Citizens’ Media against Armed Conflict: Disrupting Violence in Colombia

2. Nation Building, One Voice at a Time: Citizens’ Communication in Montes de María

As my plane descends from the Andean city of Bogotá (the capital of Colombia) I can see the geography change below me. The steep mountains and narrow canyons become the vast savannas of the Colombian Caribbean. I am flying to Cartagena, and from there I will travel to the region known as Montes de María.1 It’s 2004, and for months I have attempted this field trip, but the situation of unrest kept me from making the trip until now. Things seem to have calmed down, at least for a while. My destination is the Colectivo de Comunicaciones de Montes de María Línea 21 [Communications Collective of Montes de María: 21st Line], a participatory radio, video, and television initiative that won the National Peace Award in 2003.2 My colleagues in Bogotá frequently mention this initiative, but no one seems to be able to explain clearly why the Collective won the peace award. Few Colombian communication academics, even those who specialize in citizens’ media or communication for social change, have visited Montes de María. The region is too far away from the capital and the situation of unrest too intense to make it an easy destination. Soraya Bayuelo, one of the founding members of the Collective, picks me up at the airport. One of her friends has offered to drive us to Montes de María, so we board his taxi and take off, looking for the road that will take us to El Carmen de Bolívar, the main urban center in Montes de María. 85 2 NATION BUILDING, ONE VOICE AT A TIME Citizens’ Communication in Montes de María You never see artists painting with machine guns! —Johnny Vergara, La Calle theater group, Zambrano, Colombia We leave Cartagena behind and travel for about an hour on a straight and unexciting road. Flat lands covered with low shrubs on the right and the same on the left. I could be in Oklahoma, except that sometimes we border the ocean. Although Cartagena is a common tourist destination and I have visited it on countless occasions, I’ve never been in this part of the country; in fact, I don’t think I ever heard of Montes de María while growing up in Colombia. I began hearing about the region in the mid-1990s, when it was frequently mentioned in the news as a site of guerrilla activity, paramilitary massacres : the usual war zone. In my mind, Montes de María exists as another of Colombia’s “zonas calientes” (violent regions). About an hour into our trip we cross a large waterway, and Soraya tells me this is the Canal del Dique, which marks the beginning of what is known as Montes de María. The landscape changes almost immediately. A mountain chain comes into view. These are the Montes de María. As the road begins zigzagging and swerving up and down, the landscape becomes lush, with thick forests packed with vines, wildflowers of incredible beauty, and green in all imaginable shades. But something else changes with the new landscape: the extent of militarization is hard to believe. I have never seen such a concentration of weapons, barricades, and heavily armed men. Every mile and a half 86 nation building, one voice at a time Video production in San Basillio de Palenque. Photograph courtesy of Soraya Bayuelo, 2010. small army platoons weighed down by machine guns and all kinds of heavy military gear patrol the road.3 In the next hour we will be stopped at ten military checkpoints. In some places Soraya tells me that just a year ago driving past this or that curve had become a terrifying experience, as these had become preferred sites for the guerrillas to stop traffic, kidnap travelers, and burn vehicles. It is hard to imagine what the people of Montes de María endured in the last ten years. People here used to talk about their region as a “zona bendita” (a blessed region). The broken topography offers access to many different climactic zones, making it an ideal setting for agriculture . You could plant almost anything in Montes de María. It stands green and proud in the middle of the flat, almost barren lowlands covering most of Colombia’s northern Caribbean region. The last two decades, however, brought many changes to the region, including increasing guerrilla attacks, paramilitary massacres, and...