MEDELLIN: Youth Promoting alternatives to a history of violence

Continuous Past
The city of Medellin, which at one point identified as the murder capital of the world has a population of 2,300 (not counting the displaced people). It has a total of 16 districts (known as Comunas) that divide 250 barrios in the outskirts of the city. Medellin was and became infamous for being the epicenter of drug trafficking and for being the home of powerful dealers such as Pablo Escobar and more recently for hosting the Office of Envigado (group of drug cartels that have strong territorial power). Such a history has carried out and extended itself to Medellin's present, creating a dynamic of complex social issues. It is worth mentioning that the current president of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe is from Medellin and that his popularity rate had a first peak when he was governor of Antioquia (1995-97) when he promoted the CONVIVIR (groups of armed civil society members, mostly peasants in Antioquia).

Uribe was new in the Casa de Nariño (Presidential Palace) in 2002 when between October 16-18 a military operation executed by the IV Brigade commanded by General Montoya entered into the Comuna 13 (General Montoya recently quit his post as head of the Military of Colombia due to the scandals surrounding the Colombian Military for the extra-judicial killings). This operation is identified as Operation Orion and its military objective was to regain control of a territory that was disputed by the left-wing guerrillas FARC, ELN, the right-wing AUC, and the State. What was not equated (or rather, in spite of) the military objective did not discriminate between the thousands of civilians that stood in the middle of a battleground. It is now remembered as one of the most tragic incidents an urban setting has experienced where authorities placed civil society in the middle of a military operation that manifested itself as a literal warzone. Three days of bombs, shootings, and fear resulted in almost a dozen dead, including a child, 38 injured, 8-11 persons disappeared, 358 detained, and a posterior displacement of hundreds. Six years later, there has not been a single person held responsible for such actions and the death of the innocent residents of the Comuna 13.

Medellin is also a city where thousands of displaced people have accumulated over the years (starting 1985) attempting to find a haven from the violence experienced in their homes located in the rural sectors surrounding the Valley of Aburra and extending as far north to the states of Choco, Northern Antioquia, and Cordoba. The history of drug cartels, the expanded urban violence in the context of a continuing armed-conflict, and the social conditions particular to city-life makes Medellin a setting full of contrasts and extremes. Medellin struggles to hold on to a façade of a modern city of high fashion and beauty queens alongside the developing touristy attractions while the fermentation of a history of violence with barrels of poverty does not cease to exist. This year alone, the media has documented the increasing number of homicides (including a member of the women’s organization Ruta Pacifica and the continuing threats to social organizations (including the RED-Juvenil).

The reality is that Medellin is full of contrasts that offer the opportunity for viewers, residents, visitors, and authorities to “see what they want to see”. The infrastructure developments and the conditions in the barrios that simultaneously exist with the increasing militarization of the society allows the government to “prove” that the city is a safer place while the displaced people continue to grow in numbers. Nonetheless, Medellin is still growing with the number of displaced people who continue to expand the horizons of the Barrios along the slope of the mountains that surround a chaotic city that somehow still manages to breed hope even in its most remote corners.

Youth and Nonviolence
Our partner organization, The Youth Network of Medellin (RED-Juvenil de Medellin) is composed of young people that seek to transform the social conditions that promote violence, discrimination, and militarization of its society.
“Medellin is a chaotic city and we see homelessness, hunger, violence, paramilitaries, criminals and youth all mixed up in one setting. We have to struggle on a daily basis to move away from perpetrating the mechanisms that promote this kind of society,” says a member of the RED-Juvenil.

Many members of the RED-Juvenil come from the Barrios and/or currently have family members who are still suffering from the violence and negligence that dominates those sectors. The conditions seen and experience by residents in some of Medellin’s notorious barrios are high levels of violence, drug consumption and distribution, and the degrading housing conditions, encapsulated with an overall poverty and absence of state authorities. Additionally, the residents of these areas are marginalized and excluded from receiving attention and public services for this population rendered as invisible more than ignored. This combination of realities results in illegal armed groups having the authority to control sectors of the population and demand from the residents compliance, obedience, and support for their illegal activities, including forced recruitment into their groups and pave the way for another generation born into violence.

Over the past decade the RED-Juvenil has focused on developing different outreach strategies to be able to create, promote, and sustain alternative spaces for young people to find and cultivate new visions and activities to their existing social conditions. Through active participation, public events, workshops, alternative grassroots organizing classes, and informative publications, the RED seeks to incorporate youth from across the city, including residents of the various Barrios.

Opening spaces in the Barrios
This past Saturday the RED-Juvenil organized an event in Barrio Pedegral in the district known as Castilla as part of the activities that the RED-Juvenil organized for the Human Rights Weeks in Medellin (held from December 1st-12).

The RED is seeking to support the use of space for social organizing and to work with local youth to collaborate with joint activities as they strengthen a kind of solidarity that will effectively bridge steps towards a movement that is more inclusive, both socially and geographically, of the marginalized population.

“There are some organized groups that reside in this Barrio that focus their work on art projects and cultural activities. We want to support them and offer them the opportunity to also explore alternative views to our society that promote non-violence and conscientious objection,” explained Aleja from the RED-Juvenil.

The youth in this Barrio expressed their need to have more options on their day to day and to become exposed to other projects and activities. “I want to do other things but it is not easy here because we have a lot of violence and some groups here threaten you if you do not want to join them,” says a local youth.

As part of their non-violence commitment the RED wants to expose youth in these Barrios with options that can contrast what seems to be their only options in their violent surroundings. Saturday’s event was their first big activity that the RED-Juvenil organizes in the Barrio Pedregal with the participation and support of the local youth.

The event had a combination of dance presentations, various bands with different genres (hip-hop, reggae, punk-rock, alternative, and chirimia). There were about 150 participants and many passersbyers stopped throughout the day to observe and enjoy the live music.

The RED-Juvenil also had a silk-screen workshop and gave out free samples to the youth with different designs and images that promoted conscientious objection and non-violence.

“We first had to come and check-out the scene because we are putting ourselves at risk by just showing up in a Barrio where we do not normally have activities or presence. But we had the support of the local youth and that is why we decided to move forward with the event,” says a member of the Red-Juvenil.

The Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) was invited to come and observe this event witness firsthand the first public event in the Barrio. The presence of an international organization that works with Human Rights is important to members of the RED because they feel that there is a kind of political protection rendered. “It is important to highlight that without the presence of Internationals, we feel that we are more vulnerable to threats and actions against our work,” says a member of the RED-Juvenil. FOR seeks to visibilize and recognize those approaches that work to make less invisible the situation in the Barrios and that promote peaceful alternatives to resist violence and crime.

The RED-Juvenil has been working and continues to work in a context that has a limited space for youth whose goals are to step away from the militarize society and violence in their surroundings. What is important to recognize is that they want to work with other youth and together change the conditions that will affect the next generation of Colombians.