Not only is Buenaventura the main harbor of Colombia, with over 75 % of colombia’s merchandises transit, it is also the city that has the highest crime rate of the country. Today the blame is on the BACRIM, the bandas criminales, most of them are ex para-militaries that fight each other over a turf war to control the drug transit. The geographical position of Buenaventura has always been coveted by the different armed factions that are in Colombia.
The control of the territory enables to control the drug traffic but not only, it enables to as well to extort money from the population, a sort of a local mafia tax that applies to everyone, to cross an invisible border between neighborhoods, to start a business. People are afraid to end up in a casa de pique – a chop house – where people are dismembered alive. The pieces are then thrown to the sea or in the neighboring mangrove nicknamed isla de calaveres – the skull island – where everybody can see them to serve as an example. Brujeria – witchcraft from the pacific coast of colombia – is a tradition that can also explain this tradition, the body parts are used as offerings or to make amulet to avoid getting caught by the police or to dodge bullets from rival gangs. This fear keeps the population from rebelling.
The violence as become banal to the point that children in Buenaventura play casa de pique – instead of playing cat and mouse – they the cat is called devil and the mouse is the victim that gets caught in the casa de pique.
In Puente Nayero, the humanitarian zone, the casa de pique has been put down by the owner in an attempt avoid bad memories. Everybody use to hear the screaming but nobody dared to intervene.
Orlando isn’t impressed by this daily life: “ I know where the ones that threatens me live, informers come right in front of my house to try to frighten me !”
Violence is a consequence! We have important social problem here! Water is a huge problem here, we often only get access to it 3 days per month! How can we accept this when Buenaventura is surrounded by 9 sources of fresh water! Buenaventura is the main harbor of the country but the wealth is only transiting here, none of the local population benefits from it ! We only have left dead bodies orphans and crying mothers. The government doesn’t look out for the population only the harbor counts to them.”
The colombian government took the decision t militarize the city in March 2014, little before the presidential elections that resulted with the reelection of Juan Manuel Santos.
