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June 16, 2009
Coca, Corn and MetroCable
This past weekend was a long weekend here in Colombia. On Sunday, I went to Sonsón, the hometown of many of my relatives on my mother's side. Sonson is a small town about three hours of Medellin in the war-torn region of Eastern Antioquia.
It was my first time visiting. My grandma and her sisters have many fond memories of their time there and I've always been interested in going there to get in touch with my roots, knowing fully that life in Sonson is the exact opposite of my daily reality. Eastern Antioquia is a vast, dark green region located in Colombia's Central Andean mountain range. It is cold and foggy because of the altitude, but the region is great for agriculture. The land is extremely fertile, and driving through the region I saw hundreds of hills, most of them half-covered in dense forest and half-covered in rows of corn or coffee.
Sonson was once a booming corn town. It is not quite as desolate as some small towns in the U.S., but poverty, war and abandonment by the national government have definitely robbed it of its former dynamism. Of my grandmother's classmates, only one is still living in Sonson. Most moved to Medellin, Bogota, other Colombian cities, or foreign countries. The streets of Sonson were simply undriveable. It would be wrong to speak of potholes, because most streets were simply one huge pothole: broken glass, uneven terrain, chunks of concrete and lonely cobblestones. The only decently paved streets were in and around the town square.
Sonson used to be a main coca growing area and, looking at the dense forests and seemingly endless rows of complex hills, I wondered whether it still is. During my drive there, I saw very clearly how difficult crop eradication must be. Although FARC guerrillas have largely been driven out of the area, it remains heavily militarized.
Indeed, in Sonson, there are more soldiers than paved streets. I've heard numerous time since coming to Colombia that the government simply has no commitment rural development and my trip to Sonson confirmed those claims. Once we got out of the areas immediately outside Medellin where the city's wealthiest people go on vacation, the towns we saw were simply falling apart. Everywhere we went were signs of poverty and unemployment. Whenever we parked in Sonson, large groups of local kids immedaitely stormed the car, desperate to make a few cents watching over our cars. Around the town's periphery, nearly every house was abandoned or for sale. It seems that the only thing that the state has to offer Colombia's peasants is militarization.
Admittedly, it must be difficult to have a development plan for towns that the government has only controlled for the past 7 years or less. At one point, according to statistics I have heard a lot, 60% of Colombian towns were under the control of guerrilla forces, and many more were controlled by paramilitaries. Many of those towns are now under the control of the Colombian military, but peasants need more than just guns if Colombia is to reduce poverty and violence in the long run.
Seeing Sonson, which is in fact a relatively prosperous town, it is evident to me why rural Colombia is such fertile ground for recruits for illegal armed groups and one their main sources of funding, coca cultivation.
Those peasants who decide to migrate to larger cities often settle into marginalized slums and find few opportunities for employment and education. It is no wonder that Medellin is growing as quickly as it is. Every year, new slums form around the city, inhabited by people from places like Sonson.
On a more positive note, on Monday I visited one of Medellin's MetroCables. MetroCable is an aerial tramway/gondola system (difficult to describe, but please Google it) that currently serves two of Medellin's poor hillside sectors. More MetroCables are in the planning stages. Previously, residents of Medellin slums could not even access the economic and cultural opportunities of the low-lying downtown sector - jobs, universities, cultural events, etc. - because armed groups restricted their movement and because there was simply no cheap, easy way to get downtown. Most slums don't have streets, where there are streets, many residents cannot afford cars, motorcycles or even busses. Poor people in Medellin were essentially excluded from the city and living in a seemingly endless cycle of poverty, violence and marginalization.
Former mayor Fajardo's Metrocable changed that. The system links up with the Medellin Metro and offers poor people living far up in the mountains a safe, cheap way to get downtown. I had already visited the Santo Domingo MetroCable. Yesterday I visted the San Javier MetroCable, which serves Medellin's 13th Ward, Comuna 13.
Comuna 13 was the site of high-intensity conflict in the early 2000s. I encourage readers to Google Comuna 13. Most results will talk about the intense battles between the government, paramilitaries and guerrilla forces in the slum in 2003. The military operation which rid Comuna 13 of the guerrillas has recently come under much criticism because of alleged military cooperation with paramilitary death squads.
MetroCable is a truly inspiring project. Each car features a large sign that reads "Here, we also have Metro culture", referring to the culture of civility and respect that characterizes the Medellin Metro. The Metro, which goes through downtown Medellin, was built in the 1990's and to this day remains remarkably clean, safe and calm for such a dirty and violent city. The message on the cars emphasizes that poor neighborhoods can also have such a great culture of peace and respect.
Indeed, on the MetroCable, people patiently wait in line, gladly orient each other, etc. I can't help but to think that MetroCable can do wonders for neighborhoods like the ones that make up Comuna 13, where violence was once a way of life.
On every MetroCable trip that I've made, the ten people or less in the car immediatley start talking about social and political issues. Most frequently, people refer to how great MetroCable is as a force for economic dynamism and social change in slums, how much poverty they see below and how much work remains to be done, how pretty Medellin looks from so high up and what a great city it is, what a great job Fajardo did, etc.
The most remarkable thing about these conversations is that they usually occur between tourists from wealthy neighborhoods and poor regular MetroCable riders. For about fifteen minutes, people who otherwise don't encounter or speak to each other reflect on the city together. MetroCable encourages not just civility, but also social integration on a small scale.
On a larger scale, the potential of MetroCable is seemingly limitless. By allowing slum residents to go downtown, it can stimulate employment. By bringing tourists to slums, it can stimulate local economic activity. Further, the MetroCable projects were not constructed in isolation: at every station there is at least a new library, a new school, a new park, such that MetroCable is part of a far larger program of urban renewal. The mere fact that I could visit Comuna 13 and ride up to such poor neighborhoods accompanied by slum residents themselves, is proof of the project's success.
Nevertheless, given all the recent news of violence in Medellin, one of my first thoughts as I looked down at the labyrinthine streets and paths of Comuna 13 was that, down there, powerful armed groups were at war. Comuna 13 remains one of Medellin's most violent sectors where intimidating pamphlets, shootouts and forced displacement are a daily reality. Needless to say, today's violence does not compare to massacres of 2003, but it is clear that MetroCable and a larger police presence alone have not eliminated violence at its roots. Therefore, unfortunately, homicide rates are rapidly rising.
It was definitely a strange ride full of contradictions: an award-winning high-tech transportation system surrounded by shacks, tourism in what was once (and to some extent still is) an urban warzone. But I guess that's the point of Medellin's past two administrations. The city's crisis of violence and poverty could not be confronted with gradual, cautious policies. Fajardo and Salazar brought the most investment, the prettiest buildings and the best schools to war-torn slums. It remains to be seen how much peace and prosperity their policies manage to achieve.
Posted by Pablo Rojas at June 16, 2009 04:58 PM
