Landmine Monitor's Camilo Serna on his research in Colombia

A Repetitive Story

The plane landed early in San José del Guaviare, a small city in the middle of the Colombian jungle. As passengers arrive at the airport, they must go through a police control. By using citizen identification, the police verify whether the people arriving have any issues with the law. A policeman watches over the passenger line, which is formed in front of the police control. While I was waiting, I took out of my bag the ICBL cap, which I bring to my research missions. As soon as the policeman saw the cap, he informed me that I am expected and that I can come through. I was surprised, because the only person who knows about my trip was the coordinator of the Colombian Campaign against Landmines of the province. Ashamed to move ahead of the other passengers, I registered myself in the control and go out to the commercial area of the airport. At the door, a corpulent character asks me, “Are you Camilo Serna?”

San José del Guaviare is the capital city of the Amazonian province of Guaviare. A historic place where the coca leaf is grown and negotiated, it has a high register of antipersonnel mine accidents. Part of the province of Guaviare is crossed by a road that marks an imaginary border between the paramilitaries, which maintain domain over the city of San José, and the guerrillas of the Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC), the oldest revolutionary group in the country.

“I am “The Bold,” and I have come to accompany you during your visit,” the character said, while courteously taking my bag to the cab that would take us to the hotel. Once I had checked into the hotel, “The Bold,” whose real name was Edison, told me that he is a member of the United Self-Defenses of Colombia–Guaviare block, an elegant name used by paramilitaries in Colombia. His mission was to offer me protection during my research, because according to him, the region is too “difficult,” a term used to describe a combat zone.

Edison takes me outside the city to a military base of the Colombian and American Armies. He shows me a zone that, according to his knowledge, is mined and doesn’t have signs to warn the people that go along it. I did the same route three years ago and it presented several warning signs. “We know very well what happens there,” Edison asserted firmly, “that zone is mined.”

This information was fundamental months later, when building one of the Landmine Monitor reports of Colombia. The research inside the military forces to identify the irregularity about the demarcation of the mined zones by the Colombian army still continues.

Edison also gave me information about the mines in the zone and the consequences to his irregular army, as well as the training they receive to arm and disarm different kinds of mines. All of this information was included in the Landmine Monitor report.

Colombia is a country in permanent armed conflict, a rural war that doesn’t touch the big cities. That’s why the collection of information about mines implies double the work, rural and urban, and a high level of risk. However, directing the eyes of the world to Colombia, and above all, focusing them on the victims, is a worthy effort.

Camilo Serna – Landmine Monitor Report – Colombia Researcher