourhoods. These characteristics made it a target for the paramilitaries of the United Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), who launched their conquest that year. Human rights organisations made repeated formal complaints that their neighbours were being threatened with a Christmas of «grief and blood». However, despite a heavy presence of the state security forces, which with forces of more than 2,000 made it into one of the most militarised cities in Colombia, a hundred men from the AUC began the final phase of the capture of Barrancabermeja on 22 December. They inexorably imposed, by armed force, the political, economic and social domination that they still exercise today, although in a less visible way. I had been in the team for two months and the rest of my time in PBI can be perfectly summarised with a phrase from Saramago: «We humans are like that; we feel it all the time». Grief for the dead and the disappeared, and joy for the resistance of the living. Fear for the high risk of those that we accompanied and the wish to be permanently at their sides. Tiredness due to so much work and satisfaction for the attitude of my team.
During the first 45 days of 2001, 145 people were assassinated, most accused of collaborating with the guerrilla2. Those who fell included men and women who had led the demands for improvements in the deplorable living conditions of the inhabitants in one of the richest areas of the country in terms of natural resources. The human rights defenders of the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS), the Grassroots Women’s Organisation (OFP) and the Association of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared (ASFADDES), who we were accompanying, began to experience all sorts of pressures and threats to stop public condemnation of these crimes and to abandon the city. At any moment the alarm would be raised and we would have to leave at all hours of the day or night to undertake an accompaniment or to make the calls necessary to safeguard their security. We also provided 24 hour accompaniment to some of those most threatened and to several houses of the OFP. The stress that I experienced was different to that of my previous jobs. It was not the work, but rather the feeling that the lives of those we accompanied depended on every decision that we took. I felt an enormous impotence when several of them could no longer resist and had to leave Barrancabermeja. At the time I felt like fleeing but, little by little, I understood that accepting our limitations formed a very part of the effectiveness of PBI’s work.
It was also the year in which the AUC declared PBI to be a military objective. On 8 February 2001, whilst he was in the house of the OFP, two paramilitaries took the passport and mobile phone from our colleague Lars. As they left they said to him: «from now on you are a military objective of the Self-Defence Forces». Instead of providing dissuasion against threats we were now threatened ourselves and NGOs were very concerned about the stance we would adopt. Lars spent a period in Bogotá denouncing what had happened and not only PBI did not reduce its work in Barrancabermeja but rather it doubled the size of the team. It was both a brave and an important decision. It just remains for me to reiterate what I said on a previous anniversary: I am not the same since I was with PBI. PBI opened my eyes. It put me in the midst of a conflict alongside the victims in order to help them and they helped me to see the situation as it really is.
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1 «Magdalena Medio, un espejismo de paz», report presented by the Rebirth Corporation to the Inter American Human Righrts Commission in 2003
2 Resolution No 007 of the Office of the Human Rights Ombudsman, 6 March 2001
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Remembering the paramilitary take-over
Lars Helmersson, volunteer from Sweden (1995 – 2004)
Barrancabermeja: One of the Women’s Centres operated by the Grassroots Women’s Organisation (OFP) is in the neighbourhood of Prado Campestre in Southeast Barrancabermeja. On 27 January 2001, at 11 in the morning, paramilitaries attempted to take over the Centre, but the OFP, accompanied by PBI, refused to turn over the keys. By that afternoon, families, who were escaping from their homes, found refuge in this Centre. We began a 24-hour presence there which would last for almost a month, until the displaced people could be relocated to other places.
Most of the families come from Pablo Acuña, a nearby neighbourhood established by displaced people 12 years ago, which is situated like an island on the outskirts of the city. Almost all of the people were recently displaced. The OFP, with our accompaniment, helps them leave. Many of these people cry as they leave the homes they built together with much effort. The Army patrols the streets of Pablo Acuña, claiming all is calm.
After a few days, there are 22 families at the Centre –with their children, dogs, chickens and everything they could bring. There are two women in advance stages of pregnancy, one of whom is only 14 years old, who will give birth in the next month. The Centre is packed, hot, dust-ridden and a mess. At night, we take turns keeping watch; sometimes we hear gunshots.
It is a few minutes before eight in the morning at the Women’s Centre on February 8. I have been there since the night before. There will be a solidarity meeting at nine in the morning. People are cleaning up and the patio door is open. I am standing in the patio, a few metres from the door, when two 18-year-old young men dressed in blue jeans and t-shirts enter with unhesitating steps. I immediately grasp they are paramilitaries. One of them comes towards me and with a bossy tone aggressively says: «Papers». With a mixture of anger and fear, I respond: «Why?» «Papers and your mobile», he repeats more aggressively. «I present my documents to the authorities, but not to you», I respond. Both of them put their hands in the waist of their pants where under their shirts I see the bulge of their pistols. For a fraction of a second, the urge to give an emphatic «no» crosses my mind, but I cannot measure the consequences and I reach for my things. He grabs my passport and my other mobile. Before quickly leaving out the door, he points to me and says: «As of now, you are a military objective of the Self-Defence Forces». The same had happened to OFP coordinator Jackeline Rojas, who was just a few metres away from me.
It all happened in 20 seconds and I feel a slight tremble in my hands as I take the mobile someone hands me. I try to call the PBI team, but all the lines are busy. I also was not able to get through to any of the three mobile numbers for the military base in the neighbourhood. Meanwhile the OFP reports what happened and the place is soon flooded with organisations, press, Police and Department of Administrative Security (DAS) agents. After answering questions, I return to our home. The project makes the decision that I will leave Barrancabermeja on the next flight in the morning.
The national and international reaction was quick and conclusive. At this time, Sweden held the presidency of the European Union. The following day, the local newspaper Vanguardia Liberal quotes an AUC spokesperson: «our organisation did not carry out any action against the OFP or Peace Brigades International. Yesterday, not one of our commands ordered actions of this nature».
That same day, my passport and mobile are returned by a professor who says he found them at a neighbourhood school. By the afternoon, the boy who had threatened me comes to the Women’s Centre, along with another man, and in a friendly tone asks for «the old guy with glasses» in order to say that «it was a mistake» and promise to return what was stolen. But I am not there.
I go to the airport. As I say farewell to the organisations, I notice something is different. Nonetheless, on 20 February, I come back to the delight of the people we accompany. «Lars returning is a victory for us», said Francisco Campo from the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS).