The city of Buenaventura, on Colombia's Pacific coast in the southwestern department of Valle del Cauca, is a violent battle ground for the control of a port city incredibly important for narco-trafficking. The port city has seen over 300 murders this year alone, as FARC guerrilas, paramilitaries, who either have not disarmed or are re-arming, and gangs that work for drug traffickers have been fighting openly, and at times in broad daylight, for control of the city. Recently, Valle del Cauca has caused much worry for public officials: Cali has seen a rise in guerrilla violence, more police are to be sent the city and Colombia's president, Alvaro Uribe, has stated publicly that the Farc guerrillas will not "subdue" Cali. Many officials and social organizations have been very worried about the situation in Buenaventura as well. About 2 weeks ago, a bomb went off in a market square in Buenaventura, killing a police officer, and only a few days later6 murders shocked the city. This year the murder rate in Buenaventura is about 100 per every 100,000 residents...
...With a murder rate of about 100 per every 100,000 residents, in a city of about 300,000, is not comparable to any US city. The highest murder rate in the US that I could find was 66.5 for New York city. The good(?) news is that the number of murders in Buenaventura, on average, has gone down from the period of 2000-2005 in which 2,644 were murdered (for all 6 years an average of 440.66 a year). According to the previous article, this year, 70% of the 305 murders (the previous article says 299 murders this year but was published before the 6 murders mentioned here) in the city are related to drug trafficking.
Buenaventura's location on Colombia's Pacific coast, as well as its vicinity to very important drug trafficking routes, combined with the poverty that rocks the city (unemployment runs as high as 60%), have caused this city to become one of Colombia's most violent battle grounds in the war over drugs in the country. Like Tumaco in Narino, a department to the south of the Valle del Cauca, Buenaventura is a port city that connects the inner, and much more rural parts of the department, by river, to the ocean. This is incredibly important as drugs that are processed in the mountains can be sent, with relative ease, by river to Buenaventura to then be shipped out of the country. This can be seen as about 40% of cocaine that has left from the Valle del Cauca province, and been found and actually accounted for, has left from Buenaventura.
The Valle, in general, is incredibly important for drug trafficking, and has been since before, but especially during and after, the days of the Cali Cartel. The jungle and mountainous terrain of the region has been one of Colombia's biggest areas for cocaine processing and exports for well over a decade. Not only that, the fact that Buenaventura is a port on the ocean means that the cocaine and herion that leaves the port has been fully processed and nets the largest amount of money, as it is the final product, than any other part of the drug trafficking chain in Colombia.
In areas where coca is grown, the people that control the lowest part of the chain, for example the campesinos who grow coca and process it into paste, make very little money and nowhere near what the traffickers at the top make. The traffickers who come and take the paste and process it further make more money, as a step higher in the chain would. Clearly, a lot of money is to be made on the Colombian coasts where drug trafficking is rampant, as it is on almost all of Colombia's borders, whether they be landlocked or coastal.
Lastly, Buenaventura makes clear, even further, the fact that groups who claim to be fighting the state (guerrillas) or defending the population (paramilitaries) clearly carry arms in order to make money off of drug trafficking. The FARC do in fact attack the state, along with the civilian population, but are funded by drug trafficking, and because of this, Buenaventura is strategically important; whether or not the civilian population gets in the way is unimportant. In Buenaventura, attacks on the state do not truly serve for revolution, but, like attacks on paramilitaries in the city, as a way to destroy an entity that may impede on their narcotrafficking activities. And for paramilitaries, violence against guerrilas serves the same purpose. Sadly, the civilian population is caught up in the middle of all of this. The following are some quotes from recent stories about the city...
Cali's El Pais:
November 25, 2006
"More than one thousand people saw themselves obligated to flee from there homes to more secure areas within their barrios or in other sectors of Buenaventura, trying to escape the armed confrontation between FARC guerrilas and paramilitaries..."
"The most serious event was seen in the barrio called San Francisco, in Comune 7, continental zone of the Port, where last tuesday, these groups confronted each other with short- and long-range weapons, in the middles of the civilian population that is victim with fear..."
"'This situation is very grave, it affects me, its a very delicate problem that worries us very much,' said Andres Santamaria, regional human rights ombudsman."
Also from El Pais
"'This has been converted into a national problem and the municipal government does not have the capacity to resolve it,' said the personero." [The personero's job is to take complaints of abuses and pass them on to the proper authorities].
"He assured that they cannot continue only investing in security when the people are dying of hunger [too]..."
"List of Statistics:
96 families had left the San Francisco barrio up until last Saturday
229 more left between last Saturday and this Sunday from the same area
41 more families have emigrated to other parts of the port from the Alfonso Lopez barrio
46 have also done this from the Lleras, Inmaculada, Viento Libre and Muro Yutsi barrios."
Colombia's largest daily El Tiempo:
November 7, 2006:
"The men [who do the trafficking] are paid 300,000 pesos [$125] for moving supplies (insumos), one million [$~415] for getting cocaine onto ships and 20 million pesos [$~8300] for in it in fast boats a Mexico or Guatemala..."
Also from El Tiempo
November 7, 2006
"Deisi Ruth Calonge...was killed on September 11. For this murder, two main were detained, but as is usual, nobody sees or hears..."
"Nobody knows how many bodies have gone to sea and how many to the earth (los esteros). What is certain is that the homicide rate is 100 for every 100,000 habitants, something only comparable with the bitter days of Cali and Medellin."
Emphasis Added