Paramilitary graffiti in the town of Riosucio – “Guerrillas and grasses (informers) out of el Chocó” it reads.
Months earlier thousands of Afro-Colombian villagers had been displaced by Operation Genesis – a military operation spearheaded by the Colombian Army’s XVII Brigade supported by paramilitaries on the ground and by Air Force bombardments of the Lower Atrato region. The Afro-Colombian communities affected by the military offensive had been the first to be granted communal land tenure rights to their ancestral territories, but their forced displacement and subsequent absence has meant they have never been able to enjoy those rights granted them by the Colombian courts.
Light Notes · Short Tales 