Buenos Aires, a small municipality in the north of Cauca, celebrates its festivals as if they were eternal. But this Sunday, three days before Christmas, the southwestern Colombian town of Callaba in full midday light, reduced to silence by the most atrocious armada in its history. On December 16, the men of the call before Jaime Martínez, one of the groups of dissidents of the extinct FARC who responded to the command of Iván Mordisco, attacked the municipal police headquarters. Conscious fighters were there, an hour from the city of Cali by car and a few minutes by helicopter, for more than a few hours. Nadie left to help the 17 uniforms at the station. They fired rifle shots, detonated bomb cylinders and grenades and flew drones with explosive devices in plain sight. On social networks, people did not hesitate to ask for help which only received a response five hours later, when the army, in the afternoon, sent means to mitigate the offensive.
Since then, the inhabitants of the pueblo have crossed themselves in front of the pile of rubble that fell in the Calicanto district, a small town located just opposite the municipal park. On the street where the attack was concentrated, there was still an abundance of gun bushes, over which children walked casually with their bicycles. The attack, which inevitably recalls the memory of the bloodiest years of the war in Cauca, between the end of the past and the beginning of the present, no longer concerns the dead, but only the inherited police officers who resisted in an underground bunker, created precisely for a war. Residents, who heard the attack under the mattresses of their homes or on the surrounding mountains, walked cautiously and avoided any noise that could be mistaken for bullets. “Since that day, I haven’t heard any more about today’s celebrations,” said a man from the town church.
That morning, a few minutes before the start of the offensive, in the loudspeakers of the Sonaban Villancicos parish, the announcement of the traditional rosary. But two gunshots and an explosion calmed the music which woke up the pueblo. The voice of one of the dissident commanders was heard over the megaphone, and he warned all residents that they had 10 minutes to evacuate. “We will take the pueblo entero,” I said defiantly. The priest and three women who were in the house were forced, under threats, to enter the armed dissidents to give them the warning message.
But the confrontation was already underway. The first cylinder bomb, a homemade explosive in which a pipette used for gas was filled with explosives to be thrown like a mortar, fell on the roof of the church. Inexplicably, I turned out to be a miracle, quickly bouncing back and mining several more blocks, without leaving a legacy. The watermelon on the facade of the temple shows that it is about to fall embedded right in the middle, when the church is ready to receive the faithful who recite the rosary. It is an image similar to that of May 3, 2002, when the now defunct FARC launched a cylindrical bomb that fell in the middle of the church of Bojayá, in the wild department of Chocó, and cost the lives of 80 people. This time, even if the story is more benevolent, the fear is felt in the prayers.
Buenos Aires residents say at least 300 armed men in camouflage entered the municipality from behind the Calicanto neighborhood. They entered in force and in synchronization into six houses which are opposite the police station. “We were told that we were leaving the house, that we could not be there, that we were waiting for other men to guide us to a cliff,” said one of the survivors. None of the family agreed to leave, but they all left shortly afterward when the explosive-laden drones flew low overhead. Amidst the explosive waves, as they were leaving their homes, they heard another call: “Today is a good day to die.”
Elba and Constantino, two people aged 87 and 92, hid in the bathroom when armed men entered through the back door. Constanza Paya, one of her daughters who witnessed the moment, says they were ready very quickly. “My mother helped me put on the shoes so we could leave.” From there, the three men walked two kilometers up the hill, waving a yellow towel over their heads to warn that they were civilians. They crossed a ravine and then had to take shelter under trees as army helicopters fired.
With the six houses empty, the dissidents located themselves next to the doors and windows of the six houses to open fire against the police station, located less than 10 meters away. They opened a box on the ground to arm the bomb cylinders which they launched with a ramp while, from the air, they sent more explosives with drones. As the attack had just begun, the church megaphone opened again, this time with the voice of the parish priest. “They (the dissidents) give the guarantee that they will respect the lives of the ustedes, dear policemen, so that they surrender,” I said as they fired again. The uniforms did not give way.
The villas now resemble skeletons. One of them has, on its facade, a white flag with the image of San Miguel Arcángel. When the confrontation intensified, several began to catch fire. From Humberto Chavestán, dedicated to mining, in the field of technology. This Sunday, he goes to the back terrace, where only he can keep his animals, and finds a bomb cylinder buried between the flowers. “I wasn’t there because I went to the mine, but my children fell alone with what they had left. All if they loved me. All of them”, repeats and continues walking. When the attack began, he heard explosions nearby. Suddenly, her daughters received a video call asking for help, but the village remained incommunicado. The dissidents passed through 15 bomb cylinders along the entry roads to prevent them from gaining police support. These explosives were only deactivated the next day, when the army managed to carry out controlled detonations.
Another house affected is that of Óscar Edwin López, mayor of Buenos Aires, who bought it to live there right in front of what was his order. His house was empty at the time of the attack, but when he managed to enter the village, it was filled with flames. “Buenos Aires is not a strategic corridor of anything. This pueblo does not obstruct the passage of anything, unlike what happens in Suárez,” he says of the old pueblo, known for being the birthplace of the vice-president of Colombia, Francia Márquez. Let’s also say that this also helped the Public Force. “I can’t find an explanation for this. The army was there before, it was constantly maintained, especially in the nearest rural area, but that day it was outside,” he explains. This is a question that concerns the entire city, while the Ministry of Defense limits itself to explaining, in a listening press release, that the delay is due to climatic conditions. However, the vecinos assured, videos in hand, that the day was empty and sunny.
Buenos Aires, which has some 30,000 inhabitants between the urban center and rural areas, functions as the nerve center of a network of rural roads that communicate between the northern Cauca department and its neighbor Valle del Cauca with several routes leading to the Pacific Ocean. It makes its living from the extraction of gold and carbon and, to a lesser extent, from the cultivation of coca. For decades, illegal groups have been present on its territory: until 2016, the date of the signing of the Peace Agreement, the First Front of the FARC dominated the economy and imposed social control. The front Jaime Martínez has filled his void. “Vidrios abajo o lomo”, we can read on the signs of different roads in northern Cauca.
However, unlike old Suárez, the population had avoided armed attacks. “We were very confident, but we always knew I was going to attack because he was there with Timba and Suárez, who was next. We just missed,” Constanza said from a table in what appeared to be the living room of his home. Another family, who prefers to protect their identity for security reasons, says they received explicit warnings. “We were ordered to decide that we would remove our children from the pueblo because they were forbidden to take it,” he said. The alerts, however, went unnoticed.
Alexis Balanta, head of the high guard (unarmed and autonomous police of certain Afro communities) of Cerro Teta, carries his command baton in his left hand. Walk to the affected area and organize the population for a rubble collection day. He spent three nights without sleeping, like all the people of Bonaventure, who feared a new attack. “During the day, sweat seizes me, but at night there is a loud noise that leaves him sitting,” he said. To the south still walks Yenny Larrahondo, leader of the Cimarrona guard. “A mi hija ya la saqué because she was very affected, but I can’t leave the house because there I have no more marranitos, no more chickens.”
In this area of the pueblo, during the day, the only sound is that of church bells. The priest continues to recite midday mass every six in the morning. This Sunday, after this attack, the church remains full. A teacher of young children dressed in parish white. They have just had their first communication. In the park, several of them pose with their families, with the same scenery in their photos: houses destroyed by explosives, facades pierced by bullets, the heavy silence of a city marked by violence.
About twenty kilometers away, on a road leading to Cali, the war is nowhere. This Sunday, when the inhabitants of Buenos Aires wanted to return home with the illusion of saving peace, shots were fired. Later in the afternoon, military helicopters confronted a group of dissidents who were trying to destabilize them. People who live on the roads come out to witness the confrontation and, in the face of danger, dodge the planes. Some people went to their social gatherings at the La Balsa police station to record and comment on the bulletin, as if it were a film. People ran across the field so as not to lose the moment. This image, in Cauca, is not new; Twenty years ago, many mountains saw similar scenes, with helicopters flying overhead and the sound of war echoing between the hills.
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