The Comprehensive Plan for Collective Reparation of the community of Puerto López rural district, which aims to compensate for the damage caused by the armed conflict, was able to
comply with another measure to dignify the memory of the victims and recognize their resistance to violence.
A group of residents, including people who suffered homicides and forced disappearance of relatives, kidnappings, forced displacement, participated in a day that began with a march and ended with the delivery of the pedestal that honors the victims.
The local cemetery was the starting point of the walk that brought together inhabitants of this remote rural area of El Bagre and representatives of the Unit for the Attention and Comprehensive Reparation of Victims, the Government of Antioquia, the local Mayor’s Office and the Ombudsman’s Office.
The march was an exercise in collective grief as a measure of rehabilitation of collective reparation led by the group of victims and social leaders trained as “weavers”, through the community rehabilitation strategy “Entrelazando”, for the reconstruction of the social network that broke the violence.
During the tour they showed banners with messages and harangues of “bet for peace”, “no more violence” and the resilience of this population of Lower Cauca in Antioquia affected by the dispute between illegal armed groups.
The main act was the unveiling of the pedestal that honors the population that has suffered from the armed conflict, as noted in the writing on the bronze plaque: “The physical, psychological and environmental damage left indelible marks that today become the spinal column to promote the construction of peace and the reconstruction of the social network. They blinded many lives, but they did not end the dreams of people who are not satisfied with what was, but who fight for what can be.
For a victim and community leader like Jairo Rodríguez, “it is an important day because little by little we are feeling repaired by this collective reparation plan that we know is not easy. We are proud of this pedestal in honor of our victims and their families because they will remain in the history of Puerto López”.
For his part, the director of the Unit for the Reparation of Victims in Antioquia, Wilson Córdoba Mena, affirmed that the march of collective duels and the pedestal are “measures of rehabilitation and satisfaction of the comprehensive plan of collective reparation that aim to help mitigate pain with a work of historical memory so as not to forget those macabre events and that they are not repeated”.
Municipality prioritized by peace policy
Before the community, the official acknowledged the difficulties for the implementation of this plan, while highlighting that, in coordination with the Government of Antioquia, the Mayor’s Office and other entities, measures such as: permanent health services and an ambulance have been implemented, productive fish farming projects, reconstruction of the main field of Puerto López and adaptation of sports venues on 13 sidewalks. Also, the recovery of sports and cultural practices.
In addition, projects of cocoa, banana, pastoral silvo, rubber, fruit and citrus projects are managed, the construction and adaptation of rural schools and a collection center for peasant products.
In El Bagre, a municipality prioritized by the Government’s Peace with Legality policy and Development Programs with a Territorial Approach (PDET), in compliance with the peace accords, the Victims Reparation Unit has invested more than 22.650 million pesos in humanitarian aid, psychosocial care, social infrastructure projects, and compensation for nearly a thousand people who suffered crimes during the armed conflict.
(Fin/JCM/LMY/AEB)
