Date: Sun, 8 Mar 1998 15:23:35 -0600 (CST)
From: Dennis Grammenos <dgrammen-AT-prairienet.org>
Subject: M-I: EL ESPECTADOR: Don Jose with his dead on the shoulder


---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 8 Mar 1998 15:10:44 -0600
From: Dennis Grammenos <dgrammen-AT-UX1.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
To: Multiple recipients of list CSN-L <CSN-L-AT-POSTOFFICE.CSO.UIUC.EDU>
Subject: EL ESPECTADOR: Don Jose with his dead on the shoulder

The following is an excerpt from a moving story in Sunday's El Espectador
newspaper.  It is the story of Don Jose, a peasant whose family was
destroyed by the Colombian Army's bombardment of his little ranch in the
forest of Caguan, where rebels and the Colombian military have been locked
in battle.  The full story can be found in its original in the webpage of
El Espectador at  http://www.elespectador.com

Please forgive any rough spots in my rather free-handed translation.

Solidarity,
Dennis Grammenos
Urbana, Illinois

************************************************************************
* COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK: To subscribe to CSN-L send request to      *
* listserv-AT-postoffice.cso.uiuc.edu SUB CSN-L Firstname Lastname        *
* (Direct questions or comments about CSN-L to csncu-AT-prairienet.org)   *
* VISIT THE COLOMBIA SUPPORT NETWORK WEBSITE AT http://www.igc.org/csn *
* For more info contact CSN at P.O. Box 1505, Madison WI 53701         *
* (608) 257-8753  fax: 608 2556621 csn-AT-igc.apc.org                     *
************************************************************************

================================EL ESPECTADOR           Sunday, 8 March 1998

Don Jose with his dead on the shoulder
        by ARTURO JAIMES
        Special Correspondent -- FLORENCIA

The tragedy of Jose Antonio Saenz is frightful.  To only think about it
gives one the chills. Last Wednesday's bombardment by the Army killed his
wife, two of his children and a nephew.  In addition, it destroyed his
farm, it blew his mill to smithereens, it annihilated his hens, and it
left an enormous hole of terror and fright smack in the middle of his
garden.

And as if all that was not enough, still stunned by the roar, he had to
gather with his own hands pieces of the bodies of his loved ones, and
later carried them away on his shoulders --one by one-- destroyed and
bloody, until his neighbors showed up to help him trudge them over hard
trails, until an hour later they arrived at the closest town.

There, he and his son Edgar, one of the few survivors of this horrifying
tragedy in the middle of the war in the forests of the Caguan, used their
machetes to craft simple coffins, placed them on tables, and kept vigil
over the four loved ones with four candles they were given by a local
store.

As if all this was not sufficient, the next day they set off in a
procession of pain with their dead, in a dreadful wandering from town to
town, until they reached Florencia (in Caqueta) on Friday evening at
seven, carried with their loved ones on a dump truck.

They looked hungry, sleepless, weakened, stunned, as deathly pale as the
corpses.  They were accompanied by Edgar's wife, and Don Jose's six small
grandchildren, all of them also hungry, without sleep in several days, and
almost all barefoot.  All of them there, together, seemed a stirring
monument to pain. Their souls were plundered and all their illusions
shattered.  They are the relatives of the four first verified civilian
victims of the battle in the forests of the Caguan.

But, the frightful wandering that began Wednesday did not culminate Friday
evening at seven, when they arrived at Florencia.

No!

No sooner had they arrived in town, broken and distraught, with their dead
on the back of a dump truck, than they had to undergo more pain as they
made their way to a sad part of town: to the cemetery, to bury them.

And here they were until almost one in the morning on Saturday, when with
decent coffins, Don Jose Antonio Saenz, a 55-year old peasant, went on his
way to bury his dead in his native soil at Palermo (in Huila).  El
Espectador accompanied Don Jose Antonio, his son Edgar, his
daughter-in-law, and his six grandchildren during the six hours of pain
and anguish in Florencia.

[.....]
========================================================


     --- from list marxism-international-AT-lists.village.virginia.edu ---