Total peace is still elusive in Arauca

With waterlogged eyes and a broken voice, María Aguillón, a member of the Joel Sierra Human Rights Foundation, recalls the car bomb attack she survived on January 19.

More than 50 social leaders were in a building in the center of Saravena, Arauca, when after ten o'clock at night, to the sound of a loud noise, they saw the roof and the wall fall on top of them.

The impact was lessened because they had built stone barricades in front of the building to protect themselves.

The only fatality was Simeón Delgado, a guard at the Colombian Agricultural Institute (ICA), located next to the building where María was, which was left in ruins.

Eleven months after what has been the most traumatic event of her life for María, the outlook in Saravena, and in Arauca in general, remains the same.

The explosion and the murder of some twenty people weeks before were just the beginning of one of the bloodiest periods in the region.

The dispute between the guerrillas of the National Liberation Army (ELN) and the Tenth Front of the extinct FARC dissidents has left 343 people murdered and 18,900 displaced so far this year, according to figures from the Ombudsman's Office.

Last Monday, December 5, 5 homicides were recorded in just three hours.

The bodies appeared in different parts of the department, several with signs of torture.

Marks with the word "FARC" on the road that leads from Tame to Saravena, Arauca. Chelo Camacho

Thus, while the national commanders of the ELN aim to negotiate with the Government under the umbrella of the policy of total peace, its structures are in full war in one of the departments with the greatest presence of that guerrilla and the one that gave them the resources to prevent its disappearance 40 years ago.

In Arauca, total peace has not been felt until now.

“They wanted to make the social movement disappear with that attack.

But one falls, shakes and gets up because dignity is great.

When you believe in what you are doing, you get up despite the fact that the impacts were very great”, affirms Aguillón.

The main targets of the threats and stigmatization have been the social leaders, whom both groups accuse of being 'organic' members of their rivals.

The confrontation has been atrocious.

In this year's list of homicides appear from peasants and butchers, to health personnel and politicians.

In addition, public property infrastructures such as the Chamber of Commerce or the Saravena Community Aqueduct, Sewerage and Cleaning Company have been attacked with explosives.

The fear is such that two Army tanks protected the public hospital in that municipality.

A conflict with history

For the Araucanians, the armed conflict is not an alien issue.

They have become used to living in the midst of fear and anxiety, despite the fact that most agree that this year has been particularly bloody.

The escalation of violence stems from old feuds between the guerrillas.

At the beginning of the century there was a situation similar to the current one, when several fronts of the then Eastern Bloc of the FARC confronted the ELN seeking to expand their territorial control in a department with a strategic location.

The confrontation lasted for around ten years until 2010, when various commanders of the extinct FARC and commanders of the Domingo Laín Front of the ELN agreed to a ceasefire.

Among the agreements, a kind of invisible borders were stipulated in the territory and the illegal economies were distributed.

For a few years, the Araucanians lived a tense calm, which gave way to an illusion due to the peace agreements in Havana in 2016.

But hope and calm quickly vanished.

In the years after these agreements, several FARC middle managers who signed them took up arms again and formed new armed structures at the hands of members of criminal gangs such as 'Los Garbanzos', which operated in Casanare.

After the assassination of numerous leaders of these dissidences, such as alias 'Arturo' or alias 'Ernesto', the leader known as 'Antonio Medina' rose to head the 'Martín Villa' or Tenth Front structure.

That front was the one that, at the beginning of November, threatened with a pamphlet that it would assassinate 300 people: “The idea is to retake Arauca, put some 300 dead before December,” the threat stated.

Almost a month later, Medina retracted in a video: "The Central General Staff of the FARC-EP, using its statutory powers, orders me to publicly retract and desist from my recent statement," he explained.

The yearning for an integral peace

In the first months of the year the chirlobirlo trees bloom and the landscape of Sarara, the region in which Saravena is located, is dyed yellow and purple.

The colors are mixed with that of the cattle that occupy most of the Araucanian savannahs.

Crisscrossed by huge oil pipelines, for almost half a century this region has been a flagship in crude oil production.

Although it now weighs less than it did in the 1980s, it still produces 7% of all of Colombia's oil.

María Aguillón, from the Joel Sierra Human Rights Foundation, on the top floor of the building that is the headquarters of different social organizations that was attacked on January 19, 2022 with a car bomb. Chelo Camacho

That oil wealth has not landed in the territory.

Social leaders denounce a deep state neglect: more than 260,000 inhabitants do not have a departmental public university and only have a third-level public hospital, the one in Saravena, and none of the fourth level.

Patients with medical emergencies have to travel hours on unpaved roads that demonstrate neglected road infrastructure.

This absence has led to the rigor of the conflict especially affecting vulnerable populations such as indigenous peoples or children who, by not having access to comprehensive education, particularly in rural areas, end up joining the ranks of armed groups.

The most recent case is four minors kidnapped on November 24 by the ELN.

The guerrillas argued that they detained them after the youths tried to throw a grenade at commercial establishments as one of the war actions of the so-called Tenth Front.

Precisely for this reason, for the social leader Marcela Sánchez, from the Asociación Amanecer de Mujeres por Arauca (AMAR), in order to achieve peace, a solution must be found to structural problems.

In which Aguillón agrees, who spoke with EL PAÍS in her office inside the cracked building in Saravena that social organizations refuse to abandon.

“We do not need more militarization in the territory.

We demand social investment, job opportunities and education.

Only in this way are we going to keep our children away from the war, only in this way can we talk about total peace ”, she declared.

The two leaders applaud the restart of the dialogues with the ELN, but point out that peace must go much further.

They view with suspicion that the so-called Tenth Front can benefit from total peace under the status of an insurgent group, since they believe that their recent practices, such as the attacks with explosives on the social movement or the threats to medical centers and community assets, make them rather a “reorganization of the paramilitaries”.

They believe that the government's first action against the ELN and the dissidents should be to demand an immediate end to violence against the civilian population.

Only in this way is it possible to advance in the reconstruction of the social fabric of the region, they explain.

The High Commissioner for Peace, Danilo Rueda, said on November 30 that "they were already in talks" with both groups.

On the ground, reality looks more complex.

According to several sources with whom EL PAÍS spoke on the ground and who requested anonymity for security reasons, the dialogues between the armed groups are a greater challenge.

A source who knows this because he talks with the armed actors assures that Medina says he wants peace and has tacitly expressed his desire to cease hostilities with the ELN, but among the

the opinions seem to be different.

The ELN is reluctant to negotiate with a group they accuse of being an ally of Army intelligence.

This has been expressed in various communiqués and confirmed by Aureliano Carbonell, one of the ELN commanders, in an interview with the RAYA newspaper: "We are not talking about a fight between guerrilla forces, but a franchise of the intelligence services of the United States and Colombia".

That, in the language of the ELN, means that they will hardly see the so-called Tenth Front as a valid interlocutor.

¨FARC¨ mark on one of the houses in Saravena. Chelo Camacho

In such a confusing and violent scenario, the inhabitants of Arauca are wary that peace will finally come to their lands.

Alex, a taxi driver born and raised in the apartment, says between jokes and jokes that it is easier to run out of oil to make rice than for the war to end.

"One gets used to it.

He walks around carefully and trying not to owe anyone anything so as not to get into trouble, ”he says with resignation.

Perhaps in compensation for the atrocious impact of the war on their communities or as a sign of resilience in the midst of violence, the inhabitants of Sarare have taken their Christmas festivities very seriously.

The trees on the roads already have ornaments, they erased some of the

that the armed forces have done on the walls of the houses even with fear of reprisals and the imposing military tanks moved in the shade.

Although, according to Alex, people prefer to celebrate in their homes and not in the streets, the lights and the celebration make their way in the midst of barbarity.

For a couple of weeks, even knowing that the war continues and worsens, the Araucanians refuse to give in to fear.

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