IDENTIDADES 1 ENGLISH IDENTIDADES 7 ENGLISH | Page 56

It is also one of the country’s most dangerous cities, and is internationally famous for the finding of the Casas de Pique [Chop Houses] in 2013 and 2014. Paramilitary groups like the Bandas Criminales (BACRIM) used them to torture and dismember their victims. This aberrant tragedy is the most noteworthy expression of what has been going on in Puerto de Buenaventura, a place that for too long has been experiencing a humanitarian crisis in which the Afro-descendant population is suffering the most. Puerto de Buenaventura’s social scene can be characterized by the constant violation of human rights that goes on there. Four fifths of its population is marked by extreme inequality and citizen insecurity. This can be anything from displacement to forced disappearances, particularly when it comes to community, human rights leaders and activists. It can also mean homicide, violence, and even sexual violence targeting Afro-descendant women. This is already part of a common story, which also includes armed conflict. A humanitarian space The Vida Puente Nayero Humanitarian Living Space is the citizen response to the impunity, forced recruitment of children, and all the other manifestations of violence, even gender violence in which girls are the ones who suffer most. This has been a scourge in Buenaventura for years (it is a member of the Communities Constructing Peace in the Territories initiative [CONPAZ). The Humanitarian Space is not only a defense mechanism, but also a self-protection initiative in facing internal violence and the atrocious crimes that continue being perpetrated in that region. Some of the founders told me that Marisol Medina Arboleda’s assassination (she was dismembered in a Chop House in 2014) provoked the decision to create a protective space near La Playita. Another victim of the paramilitaries, sixteen-year old Carlos Angarita: he was dismembered on April 13th, 2014, in the Humanitarian Zone, despite it being the most heavily patrolled place in Colombia. Getting a feel for the violence and inequality first hand allow me to appreciate the humanitarian crisis a large, important part of Colombia’s civil society is enduring: Afro-descendants. Indifference, impunity, and racism characterize Colombia’s racialized society and continuously denounced by the Afro-Colombian social movement, particularly organizations like the Cimarron Human Rights AfroDescendant Movement and Displaced Afro-Descendants (AFRODES). 56