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A screening series about the Colombian armed conflict and its aftermath
Slought is pleased to announce #NiUnMuertoMas #NotOneMoreDeath, a screening series that investigates the Colombian armed conflict from the perspective of targeted killings of social leaders, on view in the Mediatheque from Friday, September 21 through Friday, September 28, 2018. The program includes documentary and narrative films by Jorge Mario Betancourt, Yesid Campos, Edison Sánchez, Juan José Lozano and Hollman Morris, Margarita Martínez and Miguel Salazar, that consider the silencing of community leaders and human rights activists fighting for social justice in Colombia. The screening series is presented as part of Slought's ongoing Photographies of Conflict exhibition series in conjunction with the film program They're Killing Us.
The war in Colombia is officially over, yet it has continued by other means since the 2016 Peace Agreement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). The NGO Somos Defensores reports a significant increase in lethal attacks against social leaders in Colombia: at least 311 human rights defenders, indigenous rights leaders, land restitution and anti-corruption activists have been killed in Colombia since the Peace Agreement. One every two days. Colombia is facing a humanitarian crisis. Many fear that this will only escalate as right-wing president Ivan Duque, critic of the landmark peace accord, takes power. Yet, this kind of organized violence is not new. Attacks against social leaders has long been a historical reality in Colombia.
The Colombian conflict is the longest-standing armed conflict in the Western hemisphere. Its range of actors, along with the causes said to fuel it, vary in number and complexity. One aspect remains salient to all those who study it: since the 1960's, the armed insurgency has been closely correlated with Cold War politics. Marxist-inspired rebel groups emerged in Colombia at a time that CIA-backed Operation Condor (1968–1989) was hunting down what Washington regarded as political dissidents with communist ideals, as well as any manifestation of anti-establishment community organizing, across Latin America. Social leaders, as much as journalists, have since been the subject of targeted killings. Violence towards community leaders is not an exception, but the rule.
This screening series elucidates the long historical antecedents that inform the current crisis, including the role of the State in legitimizing paramilitary violence. The films included in the series form part of a larger discussion about the practice of silencing community voices, the free press, and grassroot movements that have set out to fight for change in Colombia. Countering hegemonic State-sanctioned media narratives, these films negotiate questions about witnessing and testimony, reconciliation and resistance, as well as the economic and political motivations that fuel the killing of Colombia's community leaders.
Impunity, Juan José Lozano and Hollman Morris, 2009, 85min
Impunity examines the largest trial against Paramilitary armies accused of killing thousands of Colombians. The legal process, designed to attain "peace and justice," comes to an abrupt halt when the political and economic interests in the paramilitary war are uncovered. Are the victims' families doomed to stay victims forever, or are they able to fight impunity?
Resistencia en Paz / Resistance in Peace, Edison Sánchez, 2017, 8min
On 2 May 2002, 119 civilians were killed in Bojayá, an Afro-indigenous community in the jungle of Chocó, after seeking refuge in the local church. One of the survivors or the massacre reconstructs his chance escape in the crossfire between the FARC and the AUC. The documentary portrays the current political and social division of Colombia through a community that has chosen forgiveness.
Yover, Edison Sánchez, 2018, 14min
As the first gentle rays of sun shine through the forest, Yover gets up to start his day. He has a busy schedule ahead on his delivery bike. His route, though his home town, Bojayá, takes him past wooden huts and colourful clothes hung on washing lines. Yover portrays daily life in a village that has regained its courage and lust for life after one of the worst tragedies of the Colombian conflict.
Voces del secuestro / Voices of Kidnapping, Ryan McKenna, 2017, 16min
For twenty years, the program Voces del secuestro has allowed family members to send radio messages that they hope will reach their loved ones kidnapped in the Amazon jungle. This experimental documentary pairs these radio messages with abstract portraits of the Colombian landscape. Produced by Becca Blackwood.
Robatierra / Stolen Land, Margarita Martínez and Miguel Salazar, 73 min, 2010
In a land where people have known nothing but war, a tightly knit and fiercely proud people, the Nasa, fight for the land stolen from their ancestors while fending off the violence encroaching on their nation. Their charismatic leader Lucho Acosta is an imposing tactician descended from Indian warriors. He knows from experience that violence only breeds more violence. Facing nearly insurmountable odds, Lucho's beliefs are tested to their very core. The future of the Nasa hangs in the balance.
No Hubo Tiempo para la Tristeza / There Was No time to Mourn, Jorge Mario Betancourt, 64 min, 2013
No Hubo Tiempo para la Tristeza is produced by Colombia's National Center for Historic Memory. It details the findings of their exhaustive report ¡Basta ya! Colombia: Memorias de guerra y dignidad (Enough is Enough! Colombia), about the causes and consequences of the war, particularly in regard to processes of reparation and reconciliation for victims. It gathers testimonies of citizens—from La Chorrera, Bojayá, San Carlos, the banks of the Carare River, Valle Encantado, and Medellín—that tell us that the atrocities they witnessed cannot be repeated.
