Two stories that struck me
today:
René Bonilla is a Colombian
who has been living in Spain for 7 years and has been working hard as a painter
to bring his wife and 2-year old daughter from Colombia to Madrid.
When his wife and daughter
arrived, René had been out of work for a month already. He had spent his
savings on the journey of the three of them.
Now they are living in one
room with one bed, which also serves as a dinner table and a place to watch
television. They are surviving on loans from their landlord.
Wilson Bueno Largo is an
other Colombian. He had been in the FARC for ten years and had been known as
Isaza until he decided to escape and bring with him Oscar Lizcano, who had been
a hostage of the FARC for about eight years. The government awarded him.
He was permitted to go to
France, with his girlfriend, also a former FARC-member, and gave him about
350,000 euro for saving Lizcano’s life. Moreover, Bueno will receive a 800 euro
a month allowance while living in France and will be helped to start a new life
there.
We don’t know what crimes
Bueno has committed during his ten years in the FARC. He did a great thing
though, saving Lizcano.
But the comparison of his
story and that of René is heart breaking. It is just not fair and it seems a
repetition of mistakes made earlier.
While there’s hundreds of
thousands of Colombians in the U.S. and in Spain struggling to provide a better
life for their children, it is the ‘sapos’, the snitching drug traffickers, the
demobilized members of the AUC and the guerrillas that are getting away.
It is understandable the
government is desperate to end the seemingly endless violent conflict that’s
been ruining so many Colombian lives, but what happened to justice?
Perhaps Uribe will reach
the freedom of more hostages who are in FARC camps, but he will not reach the
end of the illegal groups – be it guerrilla or new paramilitaries – in
Colombia, because crime sells. He won’t even prevent that more people will be kidnapped.
Mr. Uribe was furious
because the Liberal politician Piedad Córdoba and a group of intellectuals are
trying to negotiate with the FARC to liberate more hostages and bring a
political solution to the country’s conflict. I welcome their initiative and
hope very much it will be fruitful.
I also hope that René will
get over his terrible crisis.
Author Wies Ubags is a Dutch freelance journalist in Bogotá and works for media in her country.