Not so in Colombia; In Colombia one can spend time in most major cities and travel between major cities without witnessing any of the atrocities, bloodshed and brutality that one associates with war. This is even true of Barrancabermeja. News reports, of course, do refer to armed combat, guerrilla insurgencies, paramilitary demobilization, etc.; but in most urban centers these things remain largely invisible. Perhaps the most visible sign that there is indeed a brutal war going on is the influx of millions of internally displaced war victims. In many areas of the cities even these internal refugees aren’t highly visible.

Apart from the combatants themselves, those who are most intimately familiar with the brutality of Colombia’s war seem to be: those who fled from or live/work in highly-conflictive mostly-rural areas, human rights activists, popular organizations, labour unions, some politicians, some journalists, kidnapping victims, etc. In other words, those who have been personally victimized in some way, and/or those who are at high risk of becoming future victims. Although this affects millions of Colombians, fear and intimidation ensure that they will not have much influence over government decision-making or the outcome of the up-coming elections.

Colombia’s victims of war and their advocates do not have much faith in the political and military solutions being put forward by the Colombian government. They see little chance of justice or reparation within the present Colombian judicial system, and as things stand, demanding justice is often likely to result in a complainant’s being even further victimized. There is therefore little benefit and much risk in denouncing human rights violations committed by illegal paramilitaries, especially to make denounces to representatives of the very government whose soldiers are known to collaborate with paramilitaries. Those who denounce guerrilla atrocities also run the risk of reprisals. Even atrocities committed by the Colombian Armed Forces often go unpunished. The apparent impunity of human rights violators, combined with extreme vulnerability of those who dare to denounce them, has created a culture of deadly silence.

For Colombian victims of war, gaining massive support and the sympathy of fellow citizens is also difficult given the lack of freedom of the press. Since journalists are also being threatened and assassinated, much of what happens is either not reported at all, or inaccurately reported by the news media. Rather than doing true investigative journalism into the context of an event, news media may limit themselves to, for instance, reporting that a body was found, and perhaps saying only that individual appeared to have died a violent death; or they may choose not to report the event at all! As a result the only Colombians who really do have a pretty good idea of what is going on usually learn about these things through direct contact with the victims of violence and their advocates, not by reading the newspapers.