the painful truth in Colombia

not quite the same assessment we embraced

The never ending drama of the U.S. presidential system almost squeezed out the amazing story of four children under the age of 13 surviving in rural Colombia for more than 5 weeks. I assume we will see a movie eventually about this inspiring tale.

If you missed it, four siblings ranging from 1 to 13 years old survived a plane crash in southern Colombia on 1 May although three adults onboard perished. Government officials found the wreckage two and a half weeks later but early status updates could not explain why bodies of the four youngsters were not with the plane debris.

Soldiers ultimately located the children on 9 June. 13 year old Lesly managed to shepard them away from the crash several days after their mother, who survived for three days following the crash, insisted they flee. These poor kids ate what they could forage or what limited supplies were in the plane’s wreckage. Lesley was carrying her one year old sister as she also led her second sister and a brother to some place some one would rescue them.

The father of the younger two children, which I assume makes them technically half-siblings, now says the flight began as an attempt to shield these Indigenous children from recruitment by remnants of the Fuerzas Armadas Revolucationarias Colombianas, the FARC of years past. As true in so many portions of the world, Indigenous populations are less affluent in Colombia and suffer recruitment, forced or voluntary, by the guerrilleros and allies.

Most telling to me is the reality that whole segments of Colombia remain outside of the sovereignty of Bogotá. That has always been one of the most pivotal problems in this beautiful but challenged nation in northwestern South America. The lack of government presence in wide swaths of the rural areas is at the heart of the nation’s tortured history, particularly in the twentieth and twenty-first century.

Americans, if they have any knowledge of Colombia, most likely know it for the narcotraficantes who provided cocaine and other illegal drugs to U.S. streets in the 1980s and ‘90s. Drug traffickers included the FARC, the ELN (Ejército de Liberación Nacional, a smaller and more recent guerrilla group), and right wing death squads spawned from the protection forces funded by landowners in rural communities; Colombia’s problems were cross-political rather than simply left-right or Marxist-Democratic. It was a complex pattern of affiliation, objectives, and violence that continued the century-long pattern of eradicating opponents altogether rather than defeating them at the ballot box. By the end of the 1990s, fears of drugs and associated violence overwhelming our own social structure pushed presidents Clinton and Bush 43 to provide more than $10 millions both to beef up Colombia’s military to fight the drug traffickers and to strengthen civil society.

By the beginning of the Obama administration, both Washington and Bogotá believed the strengthening of Colombia’s armed forced had turned the tide against the left-wing groups seeking to overthrow the central government since the mid-1960s. President Juan Manuel Santos negotiated with the FARC for several years before the majority but not all of latters agreed to put down their weapons to reintegrate into normal society.

As has been true repeatedly through its almost two hundred year history, Colombians did not agree uniformly on how best to treat those who violently fought the state. A referendum to support the negotiated peace garnered insufficient support to go into effect, although Santos and the FARC leaders pledged to continue observing negotiated ceasefire terms. Santos announced a commitment to spend millions to take central government presence to those remote areas long open for FARC and ELN activities where the government had little role in people’s daily lives.

Sadly, as the story of the four siblings illustrates, many distant rural areas are still politically and certainly socio-economically apart from thriving urban areas such the capital, Medellín, Barranquilla or Cali. Without the connection to the central government programs, these Colombians (often Indigenous or Afro-Caribbean peoples) living far from major cities remain vulnerable to those disrupters purporting to bring social change where the government refuses. The people excluded from the nation’s prosperity become part of a battle ground for ideas, often highlighting the sad failure of the system. This is why a father and mother put their children on a plane to escape the socio-economic isolation likely to draw the surviving anti-government forces to pursue the children’s recruitment into guerrillas.

Press reports mentioned this ungoverned spaces reality in passing as the four children’s tale becomes clearer. The improvements in urban Colombia over the past decade are remarkable; both Democratic and Republican administrations deserve credit to supporting the Colombian government as far as it went. The challenges of genuine inclusivity and governance confronting the nation of 50 million continue even after the massive infusion of support recently.

These four children bring much joy to a nation still wrestling with choices on how to address its past, its present choices, and its future trajectory. Their lives indicate the incredible drive for survival, even at a year old. But their parents’ desire to relocate them from the harm of guerrillas pursuing them is a reminder that the job is not completely finished for that south American country. FIN