By Lerber Dimas Vásquez
In statements, the Minister of Defense recognized a 20% increase in homicides in the department of Magdalena. He did it after finishing a security council in the municipality of Zona Bananera, where, paradoxically, the community was not invited. mayor of Santa Marta or these were not. Both possibilities are quite possible. However, it is very important to review the reading that centralism is giving to crime. and the political myopia with which it is governed. Zona Bananera is one of the new municipalities created in the rise of the North Block of the AUC, and which is practically supported by the municipality of Ciénaga. Trying to make localized violent readings is not only a mistake but also shows a nauseating political intentionality.
It is true that Zona Bananera has serious problems. That cannot be denied. Last year it closed with 86 homicides; 16 more than Ciénaga, which is the municipality that has the most murders brings to the department of Magdalena after Santa Marta and, it is also true that there were about 56 pamphlets and that even, in a clear criminal order for non-extortion payment, The AGC. burned a banana farm. However, this year Banana Zone In the first quarter it registered 17 homicides; 11 less than Ciénaga and it is serious, but georeferentially, the sources of violence are centered in Fundación, Ciénaga and Santa Marta. In the first, a massacre, the murder of a teacher and the paramilitary domain as an entry bridge to the center of the Magdalena department. In the second, a seriously injured teacher and two sons of unionist teachers were murdered and in the third, the militarization of a neighborhood due to the increase in homicides. So some questions arise: did an obviously false pamphlet generate an institutional mobilization focused this way?
I will put a little andn context. At the beginning of this week, the AGC, in theory, put out a pamphlet to say not to take the children to classes during that week and in effect it achieves the initial goal, which is to generate terror. But the pamphlet is false, as is the new pamphlet that came out just yesterday where the ACSN threatens the mayor of Zona Bananera. Monitoring of the conflict tells us that at this time the ACSN does not have any major influence in this municipality, yes., in the neighboring municipalities and the rural area of CiénagaSo will there be another security council and will the Ministry of Defense come? Did the more than 56 pamphlets that came out last year, in that municipality alone, not help the institutions design a forceful action against this problem? How many people were arrested for producing or disseminating this type of material? 56 pamphlets in a year are never produced by any criminal organization, this delegitimizes them, therefore, someone is making them.
Now, if the issue is the impact on education, well: there are teachers threatened, extorted, murdered and there is an enormous deficit of teachers in all the rural areas of the Sierra Nevada to such an extent that they have had to decree, peak and class. One day it is for the primary school students and the other for the high school students.with the same teachers. I imagine that this was not touched upon, nor were the deficiencies of the PAE, nor the physical state of some of the institutions that are embarrassing. They are unhygienic, anti-pedagogical and anti-human.
Now let’s look at the future of Total Peace. A state policy that was announced with great fanfare and that generatedróhuge expectations that have been blurring with the passing of time. A few days ago the capture of the political spokesperson for the ACSN was announced, the group that has perhaps shown the greatest interest in resolving their situation. People close to the head of state say that they are only interested in resolving political violence and these groups do not have that condition, perhaps we could open the debate on this topic at another time. But the reality is that today Santa Marta is still within the Rankin of the 50 most violent cities in the world and extortion is skyrocketing. The criminal disorder that this ACSN vs AGC conflict has generated has even given rise to new actors with the capacity to murder and extort.
Then it arises Also another question: What is going to happen? And I will venture to give three possible scenarios. to) This government has one and a half years left. 2026 is political and since January history tells us that they are concentrating on political strategies to extend the presidential stay, which means that the tables would have to be set up, arrest warrants canceled and work started, now. But, so far there is no date, no start lights, no communication. A conflict of almost 5 decades is not resolved lightly and depending on the next presidential term, without knowing whether the left continues or the right recovers, will be a great challenge and chance cannot be part of a serious Peace Process. b) The government turns a deaf ear like all these months and lets time do its thing, as we are doing until now, that in coastal terms, “what happens with so much violence in these territories doesn’t matter to them” and no matter how much we shout about what is happening, political expediency comes together that likes things to go badly for others not only to recriminate them. , but to make them see the shortcomings that they did not see when they were government, with the local institutional inability, of all the dependencies and elected credentials, to create a bloc for peace, because perhaps some financing comments will arise there. Ultimately the naturalization of death is so everyday that one more or one less does not matter and c) These groups decide to continue strengthening themselves and there will come a time when confrontations with public forces will be so recurrent that forced displacements They will be our daily bread and this will bring us more violence, it will affect tourism, the only source of employment and it will return us to the hard times of paramilitarism, although to be honest, we are not that far away.
Until now, despite the capture of the political spokesperson of the ACSN, the news that has been sent through videos is to continue in the Total Peace Process and the State must respond if it is interested or not interested, but to say something to know that stick to it, how we support or where we hide or where we exile ourselves. But silence, myopia and political convenience cannot be above people’s lives, the reestablishment of rights and the need to pacify the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta.it’s a priority. The problem has already been created, we need to solve it and stop the dichotomies. They are criminals; They are highly violent and are present in the territory, to say otherwise is to lie, we need to look for solutions and these solutions are in the State, which refuses to look at non-political violence and the paradox of the issue is that ultimately, the bullet when it comes out of the gun he does not know if it was fired by a leftist or a rightist.
