Generales

By: Johanna Pino Quiceno - Journalist
Between Antioquia and Chocó lies a village known as Mandé. In this locality, ancestral communities, demobilized combatants, state institutions, churches, international organizations and the private sector are involved in an important work of social reconstruction after years as protagonists of the armed conflict. In this context, several Universidad de Antioquia professionals support the work with Mandé’s inhabitants. 
Aerial view of the main settlement in Mandé. On the left, the river that lends its name to the village can be seen. The thick vegetation surrounding it is evidence of the difficulty in accessing the place. Photo: Johanna Pino.

Eleazar lives in Mandé, a place located in a rural area of the municipality of Urrao, Antioquia, which can be reached by mule in a 12-hour journey or by helicopter. It is as if you had to travel all the way to Tarazá from Medellín to find medical, banking and institutional attention. It is 225 kilometers of a bridle path that separates you from any attention to your emergencies, a call or connection to the Internet.

Mandé is in the biogeographic Chocó, an area that extends to Panama and Peru with great natural and cultural wealth. A small portion of it enters Antioquia, and that is where Eleazar lives. It is the same place where the FARC-EP held captive and assassinated the former governor of Antioquia, Guillermo Gaviria Correa, the former peace advisor, Gilberto Echeverri, and eight soldiers of the Colombian National Army in 2003.

"We had never seen anything like that", recalls Mildonia Santos, a tall, dark-skinned woman, after putting in the oven the chocolate buns she hopes to sell in the afternoon. She was 17 years old. While she was preparing arepas and corn wraps, she looked up at the sky and saw armed men slowly coming down. "We got scared and dashed into the mountains. We had never seen that in our lives". That day, she left Mandé. Without any pause on the road through the jungle, night came, and they sighted another settlement, Vásquez, where they have remained ever since.

The road is the meeting place for Mandeceños: the church, the Mandé Peace and Reconciliation Park, and some of the stores that sell basic products are in the same place. Photo: Christian Daniel Ávila Pertuz.

Vásquez is the main settlement of the seven that make up Mandé. The inhabitants of Mandé receive medical attention there, and young people like Eleazar, in 11th grade, go to high school. The houses have the characteristics of the stilt housing of the Pacific. They are made of wood and are distributed on both sides of the creek. Where once there was jungle vegetation, now there are paths defined by the houses and the continuous passage of their inhabitants. The sound is not the chirping of birds or running water, but music: vallenato, reggaeton and religious songs that compete between the mundane and the religious side, divided by the ravine.

Their daily diet consists mainly of what they harvest: plantains, corn, rice and yucca. "We have all the products we want here", says Mildonia proudly. Federico, her brother, adds, "We get our fish from the river and our meat from the mountain hunting with the good dogs. We hunt for armadillos and lowland pacas". They send for what they can’t get from Urrao, but the transport alone costs 100,000 pesos. In Mandé, a dry, hot and windy place at 34 °C, there is no water or sewage system, and the electricity supply is stable as long as it does not rain.

Electricity arrived shortly after the signing of the Peace Accords between the national government and the FARC-EP, says Nery Perea on a board that serves as a seat in front of her house. She is a Mandeceña leader who even became a member of the Urrao Council, an experience she would not like to repeat. "I did not like the way politics is done", she says. She recognizes that, although the changes have been slow and few, Mandé now is very different from a few years ago. "We were totally abandoned here. We lived a time that you cannot imagine. Now, we have better conditions, but you still see all the needs we have. The electricity is more or less there. One day we have it, another day we don't. Things get broken. We don't have toilets, and we lack education, but that doesn't mean that we are not going to move forward", she states.

This Is How Peace Is Built 

For many years, the Mandé River was stained red. It was the scene of confrontations between the 34th Front of the FARC-EP and the Colombian National Army, a situation that worsened during the captivity and after the assassination of political leaders. During the most violent years, many Mandeceños had to flee; others were disappeared or murdered. Eleazar, for example, lost one of his brothers in this clash of gunfire and ideologies.

This situation also led some of the inhabitants to join the ranks. Nery's son did so voluntarily. Neither his mother's crying nor pleading could dissuade him. Federico, Mildonia's brother, remembers the communication problems between Mandé and Urrao. "We could not buy more than 70,000 pesos worth of groceries for the family per month because if you brought more than that, they would take it away. They thought you were going to help the guerrillas". Juan Ángel Cuesta, one of the community leaders, says that many young people ended up in jail unjustly. "The solution that you found was to join the FARC. If they put you in jail, it would be for real facts", he says.

Like Juan Angel and Federico, 94 signatories returned to Mandé to work together with the community to improve their village. Basic education is one of those improvements. Until a few years ago, young people had to travel to Urrao if they wanted to go beyond the 5th grade. The health office is another recent achievement. It is the only brick construction in Mandé, and it also has a nursing assistant. Because of advances like these, the community perceives that the place has changed: "From the Peace Agreement, from then on, everything changed. There were no more confrontations or war", recognizes Eleazar, who is now a representative of the Vásquez Rural Educational Center.

These years of peace have allowed for other organizational achievements, such as the collective titling of the lands they had traditionally occupied. This is a conquest of many Afro communities in the country thanks to Act 70 of 1993 or Act of negritudes. The Community Council for the Cultural Identity of Mandé, an organizational figure that has been in existence for more than 10 years and in which representatives of each of the communities that make up Mandé converge, was vital in this process. "Every two months, all seven communities meet and define work plans. For example, now we are building a bridge in the Curbatá area. On the day of work, people from each community come out to contribute their labor", says Federico Santos, the council's attorney.

The Mandé River announces the approach to the village. A man guides the mules that carry products brought from the municipality of Urrao, Antioquia. Photo: Johanna Pino.

This way of organizing and working does not only apply to infrastructure works. According to Juan Ángel Cuesta, the Community Council is also in charge of daily local issues such as "robberies, drunken fights and regulation of strips of land. In the past, there was a police station here, but not anymore. Back then, they sent an inspector from Urrao, and all the complaints and problems were reported to him. Today, it is not like that. Today, the problems are reported to the council". Under this figure, the Mandeceños are organized and regulated, although they also have limits, and if they find it necessary, they go to other state agencies such as the Police or the Prosecutor's Office, mentions Juan Ángel.

"As long as there is peace, there is life", says Eleazar Santos Perea, a young 18-year-old Mandeceño who dreams of becoming a doctor to serve his community.

In the Mandé Peace and Reconciliation Park, recently inaugurated in a project led by the United Nations Verification Mission, José Ignacio Sánchez says, "The greatest fear is the return of the armed conflict. For 30 years, Mandé was one of the places that José Ignacio traveled with a rifle on his shoulder. Now, he visits it to fulfill his role as liaison between the community and the Agency for Reincorporation and Normalization, created by the Presidency of the Republic in 2003 to support those who are betting on peace and making the transition to legality. Since there are so many of them in the territory, the liaisons travel to specific areas and, in this way, they can provide closer and timelier follow-up to the signatories.

Although José Ignacio recognizes the transformation of Mandé, associated with the peace process and the commitment of the signatories, he maintains that without communication routes it is very difficult to sustain this purpose. "Today, our communities are betting on peace, but we want a real peace", he says. Yirleyson Perea, a 20-year-old high school senior, shares this view. One of his dreams is to become a lawyer to guarantee the rights of his communities and leave behind the nights of tears caused by the violent loss of his family members. "Living life is the most beautiful thing and living it in peace is the best", he maintains.

Peace, Something Special 

David Uribe, MA in social intervention and member of the work team with which Universidad de Antioquia arrived in Mandé, says that the first time he traveled by mule to the village, "One of the inhabitants saw us arrive and said to us: 'Prof, did you come by mule from Urrao? Are we really that important to you?” David did not hesitate to answer “yes”.

He is one of more than 20 people who, at different times, have visited Mandé as part of the actions led there by UdeA’s Special Peace Unit (UEP), a program created in 2018 to contribute to peacebuilding in Antioquia and Colombia. Hugo Buitrago, the leader of this division, explains that they came to Mandé after an invitation from the UN Verification Mission. "The difficulties that this community has are so many and so varied that it requires the contribution of the different academic units", he comments.

"Our expectation as a community is that they will return very soon, that this will continue. If all Colombians unite, we can make this peace process strong", says Juan Angel Cuesta, community leader.

Besides the Unit, professionals from the National Faculty of Public Health, the Institute of Physical Education and Sports, and the School of Nutrition and Dietetics of UdeA have come to the community to contribute their knowledge, an integration that the University has historically led in other communities with similar characteristics.

For example, in the absence of drinking water, nutritionist Luz Stella Escudero, from the UdeA School of Nutrition and Dietetics, has conducted training sessions to raise awareness about food consumption and handling. In another visit, she spoke to eight pregnant and nursing mothers, most of them with their babies in their arms, about the importance of breastfeeding for at least six months "because it protects children against the most common diseases, such as diarrhea and respiratory infections".

The Special Peace Unit has also come to Mandé with researchers from the UdeA Serpentarium due to the occurrence of ophidian accidents. According to biologist Jeisson Gómez, since the inhabitants of Mandé belong to a naturally rich region such as the biogeographic Chocó, they have a high probability of encountering animals of medical importance. The professional maintains that, because of the isolation of the locality, there are stories such as that of a child who was bitten by a common lancehead and had to endure 12 hours on a mule to be treated in Urrao.

"We see a different world. When UdeA comes here, they teach us, and we learn many things”, says Marina Perea, a teacher in Mandé. Despite the diverse basic needs of the Mandeceños, many of them agree that "Mandé has an urgent need, and that is a communication route", as José Ignacio says. "If there was a road to Mandé, this would be paradise", points out Nery. A desire that Federico sees as "the biggest dream because we can get products and have a better life with that".

While this dream comes true, the Special Peace Unit of Universidad de Antioquia continues to support this community in the construction of a peaceful territory whether by mule, on foot or by helicopter. As Eleazar put it, "Peace is always the most important thing because, when you have it, you can breathe normally... It is something special".