world mirror
Despite a peace agreement, FARC splinter groups, drug gangs and paramilitaries continue to terrorize people in the Cauca region. And continue to recruit children. Indigenous people in particular are the ones who suffer.
The footsteps of two dozen children echo through the room. Kevin has her running in place, doing push-ups and squats. The 19-year-old trains children from the indigenous people of NASA. The sport is designed to make them more confident and keep them busy. “We spend time together, have fun,” explains Kevin, “so that the children don’t join armed groups.”
Kevin – serious face, hair fashionably shaved on the sides – is a young man who smiles a lot but doesn’t like to talk about himself. Two years ago he was on the verge of becoming a child soldier. At 17, he joined a splinter group of the FARC guerrilla organization. Only through luck, because his mother negotiated with the militia, did he get out after a few months. He didn’t have to fight or shoot anyone, he says. To be on the safe side, we shouldn’t say his last name.
FARC is in charge
Kevin comes from Colombia’s Cauca region, near the city of Corinto. It is a green hilly landscape, beautiful and seemingly peaceful – but that is deceptive. Whoever is in charge here is visible on every street corner. “Windows down or there will be a bullet. The FARC,” someone wrote on a house wall. Scouts from armed groups want to know who is moving around after dark.
The police station is protected with sandbags and barriers for fear of attacks. There was recently an attack on the police in the nearby town of Timba that left two people dead. This kind of thing happens all the time here.
The indigenous Nasa, Kevin and Yelsy Yule, want to prevent the recruitment of child soldiers.
Despite peace contract no peace
Despite the government’s 2016 peace deal with the FARC, peace is simply not coming. Thousands of former fighters have rearmed themselves, partly out of frustration with the faltering peace process. Splinter groups of the former FARC are active in the Cauca, as are drug gangs and paramilitaries.
Coca plants grow almost right next to the road and cocaine is produced from their leaves. At night, the hills shine brightly as dozens of marijuana fields are illuminated with incandescent bulbs. It is a conflict-ridden zone, and the indigenous Nasa in particular have been caught between the fronts for decades.
The scenic beauty of the Cauca region contrasts with the hard lives of the people here. Gangs and militias continue to dominate the area.
“We are your second family”
At least change is now noticeable, says Yelsy Yule, an indigenous leader. Because the left-wing President Gustavo Petro initiated peace talks with the armed groups. “But there are many groups, many people involved, a complex situation,” says Yule.
Above all, Yule wants to prevent the recruitment of young people. The militias hang around in front of schools on their motorcycles, he complains. “They tell the kids, ‘Here, take this $20, buy me some. The rest is for you.’ That’s a lot of money.” Or the armed groups entrap the children with messages on social networks. “The militias play with their dreams and feelings,” says Yule, “they serve themselves like at a market.”
Kevin rarely talks to his family about his recruitment, but he has confided in Yule. There was anger over his father’s murder, as well as anger with his mother. “In the militia they tell you, ‘We’re your second family.’ And then they give you personal things like soap, toilet paper and deodorant,” says Kevin. These are seemingly small things, but they are not self-evident here.
Almost right next to the road, coca plants grow in Cauca, from whose leaves cocaine is produced.
Almost 20,000 children in 20 years
The area is rough, life is barren and hard. The farms are often isolated in the mountains and there are hardly any jobs. There is a lot missing, says sociologist Juan Manuel Torres from the PARES Foundation. The recruitment of minors is therefore one of the biggest problems in the region.
The FARC had also recruited children: 18,766 in 20 years, according to data from the Special Justice for Peace in Colombia. The figures according to the 2016 peace agreement are probably incomplete because many families do not report the disappearance of their children, often out of fear or because there is little the police can do anyway. Yule’s indigenous community speaks of 82 minors recruited this year alone, in the north of the Cauca alone.
Families know what threatens their children
Most affected families do not want to speak to journalists because the despair and shock are too great. They know what threatens their children. The boys fight, the girls are often sexually exploited. “Many have had their children murdered or returned mutilated,” says Erika Tatiana Caso from Nasa’s indigenous community. “And yet we avoid charging anyone directly. Because you might meet the militia around here again, in civilian clothes, and they might threaten you.”
The indigenous community is trying with all its might to counteract this. With education for the children, with sports and dance courses, with support in their community. They should learn to express their feelings, because almost every family has experienced violence, recruitment of fathers, brothers or sons and daughters.
NASA does not believe that the Cauca will quickly become more peaceful. “It’s complicated, very complicated,” says Caso. “The Cauca is strategically located on a drug route to the Pacific. The dispute over territory and control of the region will continue.” But they also have hope. Peace negotiations between Colombia’s government and the largest FARC dissident group will begin in a week. At the same time, the guns should be silent for ten months. It would be a breathing space for the conflict-torn region.