Paramilitary Violence, Dismemberment in Buenaventura Escalates Into a 'Humanitarian Crisis'

Paramilitary Violence, Dismemberment in Buenaventura Escalates Into a 'Humanitarian Crisis'
By Nicole Akoukou Thompson (n.thompson@latinpost.com)
First Posted: May 31, 2014 09:44 AM EDT

Buenaventura is a seaport city on the Pacific coast of Colombia. Home to a large Afro-Colombian population, it's also the setting for violence so severe that it's driven more than 5 million people from their homes. Spanish for "good fortune," Buenaventura hosts the second largest population of internally displaced people in the entire world, and for each of the past three years, it has led all Colombian municipalities with the number of newly displaced people. A new report from Human Rights Watch, "The Crisis in Buenaventura: Disappearances, Dismemberment, and Displacement in Colombia's Main Pacific Port," documents the violence and terror, the widespread abuses and the sweeping displacement of an entire population.

Entire neighborhoods of the city have been seized and dominated by powerful paramilitary groups, known as the Urabeños and the Empresa. They restrict the movements of residents, recruit children, extort businesses and commit horrific acts when defied. They are responsible for the disappearance of hundreds of residents and dismembering countless others, then dumping their parts into the bay along the mangrove-covered shores or burying them in unmarked graves. The slaughters and dismemberments occur in casas de pique (or "chop-up houses&quot . Killings often go unreported due to fear of reprisal. One resident told Human Rights Watch he'd heard what he believed to be screams from someone being dismembered, but he didn't report the crime.

"No matter how much screaming you hear, the fear prevents you from doing anything. ... People know where the chop-up houses are but do not do anything about it because the fear is absolute," a Buenaventura resident said.

Between January 2010 and December 2013, more than 150 people have gone missing, presumed abducted or disappeared, twice as many than any other Colombian municipality. Historically, violence in Buenaventura has been orchestrated by left-wing guerrillas in rural areas, but currently violence and displacement is concentrated in the area's urban center, where 90 percent of the municipality's population lives. In 2009, Colombia's Constitutional Court found that the displaced Afro-Colombian population's fundamental rights have been "massively and continuously ignored," naming Buenaventura as an emblematic case. U.N. representatives have stated that the city was experiencing a "humanitarian crisis." Nonetheless, violence persists.

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http://www.latinpost.com/articles/13845/20140531/paramilitary-violence-dismemberment-buenaventura-escalates-humanitarian-crisis.htm