In the 34 years that Germán Balanta spent in Colombia’s most powerful leftist guerrilla group, the Farc, he and his fellow fighters planted thousands of landmines across the country. Now, he is helping to dig them up.
Balanta and scores of other former guerrillas are part of a project in southern Colombia to identify and clear minefields. They work for a group called Humanicemos, made up almost exclusively of ex-combatants. It is part of the Farc’s commitment to peace, agreed in the peace accord signed with the state in 2016.
“We planted mines and it pains me to admit that,” Balanta said as he showed me a rusty homemade nail-bomb his team found recently in the department of Caquetá, for years a stronghold of the Farc (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia). “But now we’re trying to make amends.”
The project, and others like it, are sorely needed in Colombia, one of the most mined countries in the world. Over the past three decades, about 12,000 people have been killed or maimed by mines and other unexploded munitions from a conflict that lasted more than half a century. One in every five died, while others lost limbs. One in every 10 was a child.
Balanta says his team has found grenades, detonators, fuses and explosive cord scattered across the countryside.
Once the peace agreement was signed, the hope was that the number of mine victims would fall. It had already dropped sharply in the previous decade, as the Farc was weakened militarily. From a peak of more than 1,200 mine and munitions victims in 2006, the number fell to fewer than 100 in 2016.
But five years after the peace deal was signed, the numbers are rising again, with the victims of other, more rudimentary improvised explosive devices (IEDs) added to the tally. In 2017, the Red Cross recorded 57 victims of landmines, munitions and IEDs in Colombia. The following year that figure jumped fourfold to 221, then to 352 in 2019 and to 389 last year. In other words, someone is killed or maimed by an explosive device every day in Colombia.
This sevenfold increase in what were supposed to be years of peace, looks at first glance to be a “legacy” problem — people wandering into areas that were once occupied by the Farc and stepping on long-buried landmines. But, depressingly, the jump in the number of victims is explained by more recent activity. It is due mostly to new explosive devices planted since the peace deal was signed.
While the Farc has disarmed and demobilised, other armed groups have taken their place. The Red Cross identifies five separate conflicts in Colombia. They involve Farc dissidents who did not sign up to the 2016 agreement or who have reneged on it, Marxist guerrillas from other groups, rightwing paramilitaries and mafia-style organised crime groups.
“None of these armed groups that we’re combating has renounced the practice of planting mines,” says Juan Camilo Restrepo, Colombia’s high commissioner for peace.
In the past, most landmine victims were from the armed forces. Indeed, the Farc often went out of their way to warn civilians of where they had planted their mines. But the armed groups currently active in Colombia are not so discriminating.
“The balance has shifted,” says Martha Hurtado, head of the national mine action authority. “In recent years around 60 per cent of victims have been civilians and 40 per cent from the armed forces. It used to be the other way round.”
De-mining groups such as Humanicemos are painstakingly clearing the country of mines but it is a long, slow process. The state initially hoped to finish the job by this year but acknowledges it needs more time. About 13 per cent of Colombia’s municipalities are so dangerous that the demining teams cannot even enter them.
Because of the new conflicts, however, demining in Colombia sometimes seems like a never-ending task. No sooner is an area cleared than it has to be checked again.
“We’re making areas safe here in Caquetá but even while we’re doing it there are armed groups out there planting new mines,” Balanta said. “It’s a job that requires a lot of patience.”
gideon.long@ft.com
Colombia’s landmines are more than a legacy issue
Pinoy Variant