A Town Called 'Difficult'

In northeast Colombia, a town struggles with a new reality as paramilitaries disarm.

EL DIFICIL, Colombia - On this day in El Dificil, Colombia, life doesn't seem as tough as its name, which means "difficult" in English.

Children fill the town square, playing with dogs or riding bikes. Vendors sell fruits and vegetables from wheeled carts. There is a man on a donkey and dozens on motorcycles. Women stop by an open doorway to talk with a mother cradling an infant.

People return my greeting warmly and there are plenty of smiles for my camera. Older men even tease a bit, asking how things are in "Gringolandia."

But no one, it seems, really wants to talk — not about the past, anyway.

Until a month ago, this town was controlled by "Bloque Norte" paramilitary fighters, part of the right-wing United Self Defense Forces of Colombia, known by its Spanish acronym AUC.

Under an agreement with the Colombian government, Bloque Norte demobilized, along with other paramilitary groups — an estimated 26,000 fighters in all.

The AUC was formed in the mid-90s by landowners and drug lords to counter attacks and kidnappings by the leftist guerrillas of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the National Liberation Army (ELN).

But they committed massacres and assassinated opponents across Colombia. This, along with their involvement in drug trafficking, got them listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and Europe — just like their two main guerrilla enemies, FARC and the ELN.

El Dificil may seem tranquil on this day, but there is a clear and underlying tension. It's partly because the violence of the past is not very far behind, and partly because of new allegations that the paramilitaries helped rig the 2002 vote in the region in favor of Colombian President Alvaro Uribe. He is seeking re-election in a vote on May 28.

The allegations complicate the Uribe administration's efforts to demobilize other armed groups, particularly the ELN, whose leader has called for a full investigation.

These circumstances serve to keep most in El Dificil tight-lipped.

Father Duverney Pulgarin Sanchez is one of the few willing to talk.

He has been the parish priest at La Eucharista Church for the last three years. He has parishioners, he says, that have been victims of both the guerrillas and the paramilitaries.

"People don't want to talk about it," he says, "they want to forget. They want it to be part of the past, but there is still resentment."

Sanchez says a lot of individuals "disappeared," leaving wives and children as widows and orphans. He says things have been more tranquil since the paramilitary demobilization.

"Thank God we don't live under that now. But who knows what will happen tomorrow?"

He says that while the concern of violence has decreased, another kind of concern has taken its place.

"Because the guerrillas are so near, I think the people felt some sense of security under the paramilitaries. But there was also tension because the paramilitaries had informants everywhere," he says.

"Now that they've disarmed, that tension is gone. But the feeling of insecurity is increasing — along with crime."

Sanchez says even he has been a victim. Someone came to the rectory and asked for some water, he says, but ended up stealing almost 100,000 pesos (about $40) from his room.

The increase in crime also is likely a result of massive unemployment in the town where some say fifty to sixty percent of adult males are out of work.

Passing the time at a pool hall

There's anecdotal evidence of that in a local billiards hall, where men with a lot of time on their hands drink cheap beer in the middle of the day, playing pool with crooked cues on worn and dusty tables.

Many of those who can't find work, including demobilized paramilitary fighters, end up driving motorcycle taxis. After expenses they make as little as $4 a day.

One driver, 28-year-old Jorge Suarez, wants to do something he's never been able to do: go to school.

"I want to have some kind of technical career," he says, "but I can't make enough money to pay for school."

At a local marketplace, Jhon Carlos, an unemployed laborer, echoes the same sentiments.

"I used to install solar power for the local ranches," he says, "but lately there's been no work."

He has a wife and three sons to support and says more often than not, a month will go by and he won't have made any money at all.

"On those months," he says, "you have to sell things just to survive."

El Dificil's only radio station

Near the market, inside a lime-green building, 30-year-old Jose Miguel Rios selects music to play at El Dificil's only radio station.

The station is tiny, with a sound board, computer and about 200 CDs. The station plays mostly vallenato music, similar to ranchero and centered on the accordion. The vallenato sound is festive, uplifting — a soothing antidote to El Dificil's mostly unspoken insecurities about its future.

"Sometimes they call in requests on the telephone," says Rios. "Other times they just stop in and shout through the door."

Despite the unemployment, the shadow of voter fraud allegations and the general understanding that the paramilitaries are probably still in charge even after the demobilization, some, like motorcycle taxi driver Jorge Suarez, decide to just surrender and enjoy a calming dusk.

"This town is called Difficult," he says, "but it's not that difficult. We have our moments of anguish and anger just like anywhere else, but it's not so bad."

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