[Dryerase] AUC wages “social cleansing”

[Shawn G]

Asheville Global Report
www.agrnews.org

AUC wages “social cleansing” campaign vs. gays

By Willy Rosencrans

Bogota, Colombia, Aug. 8-- His real name is a secret. Carlos, 26, smiles 
uncomfortably and hedges when asked if he can be photographed. He can’t 
sleep at home; paramilitaries have his house under constant surveillance. 
His voice, when he discusses his work, drops to a whisper if others are 
nearby.
"We fear for our lives," he says. "They’re coming to look for us."
Carlos has violated an unwritten law in this city: a law forbidding 
homosexuality.
The city of Barrancabermeja is home to some of Colombia’s most resolute and 
defiant activist groups. Its history is intimately connected with the birth 
of the Union Sindical Obrera (the oilworkers’ union, USO), a powerful and 
radical force on the national political scene, famous for standing up to 
pressures from both the federal government and multinational oil companies 
like Standard Oil. The Organizacion Femenina Popular (Popular Women’s 
Organization, OFP) has also been a powerful voice for justice in the region 
and has staged some of Colombia’s largest rallies for peace.
But like many local activists, Carlos now lives under the constant threat of 
death from the AUC. The paramilitary group made its first inroads here on 
Dec. 24, 2000, under cover of the Colombian army’s "Operation Merry 
Christmas," which was to guarantee the people of the region a safe holiday. 
Over the last year and a half the AUC has increased its control over all but 
a few of the city’s neighborhoods and begun a program not only of violent 
repression against those who would stand in the way of big money and 
political power, but of "social cleansing" reminiscent of the Third Reich,
Carlos’s group, Diversidad Humana (Human Diversity), is more desperate and 
lonely than most, and its struggle has gone almost completely unremarked.
"In the neighborhood of La Paz," he whispers, "the paramilitaries surprised 
a 14-year-old boy having sex with another male. They stripped him naked and 
paraded him through the city wearing a sign that said ‘I’m a faggot.’ He 
left… In the neighborhood of Mira Flores lived a lesbian couple. Two 
paramilitaries came and forced them to have sex with them to show them what 
a real man is like. They had to leave the city, also… A friend of mine was 
found dead by the lake with his penis cut off. They left a note: ‘This is 
because he was a homosexual.’"
The gay community is shunned, by and large, by Catholic and Protestant 
churches alike and by most non-governmental organizations. Recently the OFP 
has been letting Carlos sleep and work at one of its community centers. 
International accompaniment, which many social justice workers say is the 
only way they can do their work with any guarantee of safety, is available 
to him from Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) and a few other groups.
But CPT learned last week that the AUC may kill one of its volunteers in 
response to the group’s denunciations of human rights abuses. If this 
happens, the effectiveness of international accompaniment could be 
compromised, and the gay community’s small list of defenses could grow even 
smaller.
Homophobia is less problematic in big cities like Bogota, but there, too, 
visibility invites danger. On Mar. 1 of this year the house of Manuel 
Velandia Mora, an openly gay candidate in Parliamentary elections in 
Colombia, was damaged by a grenade. The house also served as a meeting place 
for Solidaridad Comunitaria, an organization serving the lesbian, gay, 
bisexual, and transgendered community.
In Barranca it’s much worse. The AUC is not above hiring boys to have sex 
with men they suspect of being gay. If the tactic is successful, the boys 
denounce the men to the paramilitaries, who kidnap or kill them. Tactics 
like these serve to create a climate of fear and mistrust, integral to the 
weakening of community on which the AUC’s success is contingent.
“The paramilitaries are the hidden force of the army and the police,” says 
Carlos, echoing the words of countless citizens in this town and throughout 
Colombia. “They want a social cleansing campaign… They just want to 
exterminate us. They feel like public homosexuality dirties the name of 
Colombia. They want a ‘clean’ Colombia.”
The international community, he says,  needs to put more pressure on the 
government of Colombia to uphold the human rights of gays and lesbians.
"We’re normal people," Carlos says. "We deserve respect… We have dreams, and 
we need to be able to realize those dreams."






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