COLOMBIA: THOUSANDS OF PEASANTS ARE BLOCKED IN THEIR VILLAGES BY PARAMILITARY FORCES AS PUNISHMENT FOR CLAIMED SYMPATHY FOR THE REBELS

Record ID: 588534

  • Title: COLOMBIA: THOUSANDS OF PEASANTS ARE BLOCKED IN THEIR VILLAGES BY PARAMILITARY FORCES AS PUNISHMENT FOR CLAIMED SYMPATHY FOR THE REBELS
  • Date: 30th March 2002
  • Summary: (L1) VEREDA DEL SILENCIO, COLOMBIA (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 1. TGV HOUSES IN ABANDONED TOWN 0.05 2. VARIOUS ON ABANDONED HOMES (3 SHOTS) 0.20 3. CU PADLOCK ON DOOR 0.25 4. SLV GRAFFITI ON A WALL 0.30 BRIBIKAIRA INDIAN RESERVATION, COLOMBIA (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 5. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PEDRO WILCHES, DISPLACED PEASANT, SAYING: "The paramilitary forces were threatening with come to clean up around these areas and when rumors were rampant, a lot of people, the ones that were able too, fled, because they were going to cleanup." 0.47 VEREDA DEL SILENCIO, COLOMBIA (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 6. SLV ABANDONED HOMES IN VILLAGE 0.52 7. MV ABANDONED HORSE STARVING TO DEATH 0.57 BRIBIKAIRA INDIAN RESERVATION, COLOMBIA (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 8. VARIOUS OF DISPLACED PEOPLE WALKING THROUGH JUNGLE (2 SHOTS) 1.11 9. BV DISPLACED PEOPLE WALKING 1.16 10. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) UNIDENTIFIED WOMAN SAYING: "What is happening here north and south of Cesar and north of Santander is that everybody is blocked. We are starving to death primarily because there are no open supply ways. The roads are all blocked." 1.31 11. PAN RESIDENTS OF INDIGENOUS RESERVATION HOLDING UP SIGN WELCOMING REFUGEES TO THEIR LAND 1.38 12. CU INDIGENOUS WOMAN 1.41 13. SV INDIGENOUS CHILDREN 1.45 14. LA THATCHED ROOF HUT IN CENTRE OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY - PAN TO - MEMBERS OF COMMUNITY STANDING AROUND 1.50 15. VARIOUS OF INDIGENOUS RESIDENTS STANDING AROUND (2 SHOTS) 1.57 16. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) UNIDENTIFIED LEADER OF INDIGENOUS COMMUNITY SAYING: "The ones blocking the roads are the paramilitary groups and they don't allow us to shop at the market for our community and we are 24 communities." 2.11 17. VARIOUS OF RESIDENTS PREPARING MEAL IN INTERIOR OF HUT (3 SHOTS) 2.24 18. VARIOUS OF CHILDREN EATING; PEOPLE SATNDING (4 SHOTS) 2.50 VEREDA EL PLACER, COLOMBIA, (RECENT) (REUTERS - ACCESS ALL) 19. SLV PARAMILITARY TROOPS STANDING ON HILL, LOOKING DOWN ON TOWN 2.54 20. SLV PARAMILITARY TROOPS SITTING NEXT TO ABANDONED HOME 2.59 21. (SOUNDBITE) (Spanish) PEDRO EL ESCAMOSO, PARAMILITARY LEADER IN THE REGION (FACE HIDDEN), SAYING: "We are in these camp grounds, or, rather, in the guerrilla's cradle. This is what they call they call their rearguard." 3.09 22. MV GROUP OF PARAMILITARY TROOPS (WITH FACE MASKED) STANDING IN ABANDONED TOWN 3.15 23. CU RINGS ON HAND - PULL OUT - FEMALE PARAMILITARY SOLDIER STANDING GUARD 3.19 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 14th April 2002 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: BRIBIKAIRA, SANTANDER, COLOMBIA MARCH 30, 2002
  • Country: Colombia
  • Reuters ID: LVA2R4NVK1ZZNMUKIZI39XE6B8J4
  • Story Text: A painful humanitarian crisis has stricken more than
    12,000 Colombian peasants in the area of Catatumbo, along the
    border with Venezuela, as a result of the blockade imposed by
    paramilitary forces against peasant groups seen as sympathetic
    to the guerrillas.



    Thousands of indigenous people and peasants who live
    along the Colombia-Venezuela border have been blocked inside
    their villages by paramilitary forces as punishment for what
    is seen as their sympathy for the rebel cause.

    The situation has developed into a full blown
    humanitarian crisis in which about 12,000 peasants and
    indigenous communities have been cutoff from the rest of the
    country and prevented from resupplying groceries, fuel and
    other essentials by rightwing armed groups.

    The area of Catatumbo (Kah-tah-TOOM-boh) has
    traditionally been dominated by Marxist rebels from the
    Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC, but after the
    arrival of a paramilitary mobile unit, the number of threats,
    selective killings and "disappearances" have grown.

    The displaced people in the area of Catatumbo have been
    forced to seek refuge in an indigenous reservation of the
    Motilon-Baru (Moh-tee-LOAN Bah-ROO) community.

    That reservation, formed by 24 indigenous communities and
    about 1,600 Indians, is also blocked-off by the paramilitary
    forces. All access roads have been closed and not even food is
    allowed to go through.

    Lacking tents and adequate protection, the displaced
    people are sleeping exposed to the elements and have only
    yucca (yoo-kah), a root vegetable, and occasionally meat to
    eat.

    Most worrisome is the situation affecting children who
    make up about 60 percent of the refugees. Without proper
    nutritional intake, many children are falling ill, some of
    them victims of very serious gastrointestinal and respiratory
    conditions.

    Peasant leaders have criticized the Colombian government
    for what they call a total inaction despite being aware of
    their humanitarian plight.

    The displaced people accuse the paramilitary groups of
    "disappearing" people and killing peasants who they accuse of
    being sympathetic to Marxist rebels.

    Reinforced by guerrilla deserters, the paramilitaries are
    hunting down leftist rebels or suspected collaborators house
    by house and "putting them to justice," a euphemism for
    killing them.

    Paramilitary self-defense groups were outlawed in the
    early 1990s, but the chief of the United Self Defense Forces
    of Colombia (AUC) -- smooth-talking, ruthless 35-year-old
    former army scout Carlos Castano -- oversaw a ninefold growth
    in the organization's numbers to 8,000 over the last eight
    years.

    Human rights groups say Colombia's armed forces maintain
    links with the paramilitaries, branded as "death squads" by
    the rights activists, in an unholy alliance against the 22,000
    members of the country's two main leftist guerrilla groups.

    The paramilitaries often view the rights groups as leftist
    fronts.

    About 35,000 people have been killed in the last 10 years
    of a messy conflict in which both the paramilitaries and their
    foes from the 17,000-member FARC draw funds from cocaine.


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