[ad_1]
Leyner Palacios Asprilla, 43, is the new Truth Commissioner. It is an election with a deep symbolic charge because he represents the suffering left by the armed conflict in Colombia and, also, the ability to move forward and not be defeated.
The Chocoano leader – who lost 28 family members in the Bojayá massacre (2002), in which the FARC guerrilla launched a cylinder that exploded in the town’s church where a hundred civilians were seeking refuge, including dozens of children -, will assume the position of María Ángela Salazar, who died on August 7 from covid 19.
(See in this link a multimedia special on the Bojayá massacre)
Some time ago, Palacios gave his shocking testimony of what his daily life is like, what his days are like in the midst of threats – several plans have been discovered to kill him – and how he continues with his mission as a social leader in the purpose of building a country without violence.
The armed groups, however, wanted to get him out of the way. So much so that President Iván Duque told him, at the time, in the House of Nariño, not to leave his native Bojayá, in Chocó, because he was going to make sure that nothing happened to him.
The threats against him, however, intensified. So he went to Cali. There, his bodyguard Arley Enrique Chalá Rentería, 34, was assassinated on the day in which there was a great controversy in the country over the statement of the Minister of the Interior, Alicia Arango: “Here more people die from theft of cell phones than from be human rights defenders ”.
(We suggest: They will fall alive or dead: Government due to the reappearance of Santrich and Márquez)
The controversy in those days had an enormous echo because on the table the discussion gravitated by a harsh report of the office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR), on the situation that activists and social leaders are living in Colombia , as is the case of Palacios Asprilla.
EL TIEMPO reproduces the interview that is extremely valid due to his appointment.
What is it like to live in fear?
Fear is everywhere, one experiences it at night, during the day. It is an anguish that presses you, like a suffocation that surrounds you.
There, in Bojayá, in his land, fear is different from that felt in the cities …
Yes. There is more fear when a detonation is heard in the silence of the night, more when the motor of the boats that come is heard, more with the sound of men jumping from the river, more with the sound of boots and still more when they get closer and think: ‘They come for one’.
In spite of everything, you were unharmed, can you breathe normally again?
After an incursion by the armed actors, there are wounds inside that are impossible to put aside. For example, the noise of the gangs when they came to dismember people, that stays there and is not removed from the head.
Fear is everywhere, one experiences it at night, during the day
Who are they complaining to?
In abandonment there is no one to go to complain. You see the anguish when a person is bitten by a snake and there is no antivenom serum, to see him die without being able to do anything. Groups of indigenous people come across the river, with malaria and without a drop of gasoline to go to another place where a nurse is, a laboratory. The life of a human being goes between impotence and poverty.
(You can read: Leader Leyner Palacios is the new member of the Truth Commission)
Did President Duque see this reality when he went to Bojayá?
Yes. We told him about our problems, as I had told him in January in the Casa de Nariño on behalf of the Inter-Ethnic Truth Commission of the Pacific Region (CIVP). He made some announcements, but everything stayed the same. There we were left without seeing a real response from the State. Looking at the Atrato river at night, knowing that criminals are at a bend, waiting for one to pass, set up a checkpoint and disappear.
What do you think of President Duque?
I have to say it with pity and sorry, but it let me down. Our situation did not improve but worsened. That’s why I had to get out of there.
Why?
The armed actors that we were denouncing, those that we indicated, continued to operate in the territory, and we there and with the unfulfilled promise of the Government.
Leyner Palacio is one of the Bojayá leaders who have been claiming the truth for decades.
Juan David López Morales / EL TIEMPO.
What did you think when you heard the phrase of the Interior Minister?
Very angry. For her contempt for leadership, because she seeks to normalize the situation of a genocide. If that is the vision of the head of politics in Colombia, then what are the hands and feet going to think?
How do you see the government’s reaction to the UN?
The government should not have gotten angry with the United Nations. The reports tell the plain truth. The Government should have taken these reports to correct reality, which is harsher than it is written there.
In your land, who are the aggressors?
The armed actors navigating the Atrato River. There in that volume there is a presence of the Public Force, a very large one from the ELN and another just as strong from the ‘Gulf clan’, that is, the paramilitaries.
And why are they there?
The Atrato River is a fluvial highway that allows navigability and the connection between the Gulf of Urabá and the Pacific Ocean, the river joins the two seas. I call it the hinge of the department of Chocó. It makes the link between the north and the south just in Bojayá, there the Pacific and the Atlantic are linked. It is so beautiful, but so inhospitable, with a nature that helps them to move.
(Do not miss out: A new cry for independence)
Are there drug trafficking crops there?
No crops that we know of. But we do know that the ships that come and go do come with drugs, and above all with the supplies they need in their laboratories for the processing of illicit drugs.
Do you think that’s why they want to kill you?
Partly yes. Because we with our work take away those armies from the youth, we recover the boys and put them to play sports, to study to show that life is good without weapons and very beautiful with decency.
Is that the job of a social leader in the country?
Yes. A social leader is the most legitimate and direct representative of democracy. He is a person who promotes community participation and dialogue, seeks consensus, reconciliation, that is, the values of peace.
Why are they killing them more now?
For the same. After the signing of the peace accords, we saw that this was a real possibility to start building a better country. And, of course, those who believe in war see us as a hindrance. Since the signing of the peace agreement, 650 social leaders have been assassinated in Colombia, all defenseless, a tragedy, a genocide.
How is a social leader formed?
It is estimated that to train a social leader it takes between 20 and 30 years in workshops, in experience, to become a voice that represents the community.
I feel bad, I feel confused, really helpless
Those lives are taken away in seconds …
Yes, in the attacks. They seek to silence us because our purpose is to enforce one of the axes of the peace agreement: that of the construction of the truth, of the clarification of the armed conflict. There are people who do not want the truth to be known and that is why they kill.
How strong do you feel today to keep going?
I feel bad, I feel confused, really helpless. I continue because this bloodshed must be avoided, but this does not stop and that makes me feel very helpless.
How do you interpret the murder of Chalá Renteria, your escort?
It is an attack on my leadership, on my work of reconciliation and peace. That’s why they shot him 19 times. The message is brutal.
Who was he?
I met him a year ago, when he arrived as an escort, and at this time I saw a boy committed to taking care of me, protecting me and very loyal.
How is your family?
Shattered. Imagine the pain of your mother, your wife, your three children, the people who loved you.
And yours?
It’s a drama. Sometimes I think I shouldn’t have done this to Ana Mercedes Renteria, my partner, and to my three children. But I also think: ‘If I don’t give everything so that they have a better future, then what kind of person am I?’ Love is sacrifice and giving one’s best so that the family lives in a peaceful place.
How do you sleep?
One sleeps little and the nights are very long. I would like it to not dawn because it is known that it is time to go out and that is to expose oneself, the aggressor is on the prowl. Before dawn I think: ‘Today is the day, today they are going to kill me.’
(You can read: Leyner Palacios does not want to be the 80th victim of the Bojayá massacre)
Is the war forgotten?
I have run between the shots. As we had to do in the 2002 massacre. On May 1 I took refuge in the house of the Augustinian missionary sisters, but on the 2nd I went out to beg the paramilitaries not to shoot at us anymore, they continued shooting and I picked up the children and ran among the flooded streets, and I heard the explosion of the cylinder, that sound is not forgotten.
What is peace like?
So many things. I was born in Pogue, a district of Bojayá, which is two hours from the urban area of Bellavista, it is a hamlet of 140 homes, with 640 inhabitants of Afro population, in the middle of the confluence of two rivers, the Pogue and the Bojayá, a kind of island, with brittle hills, streams, and with a beach next to it, where children play with balls of rice chuspa. To see again that is peace.
ARMANDO NEIRA
POLICY EDITOR
