Pubdate: Sun, 08 Oct 2000
Source: Newsday (NY)
Copyright: 2000, Newsday Inc.
Contact:  (516)843-2986
Website: http://www.newsday.com/
Author: Karen Deyoung, The Washington Post

CONFLICT UPROOTS MANY IN COLOMBIA

Shantytowns Grow As Refugees Seek Safety

Cartagena, Colombia-The snapshot tacked on the wall of the one-room shack 
shows two little boys mugging happily for the camera.

Just looking at her sons, with their dress-up clothes, shiny shoes and 
slicked-back hair, makes Selta Machuca, 24, smile. "That's a picture of 
them at home," she says.

Moments later, a group of children sidle into the sweltering enclosure.

Filthy and shorn of all but a stubble of hair, most are barefoot and 
shirtless, dressed only in ragged shorts. "Who is that on the wall? Does 
anybody recognize them?" prompts a visiting priest.

"That's us. That's us in Colorado," say Carlos, 6, and Ruben, 5.

Two years ago, the family was driven off its farm in Colorado, in the 
southern part of Bolivar state, by fighting between right-wing paramilitary 
groups and guerrillas of the leftist National Liberation Army. In the heart 
of Colombia's lucrative gold-producing region, the area is coveted by both 
sides, and life for its rural residents is one of constant fear of being 
accused by one armed group of aiding the other. Punishment for suspected 
sympathies is swift and lethal.

Like other displaced people from their region, Machuca, her husband and 
three children abandoned their property and headed north toward the coast, 
traveling mostly by river to the state capital of Cartagena. Now, with one 
more child and another on the way, their home is a muddy, muggy shantytown 
atop a swamp at the edge of El Pozon, an outlying Cartagena slum.

Within a few miles of the graceful, colonial center of this 16th Century 
city where President Bill Clinton visited Colombian President Andres 
Pastrana last month, there are more than 41,000 internal refugees who have 
fled their rural and village homes in fear of violence, according to the 
Roman Catholic Church. Across the entire country, there are many, many more 
refugees, congregated mostly around large cities, especially in the north. 
Pastrana's government puts the figure at 300,000; the U.S. Committee for 
Refugees says there were 1.8 million at the end of 1999. The Church, which 
has tried to do a comprehensive census in some areas, estimates the number 
at 500,000.

"Nobody has the figures," said Nel H. Beltran, the Catholic bishop of 
Sincelejo, the capital of neighboring Sucre state, who heads nationwide 
Church programs for the displaced. The government tends to underestimate 
the total, while human-rights groups tend to overestimate it, Beltran said. 
And it is difficult to separate refugees fleeing violence from the 
migration to cities.

"What we do know is that the problem is very, very bad," Beltran said. "It 
is the most difficult human problem that Colombia now has." In El Pozon, 
the displaced are at the very bottom of an already low social and economic 
stratum.

"A lot of people here threaten us," said Elina Vargas, 30, whose family 
came from their southern Bolivar farm in October, 1998. Tainted by the 
circumstances of their flight, they are shunned by their neighbors. "They 
think we are guerrillas," Vargas said.

Huddled on the outskirts of the slum, the lucky ones live in shacks like 
the Machucas', which is constructed of boards and newspapers with a tin 
roof over a dirt floor. The rest take shelter beneath cardboard and plastic.

Toilets are holes dug a little way off the muddy paths. Although there is 
electricity, few have anything to plug in. Water for drinking, cooking and 
bathing must be purchased at about 10 cents a gallon from a donkey cart 
that occasionally wends its way through the encampment, and food supplies 
are sporadic donations from the government and the Church.

As the men of the camp cluster in groups and stare out over the nearby 
swamp, the women listlessly watch their malnourished children. The vast 
majority of the children do not attend school. Charges for uniforms and 
books, along with the small matriculation fee required by public schools, 
put it far out of reach.

Eighty percent of the U.S. aid money of about $7.5 billion is to be spent 
on military equipment and training to help the Colombian army eliminate the 
production and traffic of cocaine and heroin. Both the guerrillas and the 
paramilitary groups derive substantial income from the traffic, and the 
guerrillas have said any group receiving U.S. aid will be targeted as the 
enemy.

"It's better if it's not known that we are financed by U.S. aid," said the 
head of one Colombian organization receiving USAID money to work with the 
refugees. "There is a lot of fear among the nongovernmental organizations." 
According to Beltran and Cartagena Archbishop Carlos Jose Ruiseco, the 
Catholic Church has refused to participate in U.S. aid plans, objecting to 
both its military emphasis and use of aerial fumigation to destroy coca and 
poppy crops. The Church is not concerned about guerrilla threats, Beltran 
said, but "our ethical consideration is that the ends don't justify the 
means." Instead, the clerics said, wealthy countries should concentrate 
their efforts on controlling drug imports and use inside their own borders, 
halting the shipment of arms to Colombia, and providing better conditions 
for trade.

"Do you know what it means to a country like Colombia when the price of 
coffee drops?" Beltran asked. "We need justice, not vengeance."
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MAP posted-by: Larry Stevens