WUNRN
Internal Displacement Monitoring
Centre
IDP Voices
This
site lets internally displaced people tell their life stories – in their own
words. These stories deal with the real lives of real people. The narrators
share their personal experiences, their sensations, hopes and dreams, and the
impact for them of being forced from their homes.
Colombia - Ester
The photo does not illustrate the narrator of the story.*
- Name
- Ester
- Age - 54
- Sex - Female
- Profession - Peasant farmer and housewife
- Location - Forcibly displaced from the department of
Bolivar. Survivor of the El Salado massacre
As a child I worked
I’m originally from El Salado (Bolivar). I always lived with my father, my
mother, and siblings. Of the siblings, we are two women and eight men. My dad
was a poor peasant farmer but he tried to teach us the important things. My
grandfather on my mother’s side had cattle, mules for rent, and lots of land.
My grandfather was the one who was generous with his kids, like always helping
my mother and my father. He always helped with something, like giving my father
some cows for milking. My grandmother, the mother of my mother, was submissive,
that’s what my grandfather said. And the mother of my father was the dressmaker
of the town; she was the best tailor around. Having been a widow since her
youth, she supported the other kids. My family live to a ripe old age, because
my dad is 83 and the mother of my father died at 96. She only died six years
ago.
During my childhood, I worked; I helped my father hang tobacco, and helped my
mother stack it; I did the household chores, went to the forest and drew water
from the well.
My
dad like to dar juete (1): he would hit us for any misbehaviour,
but he hardly hit me: he hit my older brother more, because he was disobedient.
My dad always treated the girls differently. For example, he never wanted the
girls to draw water from the well, because, for that, there were more than
enough men.
My mother had so many kids – every two years she had a child – and I was the
oldest of the girls. So I had to help with the deliveries. And when she was on
a diet (after the pregnancy), I had to pound the corn to make corn balls,
arepas. My legs grew strong from pounding so much corn .. ja, ja!
I finished primary school; in Carmen I studied two years of high school and
then I returned to El Salado. I remember that my father had a donkey that he
sold to buy me a typewriter. They sent me to El Carmen (Bolívar) to stay with
my aunt and study. The others didn’t want to study. It was me that liked to
study: I completed the second year of high school and then I fell in love.
My father liked to give orders. I was a very alert girl; I obeyed my father,
but I liked organizations. After I completed my second year of high school, I
set up a school, because I liked to work: I didn’t want to be supported by
someone else, either by my father or my husband. I always sewed or did
something else to maintain my independence.
There were two incursions threre
Life before the first displacement was really good, because you could live very
peacefully there; everybody grew tobacco, yuca, rice. It was a big town: there
were three tobacco companies buying up tobacco. Everyone there cared a lot for
each other and almost everyone was like family, born and raised in the same
place. Everyone there is a peasant farmer who, at least, has one or two cows,
has some animals. It’s a wonderful place to live, there’s water and now there’s
an aqueduct. My husband, for example, has a 53-hectare farm there. He had one,
anyway, because it’s still there.
The displacement in Salado happened because there was a rich man, the rich man
of the town, who was said to be a paramilitary. He had lots of land and many
farms, and it was said that he made his workers work very hard and then, when
they went to collect their pay, the workers would disappear or be killed.
There were people that knew the story. He was a good man, but then he made
contact with the paramilitaries around there. So in the town, they began to say
that he was a bad man, a tyrant, that he was .. I don’t know how the people
from the other group, the guerrillas, got wind of it: sometimes people
complained that the paramilitaries killed, disappeared and buried people. And
so the guerrillas threatened him, saying he had to leave the town, but he
didn’t leave. The day that he was going to leave, after so many problems –
because they had killed a lot of people – they ambushed him on the road and
killed him. That was 14 years ago, and it is said that that was the beginning
of all that later happened. A struggle broke out between the two groups. Before
leaving town, the man had cursed the town, saying that if something happened to
him ... Then they (the paramilitaries) appeared openly for the first time
around there; and then the other group appeared in the same way.
I arrived in Cartagena from El Salado as a displaced person, because the first
displacement by the paramilitaries happened in 1997. There were two incursions:
one in 1997 and the other in 2000. In 1997 alone, they killed four people: the
teacher Doris; a boy that was half-retarded; and two others, Edelio’s father
and Alfaro Padilla, who was a director of a Junta de Acción Comunal (Community
Action Committee) and was disappeared. He was taken away and never heard from
again; later, it was learned, he had been buried far outside the town.
We returned three months later. There we stayed for three years, with problems,
until the biggest incursion in 2000 (2): that was when they massacred 100 and
some people. Four hundred men under the command of Carlos Castańo (3) came into
town, helped by La Gata. (4) In that massacre, two of my cousins and an
uncle were killed and the entire population of the town was displaced; some
went to Barranquilla, others to Cartagena, other to Carmen (de Bolívar) and
still others to Sincelejo.
When they committed the massacre, they warned everyone to leave town. The army
itself said that we had to abandon the town. There were so many dead that they
sent in cars so you could throw your corotos(5) in them and so
leave. That’s how everyone left; not a single person remained behind. From el
Carmen, came dump trucks and other trucks organized by the mayor of el Carmen.
You put your chocoros (6) in them.
The town was left with a stinking smell. During the massacre, they dug a mass
grave and dumped 17 (cadavers). A few days later – I was in Cartagena – I went
to look for my mom. It was a reeking pit: the cemetery, the town, the dead ..!
I entered behind the Red Cross truck and I looked along the highway where cars
passed and I could see the dead, the pieces of limb, already eaten by el
golero. (7)
There was a body here, another there. And that was just at the entrance to
town, before arriving at the cemetery -- because the cemetery is before you get
to the town. At the cemetery itself there were around 50 bodies that still
hadn’t been buried. Ay, what a stench, what foulness!
We entered the town. There was another mass grave there of 18. People had
abandoned the town after the massacre; they left three days after it because
they had to bury the dead from their families. There was no more room in the
cemetery so they put 17 in a patio next to a well, which was called the “trap.”
The body of my cousin Redondo, from Acción Comunal was among them. They
summoned everyone into the plaza and Redondo was there along with his mother.
The mother embraced him and said: “don’t kill him, kill me.” They killed her as
she embraced her son. They lifted up her clothes and said “do for us what you
do for the guerrillas.” A 7-year-old girl was killed; they put her in a bag and
drowned her, and they killed an uncle of mine, who never got on the wrong side
of anyone.
That killing broke my heart because he was the most saintly guy in the world.
They took him away and they killed him because he didn’t know how to talk: they
asked him something and he got scared. My uncle liked to fight his roosters. So
they made him pretend he was a fighting cock, and then they killed him. They
made the old men dance; they got them drunk and then killed them. I was told
they even stacked people on a table, one on top of the other, and then sawed
through them with a chainsaw.
They created a calamity .. it was barbarous! My brother-in-law avoided the
plaza, hiding instead with his wife and a son in the woods. He heard the
paramilitaries as they walked by talking. But he lost his little, 5-year-old
daughter on the highway. She was taken to the plaza, and there she saw
everything.
In their haste, my parents hid in a big house. There were various people hidden
there, because the paramilitaries went from house to house breaking down doors
and pulling people out. So they were there when a phantom plane -- one of those
that the army has -- began to fire from the sky. A bullet entered through the
zinc roof and pierced a man who was near them and killed him. His blood flowed
onto a little girl that was there with her mother. When that had happened, my
parents walked out of the house and to the highway, and the child stayed behind
on the highway. Then she was taken to the public square where she saw all those
things. She saw so many things that she ended up traumatized. She has gotten
psychological treatment since, but she hasn’t improved. She performs poorly in
school, and she’s in terrible shape overall.
Near where my brother-in-law was hiding with his wife, the paramilitaries
passed by talking, and, apparently, one of them said: “I don’t want to do this
to these poor people,” and the other: “faggot, if you don’t do it, they’ll kill
you; you can’t say you didn’t do it. Because the bosses will screw you!”
Though I wasn’t in the plaza when (the paramilitaries) entered, people shouted
that they had arrived: “Everyone run and hide!” As my mom lives on the corner
of the same street where the people were screaming, my brother and his wife
were there and their kids warned my mom and my dad that the paras had arrived.
And my sister-in-law stuck her head out and saw that they were breaking down
the doors, the shop windows and everything, and she said: “let’s go, they’re
coming this way!” and as the gardens there have wood fences, they had to break
down one of the fences to escape to another lot. And my dad ran in one
direction and my brother and his kids in another, because, as my brother is a gordo
pipon (8), he couldn’t jump: so they had to break the fence and
escape running as the paramilitaries approached. The paras said: “get in line,
get in line!.” Everyone had to get in line and march to the plaza. And when
they told my brother to “get in line,” that fat man jumped into a gorge and
went tumbling down, his sons and his wife behind him, and then escaped into the
woods. Because if he had gotten into the line, they would have killed him. His
brother- in-law got in line and they killed him. .. “An excellent man!”
The whole town had to leave
Then the whole town packed up and left. Three days after the massacre, the
mayor began to send trucks to pick up the chocoros, the household
things. He sent trucks to get all the canoes. A cousin of mine had around 100
head of cattle that he took to El Carmen. But four days later, the
paramilitaries came and stole them. He was the richest person in the town.
My mom and dad left with 20 head of cattle, we left with 2.. We took the cattle
of my mom and dad to Cartagena. But as we ended up spending two years there and
it was the whole family – father, mother, brothers, nephews – we had to rent a
house. So we ended up eating or selling all of the cattle. At the end of two
years, we didn’t have anything, everything had been finished off .. I told my
mom to sell the cows and buy a lot or rent something there in Cartagena. But
she didn’t want to, because she said that they weren’t going to stay there. She
was going to return to her home again .. But everything was finished off, the
business and everything!
Cleaning up the town to be able to return
Our displacement lasted two years. Given that people were struggling to survive
and didn’t get any help where they looked for it, they got together and formed
an organization. We created it in el Carmen de Bolivar and had several
meetings. Asodesbol (9) was created, an organization formed to pave the way for
the next return to the town in 2002.
The mayoralty of Carmen didn’t want the return to happen just then, but it did
get some help in food and machetes from other organizations so we could clean
up the town. We got the supplies and went back to the town to fix it up. It was
enmontado(10), you couldn’t see the houses. But we cleaned up
everything. It took us a couple months. In 2003, 150 families returned to the
town. Including the outlying hamlets, it was around 300 families.
Again, the worries
We started all over again. La Red de Solidaridad Social (the Social Welfare Network)
got us a tobacco-growing project. The peasant farmers did very well with it,
but then people began to disappear again. There were rumours that the groups
had returned, and people began to be afraid again. Then some people disappeared
and reappeared dead. In 2004, the army appeared and people began to get
frightened again, because the army said that those who had participated in
meetings were subversives. They began to say that my husband, who was the
president of the organization, collaborated with the guerrillas.
He would go to the Defensoría del Pueblo (Human Rights Ombudsman Office) and
denounce the abuses committed by members of the army against the community and
a lieutenant se la montó (11), so in the end, the army and the
paramilitaries end up sending him a warning in 2004. This time they set up a
roadblock and burned five motorcycles. They sent him a message saying that he
had to leave town or, if not, he would leave feet first! We got frightened and
we left again. At the time, they weren’t displacing everyone in the town, just
families. We had to return to Cartagena with nothing. We left behind
everything, even the brood of chickens. He had two cows, he had chickens... all
this was left behind.
From Cartagena he kept working for the benefit of the town. Other members of
the Junta de Acción Comunal (Community Action Committee) arrived in Cartagena
as well. A year after he arrived in Cartagena, they arrested him. But it was as
if they were arresting the most dangerous guy in the world: the Navy, the CTI
(12), and the Fiscalía (the Prosecutor General’s Office) turned up and raided
the entire block. Around twenty men in vans, cars and motorcycles arrived at
the house, entered from behind by the terraces and arrested him. As his wife, I
said that they should let me make a call to the Defensoría (Human Rights
Ombudsman). I asked why they were taking him away – a man who had helped the
community and gotten things that people, the displaced, needed. They didn’t let
me make the call. They searched the house, because they said that he had things
there. They turned the mattresses and books upside down and still didn’t find
anything. At the time, he was with me as well as two small grandchildren and a
daughter. They brought hooded people forward in front of the kids so that they
could identify him, so they could say “This is the man.” And they took him
away. They told me to shut up because I was screaming. As they were going to
search the house, I told them that they didn’t have to do so, that I wanted to
go with them. Because they end up planting things in your house.
Hopefully they won't find us
They arrested him in Cartagena and turned him over to the Fiscalía (Prosecutor
General’s Office). A few days later they handed him over to the Ternera
(13) and, when they couldn’t prove anything against him, I called the
Defensoría (Human Rights Ombudsman) and an ombudsman immediately gave him
assistance. But he remained imprisoned for one month more and they accused him
of aiding the rebellion. He was released from prison on June 20, 2005 and we
came to Bogotá, where we are now.
We were advised that the best thing would be to come here, the capital, where
we know people and we could get help. Also because it’s far from the town.
“Fleeing, Fleeing..!” as it’s said. Hopefully they won’t find us. Here in
Bogotá, it’s the cold that has been hardest of all. I miss my other kids, those
that stayed behind there, and my family: my mom, my dad, and the environment
that I was used to with my people all around me. Here, you don’t have
neighbours. You stay all cooped up and, when you say that you are displaced,
people look at you strangely.
On a typical day, for example, I get up, make breakfast for my daughter and
granddaughter. My daughter goes to work; my granddaughter to school. I clean
the house, make lunch, sew – because I do sewing to earn some money – go to
meetings. That’s how I keep busy the whole day.
We went to look for provisions at la Red de Solidaridad Social (Social
Solidarity Network) and got a supply intended to last three months. Then I
asked for a continuation, but they didn’t want to give it to me. Yes, I’ve
gotten moral support from the nuns. But no financial assistance. My husband has
some connections in Bogotá and sometimes they help him out a bit. The state
doesn’t worry about us: you survive as best you can.
(1) Spank
(2) On February 18 and 19, 300 paramilitaries raided the principle town of the
parish of El Salado and executed 46 peasant farmers after torturing them,
slitting their throats and sexually abusing several women. Source: Colombian
Commission of Jurists. Colombia, human rights and humanitarian law 1997 to
2001. Volume 1. Bogotá, December 2005. In: www.coljuristas.org
(3) Paramilitary commander
(4) Nickname of Enilce López, coastal businesswoman with great political power
who is involved in the betting business. Arrested in 2005 for misappropriation,
money laundering and homicide, she is linked to investigations of massacres
perpetrated by paramilitaries in the departments of Sucre and Bolívar.
(5) Household items
(6) Household items
(7) Vultures
(8) Big-bellied man
(9) Association of displaced people of the community of the parish of El
Salado, municipality of El Carmen de Bolívar.
(10) Overgrown with weeds
(11) Had a grudge against him
(12) Cuerpo Tecnico de Investigación de la Fiscalía General de la República
(Corps of Technical Investigators of the Prosecutor General of the Republic.
(13) Prison of Cartagena
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