Police Civilan Mixing

We were coming back from a usually exhausting day in Apartado. No matter how much we have to do in town, we always end up spending the entire day in the dusty, uncomfortable and overheated city. The only thing we like about going there, is that we can check our mail box, have access to faster internet, get malaria tests done, buy some groceries and find some cold freshly made juices. There is nothing that we really enjoy about going down on the average of 6 hour journey to go there and back to get groceries but it gives us a bit of a break from being isolated up in the community.

We were sweaty and had just walked the 1.5 km along the road from the displaced community of San Josecito. This displacement occurred in the aftermath of the Feburary 2005 massacre of 8 community members including 3 children and one of the founding members of the PC. The community is convinced that it was the military that execute the massacre so when the government decided they needed to protect the PC and they would do this by putting a Police post in town of San Jose where most of the habitants were Peace Community members. To stay devout to not supporting any armed group, having police with arms posted in their community was against everything they stood for, so they displaced. Every family but a handful collected their life, locked up their houses and walked the 1.5km to the plot of land that Holland had gifted them. There they erected makeshift shacks and dug some trenches for their plumbing. Many families were crammed into these shacks, there was malaria epidemics and the conditions were that of a displacement camp. Despite this, the community was solid in their solidarity and worked laboriously together to create their new community. That was 21 months ago, now everyone has a wooden home that many have decorated with flowers growing out of old cooking oil containers that hang from their front wall, or a small collection of flowers in front of their houses that have managed to evade being eaten by passing horses, pigs and chickens.

San Josecito, also called La Holandita (in thanks to the country that gifted the land to them), is accompanied semi-permanently by Peace Brigades International (PBI), whereas we as FOR stay up in La Union.

We jumped off the chiva (jeep-like vehicle that transport folks to and from San Jose to Apartado) and changed from our sandals into our boots for our hike through San Jose and up to La Union.

The town of San Jose has repopulated itself, but non living there are part of the Peace Community. All the PC members houses still stand empty, boarded up hoping that one day the police post would leave and they can return. It’s a bit ridiculous that there are more police present there than civilians.

We passed by the basketball court in San Jose where at half court, the Police have built a shelter and a few of them come down from their post up on the top of the hill to occupy during the day. As we passed by, we were horrified to see a police officer dressed in his uniform (that looks equal to that of military except the police’s are solid green and that of the military is camouflage). However the police still have a big guns slung over their shoulders. This young police was on the basket ball court playing volleyball with some of the children from San Jose, his weapon hanging loosely over his shoulder as he tossed the ball to the eager children.
Disgusted, we walked on. This was exactly why the PC would not support having armed actors in their community because once one side is present with weapons living amongst civilians. The other armed groups then accuse the civilians of supporting the group that they are living by the other groups that they are helping one side, making them targets

As we were passing the creek at the beginning of the windy path up to La Union, we passed some soldiers that were busy brushing their teeth and bathing in the creek. Once the police post was put into San Jose, the military took full advantage of having some more ground and use just outside of San Jose as a base before going up into the mountains.

The rest of our hike was vacant of armed actors, however we were accompanied by the voices of the cicadas and the grasshoppers.