Wednesday
May262010
A Thread in the Knot
Wednesday, May 26, 2010 at 4:25PM
At first glance, displacement seems like a pretty straightforward issue: violence erupts in an area and people flee. The bad guys are pretty easy to identify: The drug cartels trying to control coca fields and trafficking corridors, the guerillas fighting for political ideology and strategic land. It can't be more complicated than that, can it?
The more I hear about displacement, the more I start to understand the business of it. The economics. The dollars and cents. In the end, that's what a lot of it boils down to. Take this article I just read. It's about a man named Enrique whose from the region of Uraba. That's a place I've been to. I have driven through its banana fields, walked its farm land, stayed in its towns, swam in its sea, and most of all, I have met its people. I have heard their stories. Enrique has a one like it.
In 1997, the Colombian government launched a joint military venture with certain paramilitary organizations called "Operation Genesis." This attack was led by General Rito Alejo del Rio Rojas, a graduate of the School of the Americas located here in Georgia. They came to Uraba, to the land Enrique worked. They took his cattle. Stole his sheep. Killed his sons.
Villagers were massacred. The rest fled to the hills, leaving behind everything. Three years later, some of those who had been displaced decided to return home. What they found were not abandoned homes and desolate farmland. The fields that used to bear traditional Colombia crops - rice, yuca, plantains, and bananas - now were being used to grow African palms. These trees produce oil that serves as a much-coveted type of bio-fuel. The land that used to belong to Enrique was now in the hands of some multinational energy corporation. Money was the motivation behind "Operation Genesis." Dollars and cents. That's just one more thread in the knot of displacement.
-cpc
The more I hear about displacement, the more I start to understand the business of it. The economics. The dollars and cents. In the end, that's what a lot of it boils down to. Take this article I just read. It's about a man named Enrique whose from the region of Uraba. That's a place I've been to. I have driven through its banana fields, walked its farm land, stayed in its towns, swam in its sea, and most of all, I have met its people. I have heard their stories. Enrique has a one like it.
In 1997, the Colombian government launched a joint military venture with certain paramilitary organizations called "Operation Genesis." This attack was led by General Rito Alejo del Rio Rojas, a graduate of the School of the Americas located here in Georgia. They came to Uraba, to the land Enrique worked. They took his cattle. Stole his sheep. Killed his sons.
Villagers were massacred. The rest fled to the hills, leaving behind everything. Three years later, some of those who had been displaced decided to return home. What they found were not abandoned homes and desolate farmland. The fields that used to bear traditional Colombia crops - rice, yuca, plantains, and bananas - now were being used to grow African palms. These trees produce oil that serves as a much-coveted type of bio-fuel. The land that used to belong to Enrique was now in the hands of some multinational energy corporation. Money was the motivation behind "Operation Genesis." Dollars and cents. That's just one more thread in the knot of displacement.
-cpc
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