‘Heroes in Colombia do exist’ was a campaign that circulated in 2009, during the second term of former president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, where the work of thousands of members of the public force was exalted, who fight from different territories of the country, permeated by the armed conflict, to guarantee the protection of the civilian population. It is part of its institutional mission.
Pitifully, On May 2, 2002, the weapons, tools, knowledge, and expertise of “the heroes of Colombia” failed Bojayá, a remote municipality of Chocó, a department located in one of the rainiest regions in the world, but its aqueduct and sewage system remains very poor; Part of its roads are dirt roads, and the absence of the State is still notable.
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A violent armed confrontation for control of the territory between the 58th front of the FARC-EP and the Elmer Cárdenas bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), which had begun on April 20, 2002, worsened on that date, leaving 98 people dead, after a pipette bomb fell on the roof of the church in the Bellavista district, where almost 600 people were confined, after resist several days of fighting.
According to Routes of Conflict, 79 people were direct victims of the explosion; 48 of them were minors; 13 died in the events following the attack due to the severity of their injuries and six people who were exposed to the tragedy died of cancer in the following eight years.
As incredible as it may seem, these red balances of pain and devastation could have been worse, had it not been for the fact that, precisely on that Thursday morning – a day of work, study, and daily activities for the inhabitants of said municipality -, there was a hero present, not in a camouflage uniform, armed with a rifle or grenade in hand. It was a black man, with a white tunic, a Bible and with the remains of a Christ in his hand: his name was Antún Ramos.
Antún Ramos Cuesta, better known as Father Antún Ramos, experienced, like his parishioners and other inhabitants of the township, the impact of the explosion of the pipette bomb. He was left with an open wound on his forehead, and his feet were nailed by the remains of Eternit from the shattered tiles. But this did not prevent him from hearing the survivors, flooded with terror, say: “What do we do, father?”
This was his story Infobae Colombia about his life and version of the history that marked Colombia, and that coincides with many locals who lived through the tragedy. It was captured in his book Bojayá, story of the father who survived the massacre, which will be presented at the Cali International Book Fair, on Saturday, October 25, at 7:00 pm, in the Colombia auditorium; book that took him 23 years to write, because otherwise “it would have caused a lot of pain.”
“I was 28 years old. I arrived in Bojayá in 2000. Here you learn to swim by jumping into the water. You see if this works, this doesn’t work, we walk around here. And because of the same story behind us, certain interactions, certain reactions are facilitated. And it was like this, in the midst of this whole situation, a 28-year-old bald man, without much expertise in conflict issues. I think I had the lucidity, the tranquility and the gallantry so that this tragedy, which was not produced by us farmers, even though it was very damaging, could have been more serious,” he told this medium.
Antún Ramos was born in 1973, in Bagadó (Chocó), a quiet town of more than 10,000 inhabitants, widely believing in the Catholic religion; with their own beliefs and customs…
“The town is very beautiful. We are from a river culture, so you have a spectacular river, not yet as polluted as other rivers, there is some mining that pollutes little, but the river is still a source of life, of providing food, of sharing and the people are special. It is a town with a Catholic culture and tradition. We give all the importance to Catholic rituals, especially during the patron saint festivities.”, he noted.
He said that during these celebrations, families put out their “best appearance”, the new clothes are not shown off in December, but on these dates: from January 25 to February 2, when the Virgin of Candelaria is celebrated, in addition to Holy Week.
“Holy Week is also very beautiful because they dance, they dance, we call the dance of the saint; that is, the saints go to the maximum in rhythm and people pass under the image asking for blessing, health, prosperity. Perhaps it is the same as Popayán, but this time to the rhythm of drums, with all the folklore and joy possible. In many towns we have this tradition of dancing the saint; that is, of Africanizing them,” stood out.
He is already a 52-year-old man, and his skin, at first glance, is not entirely a witness to what he has survived: the death of his mother in the midst of harassment by the guerrilla, the kidnapping of one of his seven brothers, the terrorist attack in Bojayá, and the death threats that arose later. Where it is recorded is in his mind and memory, where the stories are as alive as his emotions when remembering the death and desolation that invaded Bojayá little by little.
Bojayá was not always the present scene of illegal armed groups. The father remembers it as a territory very similar to Bagadó, quiet, with working people, who lived with the problem that every time it rained the river would rise and the houses would flood. Despite its complexities and state abandonment, its inhabitants lived happily.
But, at the end of the 90s, prominent leaders of the territory began to be assassinated, a situation that became worrying.
“The paramilitaries wanted to expand their territory. And they began to see in the Urabá of Chocó, a possibility of protecting themselves, of dominating a territory. It was all an area where they were gradually decimating part of the population, based on the premise of the scapegoat; that is, They killed certain leaders who had influence to intimidate the rest of the population“, he pointed out.
He said that, although there was a presence of FARC guerrillas, they did not stay in the territory, but given the paramilitary presence in the region, they came to Bojayá to stay.
It was in 2002 that rumors that the paramilitaries wanted to “retake their territory” began to grow. This led to at least 10 early warnings being issued before the tragedy. All ignored by the State.
“The paramilitaries entered on April 20, at 11:00 am. And from there we began to make early warnings, because the paramilitaries said that they were coming to take out the guerrillas and We knew that the fight was not going to be so easy, because the guerrilla had been there for years and had much more experience militarily speaking.”he explained.
The international support at the time, which supported the massive dissemination of the alerts and sent them to the Government, was insufficient. May morning arrived and the tragedy that so many people warned to avoid occurred.
The father, a seminarian sent to Bojayá by the diocese of Quibdó, being a young and vogorous man, who could resist mosquitoes, floods and malaria, was not prepared to resist the harshness of war, armed conflict, and violence.
The clashes broke out, a situation that led the inhabitants to abandon their homes made of wood or other materials that were easy for bullets to penetrate, to look for cement structures: the health center, the César Conto departmental school, the house of the Agustina sisters and the San Pablo Apóstol church, to withstand the rifle bursts between the two armed groups.
May 2, 2002 cannot be forgotten, because more than 600 inhabitants were confined in these places waiting for a rescue, respect for life and to be out of conflict. But none of this happened. In that margin of error that involves throwing an explosive pipette through the air, it fell on the roof of the church, where The mothers reassured their children, stating that the nightmare was going to pass, and they would soon return to their daily activities, without privileges, but happy.
Father Antún recalled that he lost consciousness for several seconds, but his DNA to resist was immediately activated. He knew it was the only hope to get the survivors out alive, and as he said before, prevent the tragedy from getting worse.
“The fighting continues after the pipette falls. We go to the sisters’ house, which is 20 meters away. Then the paramilitaries go again and stand behind us. And the guerrillas return again and throw a pipette in the direction where they were shooting bullets; that is, the pipette could also have fallen in the sisters’ house. Then people begin to say: What do we do? It’s a load of responsibility, because in the end people say: ‘well, whatever the father tells us to do, that’s it.’ A 28-year-old bald guy,” he said.
Therefore, he gathered his courage and tied a white sheet to a kind of shovel. It was the father leading a parade of bloody and mutilated bodies asking for respect for life.:
“I do the march of life so that the actors who were walking around would listen to us. I shouted, ‘Who are we?’, and the people responded: ‘the civilian population’. And then I shouted, ‘What do we demand?’, imagine him in the middle of a shootout, demanding from an actor, without mercy, without a soul. I shouted, ‘What do we demand?’, and the people responded: ‘That they respect our dignity.’ life'”.
Father Antún recalled that they were trying to reach Vigía del Fuertewhere there is a hospital with better conditions to care for the injured, or at least provide first aid.
Being such a remote town, the father as a missionary was part of the delegation that supplied the territory with food and different elements for the community’s subsistence; in addition to key supplies to make boat trips to other communities.
This process, in many cases, was hindered by the National Army, which withheld these supplies with the pretext that they could be assigned to the FARC guerrilla.
In the midst of these provisions, the father had 500 gallons of gasoline in the back of his church, precisely for traveling in the region.
He cried when he remembered that, as he repeated in this interview, the tragedy could have been worse, because while the gunshots sounded, he remembered the fuel he had stored, and that a spark, bullet, or contact with fire would have ended the confrontation, and at the same time, the entire population.
“I had 500 gallons of gasoline there next to the church. The pipette fell 10 meters away where I had 500 gallons of gasoline and 700 people. So, it was my great fear. The responsibility that you have with 700 people there, and that the armed actor, because of his vanity, because of his power, because he feels omnipotent, has not looked at the humanity of all of us who were there. My fear was always that these people were going to throw something and it would fall there,” he said.
There are many details that cannot be told in this interview, because the idea is to discover it in the book. Details such as the reaction of the guerrillas and paramilitaries to the moments after the explosion occurred, and the singular physiological reaction of a guerrilla to what was provoked, to the victims, and to the violence, are some details that are discovered in the father’s story, which warns that we did not learn from what happened in Bojayá.
In the years after the tragedy, the father sought asylum in Europe after being the victim of serious threats, following the irresponsible statements of General Mario Montoya. He studied, specialized, and continues to serve Chocó as a parish priest, this time in Tutunendo. He is an anonymous hero, of those who serve their community without expecting any recognition, although if one were to become one, it would be more than deserved and worthy of replicating other leaders who work in silence.
