Juan Ricardo yanks the curtains closed, but when he tries to phone the police the line is dead. He tells his wife and children, ‘Crawl underneath the house and don’t come out until I get back.’
Meanwhile, the convoy continues south. Puerto Galán is now shrouded in darkness. At the food market, the men in balaclavas exit their vehicles. They illuminate the riverbank with a searchlight and greet other soldiers arriving by boat. The men spread out and sweep from door to door with torches and typewritten lists.
‘Is your father in?’ the men ask Margarita, the little girl with glasses.
‘Papá! Some men are here to see you.’
‘Are you Señor Gilberto Piñeda?’
‘Sí.’
Bang. Bullet to the face. Next house.
Margarita screams and runs, and she doesn’t stop running until she reaches the abattoir, where she squeezes through a gap in the fence and hides in an unlocked cupboard.
Confusion and panic spreads through the village. Pablo Ruben, the sunburned man, now wishes he’d heeded the warning pamphlets dropped from a helicopter a week earlier.
Some villagers run for the tropical jungle on the outskirts of town, where they hide, petrified. Others lock their doors. But the men carry crowbars and the flimsy locks provide little protection.
Isolated pistol pops are heard. Then gunfire erupts in longer, automatic bursts. The rules appear to be simple:
Those on the lists are guilty.
Those who resist are guilty.
Those who flee are guilty.
And those who stay behind have little chance.
Pablo Ruben is one of those who try to run. He and his wife sprint hand-in-hand through the fields behind their house. They do not know that teams of soldiers have spread out to form a security ring one kilometre outside the town. When the men begin shooting, Pablo Ruben’s wife is hit. A bullet lodges beneath Pablo’s clavicle, and he survives by playing dead, lying in a ditch beneath the body of his wife, who bleeds to death while he tries not to make a sound.
Back in Llorona, Juan Ricardo sets out to drive to Garbanzos for help. Once on the highway, however, he finds a line of vehicles banked up at the first curve north of Llorona, unable to advance because a huge tree has fallen across the road.
Assuming the uniformed men near the tree are army soldiers, motorists honk and lean out their windows. ‘Something’s happening in Puerto Galán,’ one shouts. ‘We heard gunfire.’
Juan Ricardo exits his car and runs towards the soldiers. They signal angrily for him to go back.
‘You need to help us!’ he pleads. ‘They’re shooting people.’
But he quickly realises his mistake. Government soldiers don’t wear balaclavas.
One of the men smashes a rifle butt across his face. Juan Ricardo falls and, before he can shield himself, is hit again. Dazed, he crawls and stumbles towards his car, but the men demand his ID. Fortunately, his name is not on their list. However, he sees a line of five kneeling motorists who’ve been separated from the others.
He’s permitted to drive away, but in the rear-view mirror he witnesses the gunmen spraying automatic fire along these motorists’ backs. They slump forward.
At Llorona, the same SUV from before is now blocking the town entrance. Juan Ricardo abandons his car and runs into scrubland, skirts wide around the fallen Brazil nut tree and, battling concussion, manages to stagger several kilometres north to his sister’s house on the outskirts of Garbanzos.
At dawn, the men in balaclavas conduct a sweep through the jungle surrounding Puerto Galán, to round up anyone who is hiding. The male citizens of Puerto Galán are herded into the marketplace and forced to file slowly past three handcuffed informants who are wearing balaclavas. Those men identified by the informants are led away to the abattoir for interrogation.
There, a silent boy and his assistants tie them up by the wrists to an overhead meat hook. Little Margarita, hiding in the cupboard, watches in horror. Operating with the chilling precision of a surgeon, the boy makes tiny incisions in his victims’ skin with a razor blade, which he then sews up before starting again. It seems to matter not how much pain he can inflict, but how long he can make it last. Margarita screws up her eyes and turns her head away. But even with her fingers in her ears she can’t entirely block out the victims’ screams and denials.
Finally, a group of twenty men are brought out of the abattoir. They look like scarecrows, their faces and bodies covered in sewn-up incisions oozing blood. They huddle together in terror. A soldier with a python tattoo on his forearm forces them to dance in the plaza, while he fires at the concrete under their feet. Bullets ricochet into their shins, bringing them down, and the soldiers crush their skulls with crowbars and bricks. Meanwhile, the next group of men are being led into the abattoir.
The sun is now high in the sky, and a helicopter hovers overhead. The villagers exit their houses waving, believing rescue has arrived. However, the helicopter fires .30-calibre rounds at the tin roofs, killing a small boy who is hiding beneath a mattress.
By midday, it is too hot for balaclavas, and the men remove them, even though this means that anyone who sees their faces must be killed. Vultures circle silently. Cicadas buzz in the heat. Above the low hum of flies come moans, groans and whimpers from the slowly dying.
The soldiers bring machetes from their mini-vans. The corpses from the highway and Llorona are added to the line of dead villagers outside the abattoir. The soldiers hack the bodies into pieces. However, cutting through bones using machetes is tiring work. They start up chainsaws and use them to cut up the bodies.
The soldiers have also brought garbage bags and shovels. But digging a grave seems like too much effort in the stifling heat.
‘The river,’ one gunman suggests.
Weighed down by stones, most of the body-filled bags sink. Some bags tear open and float. By late afternoon on Saturday, the river is awash with floating limbs.
At nightfall, several of the gunmen break into the general store and emerge brandishing bottles of aguardiente and rum. They ransack houses and terrorise anyone they find. Dogs and cats are killed. Slogans are drawn on walls with paint: Guerrilla Out! Later, the same slogans are written in blood. Now drunk, the men laugh at their own depravity.
On the third day – Sunday – the army returns from its mission. The guards have abandoned the fallen tree, and Colonel Buitrago’s men saw through it and speed towards Puerto Galán. Before they arrive, the boats leave suddenly and the soldiers pile quickly back into the SUVs and mini-vans and head north. There is only one highway connecting Garbanzos to Puerto Galán, and the convoy of vehicles must pass the army vehicles headed in the opposite direction. But Buitrago does not yet know of the carnage and does not stop them.
119
FOR THE NEXT few nights, I found sleep difficult, imagining the suffering of the men in the abattoir. I was shocked and revolted by the wanton cruelty of the Autodefensas. The soldier with a python tattoo on his forearm sounded suspiciously like Beta, although he claimed he’d remained in Garbanzos the entire time. What bothered me most was that many of the victims had apparently been innocent. I hoped that those reports were mistaken. But to know for certain I’d need to wait for the results of Trigeño’s investigation.
On the third day after the Puerto Galán limpieza, I met my mother in a restaurant in Garbanzos.
‘Mamá, I have some good news: My boss is transferring me to Llorona. I wanted you to hear it from me first, since people will probably start talking.’
‘You mean when they see you in uniform.’
This stopped me dead. I was astonished to hear Mamá speak of my being an Autodefensa so openly.
She must have read my expression. ‘I never mentioned it before because I didn’t want to interfere, hijo. I just wanted you to be safe.’
I squeezed her hand. ‘And I never mentioned it because I didn’t want you to worry. But I am safe. And you are too.’
I told her Javier had promise
d she could remain on his finca for as long as she needed. Although, hopefully, that would not be long.
‘Soon enough, we’ll be back where we belong.’
Mamá, Uncle Leo and Camila knew I had nothing to do with the limpieza. Of course, they had acquaintances in Puerto Galán, so news of multiple deaths filtered through to them. Luckily, however, the details did not.
On the Sunday, a week after the limpieza, the magazine La Semana published an article that called it a massacre. The account, based on multiple anonymous sources, contained far graver allegations than those I’d heard.
One witness claimed the Autodefensas had held sprinting races in the plaza, making bets on how far a man could run with an arm chopped off before he stumbled. Afterwards, the soldiers played football with a severed head. And worst of all were the chainsaws, possibly the very same chainsaws I’d left near the Brazil nut tree. The article claimed that when they were used to chop up victims, many of them were still alive.
Reading this, I felt sick to my stomach. I couldn’t eat all Sunday. I couldn’t even swallow water. What had I done? What had we set in motion? Were the Autodefensas really capable of such inhumanity?
On the Monday, a week after the limpieza, Trigeño flew down in his helicopter. When I confronted him with the article, he was outraged. According to him, this wasn’t simply a case of lazy journalism; it was negligent, defamatory, left-wing propaganda.
Trigeño had made inquiries via the commanders of Bloque Norte, who protested there had been no excesses.
He wanted me to appease Buitrago.
‘But how? He’s livid.’
Trigeño produced a summarised list of information gathered during the limpieza, including names of sympathisers and suppliers in other regions.
I passed Trigeño’s further denials about the limpieza on to Colonel Buitrago. He didn’t believe them. He refused to read the intelligence list.
‘Nothing can justify this. Nothing! You hear me?’ He slammed his fist on his desk. ‘Not even if you brought me Tirofijo and Santiago in matching body bags would I ever, ever sanction anything like this atrocity.’
The colonel was under investigation by international human rights agencies. They wanted him charged with ‘Neglect of Duty’ and ‘Homicide by Omission and/or Deliberate Failure to Render Assistance’. In coming months, the victims’ families, led by a human rights attorney, Yolanda Delgado, would consider formulating a class action against the government, seeking millions of dollars in compensation.
Two days later, the colonel had more terrible news.
‘I need you to look at this closely and think hard about whom you work for and why,’ he said, producing a photo of a naked dead man lying on a metal table. The body was so swollen that at first I didn’t recognise it. Then, with a shock, I realised it was Don Mauricio.
‘My men found him washed up two kilometres downriver,’ said Buitrago grimly. ‘He was shot in the head. How could this be an accident?’
In spite of everything I’d already absorbed that week, the news of Mauricio’s death stunned me.
After we’d retaken control of Llorona, I’d dreamed that Don Mauricio’s wife and children, including Cecilia – the one who had been kidnapped – might return from Medellín and live prosperously. Mauricio would be elected to the Senate. Instead, his family would now be grieving and, without Mauricio working to repay the money he’d borrowed for Cecilia’s ransom, would be struck down by brutal poverty. Trigeño’s explanation by telephone was flimsy.
‘This was a tragic mistake. An oversight by men in the field,’ he said. ‘They were acting on confirmed information that Mauricio frequently passed cash to Zorrillo and supplied the Guerrilla with meat.’
Strictly speaking, this was true. But we all knew they were extortion payments. And if others on our side had been warned beforehand to leave, why not warn Mauricio?
After the heinous limpieza, I asked myself over and over: why should I continue with the Autodefensas? But I couldn’t undo a past mistake and, having come this far, I decided I should finish what I’d started. Walking away from Puerto Galán after promising to liberate its inhabitants would make us just as bad as our enemy.
Undoubtedly, Colonel Buitrago underwent a similar period of painful introspection. He had no reason to continue any association with the Autodefensas. We’d lied to him, betrayed him and massacred the very citizens he’d sworn to protect. I fully expected him to kick us out.
Surprisingly, he sent a message back to Trigeño: ‘I’ll cover up your role in this, provided you fulfil your promise to make Puerto Galán safe. Using a small force, and without using torture.’
The colonel ordered his soldiers at the army checkpoint south of Garbanzos to turn back journalists and even forensic investigators sent by the government.
‘There have been multiple Guerrilla sightings around the river villages,’ the soldiers told them. ‘Beyond this point, we cannot guarantee your safety.’
Buitrago did, however, have one final stipulation. He did not believe Beta’s claim that he had not been involved in the limpieza and insisted he be banned from stepping foot in Garbanzos ever again. His continued support for the Autodefensas was contingent upon someone he could trust being in charge of the soldiers controlling the villages: me.
‘Making war is easy, Pedro. Now try keeping the peace.’
120
ONE ROADBLOCK, SIX Yamaha motorbikes, a 7 pm curfew, twelve radio handsets and nineteen boys under the age of twenty-two. That was how we controlled Llorona and the river towns of Puerto Galán, Puerto Princesa and Santo Paraíso.
Heading south from Garbanzos towards the Amazon, there were now three checkpoints from three different armed groups. First was the army checkpoint just south of Garbanzos. Second was our Autodefensa checkpoint on the only road leading from Llorona to the three river villages. Third was an intermittent Guerrilla checkpoint near the car ferry wharf in Puerto Princesa. Whenever the guerrilleros manning the checkpoint heard rumours of my men’s approach, they fled. We lacked the manpower to pursue them, but their turn would come.
‘Security check,’ we announced upon boarding passenger colectivos and chivas at our checkpoint – two forty-four-gallon drums on either side of the road with a pull-up chain between them. ‘Off the bus and form a single queue, please.’
As I’d hoped, Don Felix’s bus company was in business again. Rápido Velasquez and Transportadores Díaz buses now ran the route from Garbanzos to Puerto Princesa and back ten times daily. Private vehicles no longer paid Guerrilla road taxes, although we searched them thoroughly. Hollowed-out caletas in seats or false bottoms beneath spare tyres could mean only one thing – contraband. Concealed weapons or munitions could have only one beneficiary.
After patting down passengers, we noted their name, age, ID number, address and purpose of trip, which we recorded in a logbook to analyse patterns of behaviour.
‘How many in your family?’ Ñoño would ask as Giraldo rifled through bags of groceries.
We limited rice to two cups per person per day. If families carried excess cooking oil, we visited them a week later to see what remained. Any supplies that might be destined for the enemy – phone cards, batteries and cooking gas – we confiscated. Outsiders were turned back. Journalists, charity workers and human rights attorneys had no business in those villages other than to cause us trouble.
Local taxis now became our eyes and ears, reporting suspicious people and activities via radio. River traffic had to register at the Autodefensa checkpoint at the Puerto Galán wharf. Boats that didn’t stop were threatened with impoundment or doused with gasoline and warned they would be set alight if they continued. However, it was trucks we scrutinised closest. Limited to two runs per week, drivers had to identify the purchaser of their goods in advance and show us signed invoices on their way back from making a delivery. When one truck driver attempted a third run using switched numberplates, we detained him and radioed Beta at La 50.
‘I’ll
send some men,’ he said. The next morning, members of Beta’s intelligence unit arrived in an SUV and took him away. This was in line with Trigeño’s policy of separating reporting from enforcement. Although my unit carried weapons, our job was to keep our hands clean, maintain good community relations and report to him via radio.
After that, only approved truck drivers with police and DAS checks were allowed through, one of whom was Uncle Leo. Thanks to me, he was able to resume his hardware deliveries unmolested.
Only one person was openly unhappy with the new state of affairs. ‘This ain’t right,’ grumbled Palillo’s stepfather, weaving his way home from the cantina. ‘Kids running the town like they own it.’
But there was nothing he could do. We controlled everything.
During the first week, I visited Señor Muñoz, this time in plain clothes with no weapon. His greeting was cordial.
‘Pedro, please come in.’
I remained standing on his doorstep. ‘I’m sorry I lied to you about my job, Señor Muñoz.’
‘I’m sorry too, Pedro. When my sons told me about your job, I probably should have come to you directly rather than pressuring Camila to stay away from you.’
‘I also want you to know that I had nothing to do with events that occurred … further south.’
‘We never thought otherwise. In fact, we’re grateful you warned us. Especially considering what happened to poor Mauricio Torres.’
‘That was a mistake.’
‘But it made me worry. If they think anyone who has ever paid money to the Guerrilla is a voluntary supporter, then …’ He looked down at his feet. ‘Pedro, there’s something I want you and your bosses to know. When I sold your cattle—’
I held up my hand. ‘I know all about that. And I don’t blame you. Zorrillo has paid for his sins and your family will always be safe as long as I’m around.’
We shook hands and he smiled.