By Daniel Ospina (undergraduate Economics student, level 3 English)
After a
hectic and fast-paced semester, I decided to take a pause, and for some strange
reason I came across a book about a hard reality. I must admit that it didn’t
seem very thrilling at first, but as it turns out it was not just another
academic text. It was the story of experts, victims and perpetrators of what I
think was the most significant systematic slaughter during the second half of
the twentieth century in Colombia. It was the Trujillo slaughter.
Although this
event is already buried away at the bottom of many indolent Colombians’
memories, and unknown to many others, it is an issue that should generate
social unrest, anger and condemnation. It was a cold-blooded carnage, where hundreds
of families were relegated to an uncertain future, a community that grew up
under the law of the jungle in constant fear of coming face to face with death at
any moment. Generations play on the ground in which the dismembered bodies of their
ancestors lie, as if nothing had happened there, without the slightest sign of
respect for the blood that flowed into the Cauca River. It is very curious how
many of the inhabitants and victims of the slaughter of Trujillo even justify
the murder, torture and execution of their relatives by calling them
"guerrillas", "snitches", "paramilitary" and
"subversives" without any evidence of it.
Now this
simple and unsophisticated introduction to this text aims to expose the
reality, unconsciousness, cruelty, one might even say a "cultural
Alzheimer’s" that has happened in Trujillo. Of course, this is an
invitation to read and open your eyes through this fragment of Colombian
history that assesses the political, economic, social and psychological factors
that are discussed in this book.
Trujillo,
una masacre que no cesa. (2008)
This
publication is dedicated to Father Tiberio Fernandez Mafla (RIP) for his
tireless fight against social injustice, and a victim of Trujillo.
"If my blood contributes to the cessation of violence in Trujillo, I
will gladly shed it"
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