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June 18, 2009
Relocation on Saturday
On Saturday, I will attend my very first relocation ceremony in Moravia. As I have explained in previous posts, a large part of the Moravia project is relocating people, either because they live on the trash dump, because they live in unstable shacks or because one of the Moravia building projects will affect their living situation.
Relocation has become increasingly controversial in Moravia in recent months: community leaders have distributed angry pamphlets describing the process as deceit by the city administration, residents have refused to leave their illegal residences unless forced to by police, the alternative public housing offered by the city has been for many reasons unsatisfactory, etc. Further, criminal groups in Medellin have shown increasing power and audacity since late 2008. Combined, these two phenomena will make the relocation process particularly tense.
Security in general for Moravia project employees has been deteriorating rapidly. Last year, the leader of a local 'community organization' who happened to be a demobilized paramilitary, died for reasons unknown to me. This, I hear, has led to increased tension locally, which leads me to speculate that he was murdered.
Since then, this 'community organization' has made some threatening appearances at local Moravia assemblies at meetings. According to my friends at the project, groups of young men will show up asking what the meeting is about, what the project plans to do in the neighborhood, etc. It seems that the group they represent - a mix of alternative local government, community organization, and local paramilitary criminal group - want to control everything that happens in Moravia. It is quite scary that this group has enough power and audacity to interrupt official city meetings.
Some neighbors have recently asked that the Moravia project social workers take over a local education facility which has come under the control of the 'community organization'. According to them, that facility has become a space for drug dealing and prostitution. Of course, the city can only do so much and, for now, in order to maintain stability in the neighborhood, social workers will stick to their original tasks and try to prevent any confrontations between police and such gangs.
These days, no city employee can go to Moravia alone and everyone in the group must have a clearly visible city administration ID. In the event that belonging to the city administration is not enough to protect them, the project has repeatedly sent requests for 'vests' to the agency responsible for such equipment. They still haven't received them.
By vests, they may mean the safari-like city administration attire that I often see, which would make it even clearer to Moravia residents that the workers are there on official business. The reason I think they may be bulletproof vests is that I can't imagine that getting a few cheap grey vests would be such a bureaucratic nightmare.
At Saturday's relocation ceremony, we will be accompanied by a large police unit that will prevent any violence. At the last relocation ceremony, this 'community organization' staged sit-ins at many of the houses, even though they didn't live there. Another potential problem could be reluctant residents. Earlier relocations were easier because the first people to be relocated were the most willing. On Saturday we will relocate at least 31 and hopefully as many as 45 of the last families left on the trash dump and most are still there because negotiations with them have taken a very long time.
The city technically has a legal right to evict many of the residents of Moravia. The neighborhood was gradually built on city property by migrants from the countryside and other poor people with nowhere else to go. They have never owned the land. Ideally, however, the entire Moravia project should be executed with the support of the community. Local people, of course, are the ones who are supposed to be benefiting from the transformation of their neighborhood.
In that sense, any security precaution taken by the Moravia project simply distances it from the community. A lone city worker in humble attire sends a far better message than a frightened city worker surrounded by police. But the project is determined, first and foremost, to guarantee the security of its workers.
On Saturday I will get a better sense for the atmosphere in Moravia. Maybe I will even get a sense for what this 'community organization' is all about. I still don't quite know exactly what the crime/security situation is in the neighborhood.
What is clear, however, is that the relationship between Moravia residents and the city administration is increasingly fragile and that mysterious groups are emerging to challenge the authority of the city administration and the independent community leaders that have been orienting the project for years. Moravia is one of the oldest Strategic Projects currently underway. It started under the Fajardo administration and has visibly transformed the neighborhood. It would be sad to see the project stagnate or, even worse, to see criminal groups undo much of the progress that has been made.
Posted by Pablo Rojas at June 18, 2009 04:27 PM
