This week marks 23 years since the massacre in which fifty people died during a paramilitary raid in this municipality of Meta. Learn about the story of a woman who survived the massacre and who has successfully moved forward together with her family.

On Tuesday July 15, 1997, the majority of inhabitants of Mapiripán (Meta) believed, perhaps naively, that the armed men who appeared that day in the town were members of the National Army.

In reality, they were paramilitaries who, three days before, had landed on two planes at San José del Guaviare airport, coming from the Antioquia Urabá, and who arrived in Mapiripán by river and land.

For the days of the massacre, Nelcy Luque Silva was 23 years old and worked in a supermarket. She had been born in Mapiripán and lived her childhood in Caño Ovejas village. “Like every country kid, I had to help with the housework, bring plantains, cassava, feed the pigs, lock up the calves and help my mother to milk; all this while going to school and fishing, which I have always liked", she recalls.

At 14 she decided to change her life and experiment in Bogotá, where she worked in family homes and in ice cream parlors. The trial in the cold of the capital lasted six years until she became pregnant of her first daughter, a situation for which they began to deny her work and for which she decided to go to a cousin in Neiva, the city where the baby was born. Sometime later, she returned to Mapiripán with her daughter.

War

In 1996, the FARC guerilla took over the town and destroyed the building where the policemen who repelled the attack were entrenched: a civilian and a uniformed man died. As a result of that violent act, the police left Mapiripán.

Months later, a series of comments and rumors began that the paramilitaries were going to make inroads into the town, but, to be honest, people gave little importance to that and everything continued as if nothing”, says Nelcy. For her, at that time Mapiripán was a very ordered place. “She had a lot of trade and corn, cassava, plantain, and chickens were produced; all that was for sale”.

When the paramilitaries arrived in Mapiripán, the inhabitants initially thought it was the Army, but when they realized it was not them, panic spread. People shut themselves up and only went out for what was strictly necessary. After six o'clock in the afternoon nobody left their houses, but at all times the anxiety reigned.

The fear was generalized by comments made by people such as "last night they killed so and so" "they took Mengano," "this other disappeared."

Before reaching Mapiripán, those paramilitaries had murdered several people in other hamlets. Already in the municipal seat and for five days in a row, with their endless nights, the members of paramilitary groups took the victims from their homes, took them to the municipal slaughterhouse and tortured them there, before shooting or killing them. The armed group left the town on Sunday, July 20. It is estimated that 49 people were killed and an undetermined number were disappeared, after being executed and thrown into the Guaviare River.

Five days of pure terror. The day they left was when the entire massacre was revealed, because several bodies were left in the streets. "People ran, cried and several people left the town", says Nelcy.

Her acquaintances were killed in the massacre, and she nostalgically remembers two friends in particular: Ronald Valencia and Sinaí Blanco. “Ronald was a great friend of mine, he was the dispatcher of the light aircraft on the runway and he was also dedicated to photography, he was very helpful. Mr Sinaí was part of the community action board, he was a leader, a caring person, he was also dedicated to river transport”, she explains.

After the paramilitaries left Mapiripán, the town began to be left alone: ​​many fled. “For example, the owners of the supermarket where I worked, paid for a flight in a large plane that arrived and left; They left another lady and me in charge of the supermarket, and there were people who fought to leave on that flight because there were many people who, out of fear, wanted to leave on that plane and the pilots had to get off several because they didn't fit. Nelcy says.

In the following days more flights arrived and more people decided to leave. “We are very few in Mapiripán. I would think we could count on the fingers of our hands” says Nelcy, adding that even the dogs and chickens were starving on the street. "I cried a lot; the sadness for what had happened overwhelmed me”.

After about a month, the rural people began to return to the town to get supplies, the doctor and take care of their affairs. “People hardly talked about what had happened. Authorities like the Prosecutor's Office and the Sijin came to ask questions, and people, out of fear, preferred to remain silent", says Nelcy.

Four or five months after the massacre, the population that had gone, mostly to Villavicencio, began to return, not without some unease. "People resumed their daily chores, they went back to rummage through life," she recalls.

A new mass exodus

A few years later, rumors about the arrival of the paramilitaries began again. History seemed ready to repeat itself when members of paramilitary groups returned in 2002.

At that time Nelcy was pregnant with her third daughter, she had a billiards and the paramilitaries were in town. Then the anxiety began again because the guerrillas were in the rural area and were harassing from across the Guaviare River.

On the day that they gave him the pains prior to giving birth, the guerrillas sent 14 cylinders from the other side of the river. Nelcy almost died then, but the girl was finally born.

Days later, the family of a friend who lived in the country brought her body in a hammock because she had been killed. As a result, many people became fearful again and we left the town. In other words, in 2002 the town was empty, even more unemployed than in the days after the massacre, with the difference that this time people left more for the rural area and a few for Villavicencio", says Nelcy.

She chose the field. “We started for a farm that my husband had. I was encouraged for two days and I went with her and the other children. We slept very poorly there and I got sick. Due to my health, they took me to Villavicencio, along with my baby and my other two children, in a Red Cross plane. I left because of the fear that I had and because I was sick”.

In the capital of Meta they came to a relative of Nelcy's husband and survived on the money he sent them. "After six months we returned to town. By that time most people had already returned and we resumed the billiard business. Although the harassment continued, one ended up getting used to it. Then you felt when the guerrillas sent a pipette, you ran to be outside the radius of the explosion and then went back to work or whatever you were doing at the time", she adds.ran to be outside the radius of the explosion and then went back to work or whatever you were doing at the time" she adds.

Subsequently, a military base and, in 2003, a fixed police post were installed. "Let's say that tranquility has arrived in the area, a situation that has been maintained until now".

According to Nelcy, the demobilization of guerrillas, product of the Peace Agreement, also served a lot for the tranquility in the region.

Everything she lived made her stronger and has been overcome, to such an extent that in 2013 she was elected coordinator of the Municipal Table of Victims of Mapiripán. “It was a very beautiful experience, because I went to various trainings on behalf of my municipality. In those spaces, together with my colleagues at the table, we always made it clear that we were survivors and that we were not victims. We take care of ourselves that this phrase ‘poor little ones of Mapiripán’ is finished. From now on we started to propose ideas in these spaces and we were on a par with the other municipal victims' tables”, she proudly assures.

Later, several friends who saw leadership and solidarity qualities in her proposed that she run as a candidate for the Municipal Council. In that first attempt, she obtained the largest vote for that corporation. She is now in her second term as a councillor.

She faces life with optimism and does not hold a grudge against those who affected her family, friends and people so much. She says that she has already forgiven because "I did not keep the past, we have to go 'forward' in the face of adversity and I have done so; I am a resilient person because, despite what I experienced, I have managed to get ahead together with my family”, she says.

Today Nelcy, apart from her work as a councillor, organizes events and social gatherings "because I like the kitchen" and is part of the committee to promote the collective reparation plan that the Victims Unit carries out with the community of her municipality, seeking with this will heal the wounds and repair the hopes that Mapiripán longs for.

(End/CMC/EGG/LMY)