The Colombian youngster Robinson was killed because he had dated the former girlfriend of a drugs dealer. That was an unforgivable crime. His desperate father had known that something was going to happen and had done everything to protect his son. He had sent him to a big city to study, to be away from the spot where there was so much influence from ‘bad friends’. It was just there where he met the girl and where he wrote his own death sentence.
His father, mad with grief, is doing everything to get the killer and the one who gave him the order into jail. He is one of the so many parents in Colombia whose children were killed or whose children disappeared. It is common business, it is life as usual.
At the moment the whole country is in fury and in grief because the 11 month old baby Luis Santiago was kidnapped and killed by people who were paid by its father. A horrendous crime, no doubt. And people are right to be upset. Hopefully the father, who already confessed his crime, will be locked up for many years.
But what about all those youngsters like Robinson, or those in poor areas like the shanty town Ciudad Bolívar in Bogotá or the neighbor town of Soacha. They disappeared and their parents were desperate with sorrow. They were found months later, supposedly in fights between the army and the guerrilla, in areas far away from where they disappeared. In other words they supposedly were guerrillas as well. Who invented this horrifying set up and will these persons ever appear before a judge?
The problem in this country is that life isn’t worth anything. People are killed because they don’t want to hand over their leather jacket. Young kids without any future are willing to kill a person for any amount of money.
Like the killer of Robinson. It is against this phenomenon that the country should stand up. Any person, rich or poor, deserves to live a decent life and should feel protected by the state.
People should be conscious that it is a very bad thing to kill a person. And the country shouldn’t just blame the guerrilla and the drugs traders. People should look into their own hearts and question their own indifference.
Author Wies Ubags is a
Dutch freelance journalist in Bogotá and works for media in
her country.