The Flight of the Condor: Stories of Violence and War from Colombia

The Day We Buried Our Weapons

The Day We Buried Our Weapons Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza In the so-called period of violence in Colombia (roughly speaking, an undeclared civil war between Liberals and Conservatives and those acting at their behest), which lasted for close to thirty years, the intensity of the armed conflict and the frequency and ferocity of the battles, ambushes , and murders—or summary death sentences, from the opposing point of view—have varied a great deal depending on who happened to be in office, the party in power, the veiled participation of other foreign actors, and the truces and cease-fires agreed to, among many other factors . Unfortunately, one of the few things that can be counted on in the recent history of the country is that sooner or later the cycle of violence will repeat itself and after a while, the opposing parties will fight each other again. Such is the premise of this story. In this case, the setting is the eastern plains. The protagonists have pursued the conflict rather philosophically, and after coming under a truce they prepare to carry out another of the rituals of armed conflict: hiding their weapons in preparation for the next cycle of hostilities. Four years of fighting, yes sir; four years of exchanging fire with the government troops. If it weren’t for the deaths and for death, which every so often came grazing the brims of our hats, you could say that it was all one big party. Get used to it, I would say to my men; you’re going to die, you are as good as dead, so don’t be surprised when the 31 day comes. At first there weren’t many of us and we were barefoot, poorly armed with revolvers and shotguns, slinking through ghostly trails, far from the sugarcane mills and the main roads where the troops were. We hung our hammocks from the struts of abandoned ranch houses, and so we wouldn’t be discovered, we had to behead all the roosters and hang the mountain dogs. Then, the party started. The government sent more troops, and the troops came setting fire to the ranches along the way, and within one long year we were no longer dozens but thousands. The eastern plains, from Arauca to San Martín, were boiling over with rebels. The government troops couldn’t hack it even with all of their planes and bombs. What years! I still remember getting up at dawn with the guerillas , the bitter coffee and the breeze blowing across the scrubland as the last stars faded. I remember the bonfires, the nightly conversations from hammock to hammock. The closer they got to us, the more we felt like brothers, like compas. I don’t know why we started calling each other compa. See you later, compa! What’s up, compa? That’s how we always talked to each other. What a time that was! To think that we were so close to victory. To think that they traded in our revolution for a coup, poor rebels. I remember, like it was yesterday, the day we buried our weapons. The night before, instead of bombs, the military planes had hurled bunches of newspapers and a flood of pamphlets onto the camp. The newspapers spoke of the end of the dictatorship, of peace, of amnesty, of the peaceful surrender of guerillas all over the plains. And it was true, there were the photos of Guadalupe, de Aluma, the Galindo brothers, and Miguel Suarez, in front of their columns of rebels in formation, handing their weapons over to the military. Peace. Amnesty . Two words and everyone let down their guard. And as for us, what could we do? Ours was the guerilla commando unit that fought closest to the Venezuelan border; it was the furthest, the most remote. For a moment we thought we could keep fighting. But no chance; they would have crushed us. We had no doubt when the messengers came saying there was celebration in the towns, flags and the national anthem everywhere, and the people, our people, exchanging their 32 Plinio Apuleyo Mendoza 33 The Day We Buried Our Weapons weapons for bags of salt and sugar, sometimes for less, for a speech and a little bouquet of flowers from the schoolgirls. So we decided to end the party our own way. We decided to bury our weapons...