The Cemetery's Art of Discord

The empty mausoleums along 26th Street, with their stencils commemorating the conflict's victims.

Does anybody notice? Drivers pass the
mausoleums decorated by Gonzalez.

You've probably noticed them while traveling east along Calle 26 past the Central Cemetery: the mausoleums decorated with stenciled images of men carrying stretchers and corpses representing victims of Colombia's violence.

The thousands of images are the work of artists Beatriz Gonzalez and a partner and provide a

haunting reminder of Colombia's violence, in particular the victims of the 1948 Bogotazo riots...for those who notice them. My impression is that few do, (despite enforced viewing from Calle 26's chronic traffic jams), and even fewer pay attention.

Gonzalez is now fighting to preserve the artwork in the face of city plans to create a park in the old block of the Central Cemetery.

The stencils of the discord.

Historical memory is important. But so is greeen space, particularly in a poor neighborhood with little of it. A football pitch, a skateboard park and a basketball court would give the youths of the troubled Santa Fe neighborhood behind the cemetery an alternative to drugs and gangs. Some young rappers from Santa Fe whom I knew used to tell me almost routinely about their friends getting stabbed and even murdered. I understand that today one of those same rappers is dead and another is an addict.

And, if the city does the sensible thing by using part of the land for recreation while preserving one of the mausoleums, with explanatory information, lots more people would see the memorial and we might have fewer murders to lament.

The situation strikes me as absurd. But not nearly as absurd as the land across the street and the other a few blocks west by the Jaime Garzon mural, which could be nice public parks if the city did not fence them off with barbed wire. Go figger.

Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Day of the Victims 2018

A memorial artwork in front of the San Francisco Church.

April 9, the anniversary of the 1948 assassination of leftist presidential candidate Jorge Eliecer Gaitán, is also the 'Day of the Victims.' The commemoration had a special significance this year because of the signing of the peace agreement between the government and FARC guerrillas, the ongoing murders of social leaders and the 70th anniversary of Gaitán's assassination.

Events included memorials at the site of Gaitán's assassination, at his house, on Plaza Bolivar, and also a march by indigenous people.

A crowd of 'Gaitanistas' gathered by the spot where he was assassinated.

How about a Gaitán video?

A memorial beside the National Museum. Interestingly, soldiers participated in the memorial, altho the military itself has been accused of many rights violations.

'Long live the Embera women.'

Demanding reloation of the Wounaan people.

Dancing in the treet.

A memorial artwork by the San Francisco Church.

Carrying caskets down Carrera Septima.

On Plaza Bolivar, denouncing the killng of social leaders.

On Plaza Bolivar.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

'Money for the FARC, Hunger for the Victims.'

'Money for the FARC, hunger for the victims.'

These folks protested the other day against the peace accord, which includes stipends and other forms of support for the demobilized FARC guerrillas. According to some analysis, the guerrillas will even be able to control much of their ill-gotten money.

There's also something funny about these protesters' signs: They look very professional for something made by displaced victims of the guerrillas - as tho someone else (Uribistas???) were funding this group.

But, putting all of that aside, as well as the argument that a very imperfect peace deal was the best deal possible, the guerrillas did victimize many innocent people, most of them humble ones - and they deserve to be remembered.

'Alan Jara, humanize the unit of victims.'
Jara, an ex-governor who was once kidnapped by the FARC, heads the government's program to help victims of the conflict. 

'The state perpetuates the suffering of the victims.'

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Cristo's Morbid Vision

Artist Cristo Hoyos and one of his funereal wreaths.

A wreath and noose.

Artist Cristo Hoyos believes that, during its long history of conflict, killing in some Colombian rural areas has become worse than horrific, worse than terrifying, worse than nightmarish: It has become boring and mundane.

Hoyos' work, now on display in the Gabriela Garcia Marquez Cultural Center in La Candelaria,
includes a series of flower wreaths embedded with violent symbols such as a knife, a noose and a weathered cow skull.

In Colombia, violence has been tied to the inequality of land ownership, Hoyos observed the other day at the exhibition. That's why his wreath series has a rural flavor.

Other Hoyos works portray impoverished Embera indigenous people, wealthy elite Colombians and displaced people, emphasizing the huge contrasts in a nation with a growing economy, a half-dozen billionaires, and millions of impoverished and victims of forced displacement.

Hoyos found the images for the exhibition, entitled 'Silence: Living Paintings,' in Colombian newspapers and magazines between 2008 and 2010.

Wealth and glamour. 

Displaced people.

Embera indigenous people from the Pacific coast region.

The other day, dining tables were set up in front of the paintings for a United Nations event.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Faces of the Victims

These huge posters appeared on Calle 26 the other day, just north of the Central Cemetery. I'm told that they portray leftist victims of government and other violence, including particularly victims of the genocide against the Union Patriotica.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

Not all Victims are Equal

'General kidnapped in El Chocó' reports El Tiempo.

About two weeks ago, FARC guerrillas hung banners commemorating the death three years ago of a murderous guerrilla leader on territory belonging to the NASA indigenous people. NASA indigenous guards pulled the banners down. Furious at being defied, the guerrillas murdered two of the NASA people.

In response, the NASA captured eight guerrillas, two of whom were teenagers. After a trial in front of thousands of NASA people, two of the guerrillas were sentenced to 60 and 40-year prison terms and the teenage boys to being whipped.

Colombian leaders denounced the FARC for the killings and for employing child soldiers, but continued negotiating peace with them in Havana, Cuba.

Two days ago, a Colombian general disappeared in Chocó Department, allegedly kidnapped by the
FARC. In response, the government suspended the peace negotiations.

Caracol TV reports the suspension of the peace talks in Havana.

This is far from the first time that some victims have turned out to be more important than others.

In 1928, Colombian soldiers, defending the interests of the United Fruit Company, massacred hundreds or thousands of striking workers in the town of Cienaga near Santa Marta. Soon afterwards, the general in charge, Carlos Cortés Vargas, was promoted to chief of police of Bogotá.

But the next year during students protests Bogotá police shot and killed a young man. who turned out to be the son of a friend of the president. Murdering hundreds of plantation laborers was apparently acceptable, but killing a member of the elite crossed the line. Both Gen. Cortés and Minister of Defense Ignacio Rengifo were fired.

The NASA present Captured FARC guerrillas to the public.

And don't get me started on the Caso Colmenares, the sad story of a student from an elite private university who either died or was murdered in a north Bogotá ravine while partying with friends. The media never stop telling us about the Colmenares trial, while countless humble Bogotanos die tragically and unnoticed.

The drama of the many victims of Colombia's long civil war is in the news these days because of the debate about how - and whether - to compensate them. A recent study by Harvard University found that, including displaced people, some 6.9 million Colombians qualify as victims. That's 14% of Colombia's population, whereas most other nations have compensated about 1%. The FARC, for their part, deny that they have victimized civilians at all - something nobody believes.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours

The Impossibility of Justice

In June, 2011, Pres. Santos signed the Law of Victims, probably the world's most ambitious attempt to compensate victims of a nation's armed conflict. And, unfortunately, probably an impossible one. 

According to today's El Espectador, after other conflicts, such as those in Guatemala, South Africa and Morocco, governments have tried to compensate victims numbering about 1% of their nations' populations. In Colombia, the victims total 14% of the nation's population of 47 million people. The great difference is due to the inclusion of victims of forced displacement, who number close to 6 million people, according to some calculations - altho even without counting the displaced, the victims would total 2% of the population.

A protest march by displaced people.
(Photo: Vanguardia)

According to a 2006 study by Mark Richards of Harvard University, compensation to victims under the 2005 Peace and Justice Law could have cost between 19% and 33% of Colombia's gross domestic product - an impossible number, unless Colombia's willing to give up infrastructure, law enforcement or education (or, truly tax the rich). The current Victims Law is probably even more ambitious.

A memorial to victims of violence.
(Photo: Caracol)

Colombia's law has gone on for so long, been so devastating and hurt so many people, that compensating all of its victims - or even a large proportion of them - will be impossible. By the same token, the conflict has also produced so many victimizers of so many kinds, that punishing them all will be impossible. As difficult as it will be, any peace agreement will involve a huge amount of injustice and impunity. But those are the prices Colombia will have to pay to find peace and stop producing more victims.

Colombia's conflict victims by the numbers: From the Center for Historical Memory, which counted 218,000 people killed by the conflict between 1958 and 2012. Its numbers generally strike me as underestimates.

25,000 victims of forced disappearances.

Five or six million victims of forced displacement.

27,000 kidnapping victims. (And certainly an underestimate.)

Almost 12,000 massacre victims.

23,000 victims of 'selective assassinations.'

1,750 victims of sexual violence.

95 cases and 1,566 victims of terrorist attacks.

By Mike Ceaser, of Bogotá Bike Tours