Colombia Between Peace and War

Theexibit at Consulate of Colombia in Miami, florida USA

March,April,May 2008

Colombia is a fantastic country blessed by nature in every imaginable way, hundreds of rivers including the Amazon River, the Atlantic and pacific Oceans, the Andean Mountain System, The Amazon, The Western Savannas, a beautiful desert and over 40,000.00 of the most varied and wonderful human beings. But such a magical place has a very ugly side, horror and injustice has covered its soil for more than 50 years, created by people who instead of sharing the fruits of the generous land and the efforts of hard working people, want to take it all .

For more than fifty years many illegal armed groups have been fighting against a legitimate, democratically elected government and against the people of Colombia trying to take over by force what they can't get by the rule of law.

The country has been bleeding in the hands of terrorist groups like; the FARC -armed revolutionary forces of Colombia-, the ELN- national liberation army-, the EPL-Popular Liberation Army-, the M19, the AUAC-United Self-defeses of Colombia, and some others that in the name of justice and with the promise of "Liberating the Colombian People from oppression", have managed to do exactly the opposite; vandalize, blackmail, rape, robe, kidnap, expropriate the lands, and kill thousands of people every year without any mercy, justified mostly by some kind of communist, socialist or nationalist rhetoric that no one believes any more, not even themselves.

To this date, there are more than 4,000 kidnapped people in the hands of many of these groups, mostly the FARC(see las voces del secuestro vocesdelsecuestro.com), Thousands have been killed and very few return to their love ones alive after paying millions of Dollars, and suffer for years the hardship of captivity in the jungle. The FARC is only one of the actors in the bloody conflict, but there are many others doing the same like the ELN, etc.

Another horrible crime against the people and the soil of Colombia, is the case of the Land mines. Colombia is the country with more land mines planted in the entire world (see Mi Sagre Foundation, www.fundacionmisangre.org) with over 6,000 incidents in the last ten years including mutation of organs and body parts and killing of both, military and innocent civilians of all ages, counting many children in the injured. The FARC plants land mines, when pressed by the army or when they consider to do so, and never keep logs or records, and never disarm them afterwards.

Terrorized innocent people, displaced campesino families, meny times children without parents, left out without their lands or homes, mutilated children and adults, kidnapped human beings tied-up with chains to move from place to place in the jungle, and all the anguish of the painful circumstances that have kept millions of people living in misery and sadness, is the subject of this stage of my work. I am mostly a contemporary expressionist artist in search of means of expression, and this is my way of paying tribute to those people who can't raise their own voices and to Colombia, a country that no matter the bad sides, has a lot of good, beautiful ones and keeps fighting against the odds, and one day will be truly FREE!

May God bless Colombia and its people!!!