ONLINE CURRENTS VOL3 - Flipbook - Page 38
The Truth Commission cites how animals “were used intentionally as a means of identifying
and triggering mines… One soldier told the commission of how the army would use domestic
animals to locate mines in Morales, south of Bolívar: ‘We gathered a certain number of
horses, donkeys and cows, and we herded them through the minefields left by the retreating
guerillas. (...) They set off various minefields which had been laid for us. (...) That’s how we
cleared that obstacle which had been left for us by the guerillas. Many animals died there.’”
6
Also known is the case of the donkey laden with 60 kilos of explosives which was used to
attack a police station in the municipality of Chalán, in Sucre, on the 14th March 1996,
undertaken by Frente 35, belonging to the Caribbean Block of the FARC-EP. “That day, the
explosion destroyed the police station, the health center, the school and the town hall. 11
soldiers also died. That incident, known as the ‘donkey bomb’, was the first of many similar
incidents.”
7
What is cruelty?
The image of a beggar with a circle around his eyes and a penis on his
forehead, drawn by the authorities…
What is a miracle?
Despite cruelty, every day, getting up to write and erase, to erase and
write…
What is frustration?
Writing knowing that my text
is not sacred
it fails to deliver the promised land, it does not drive any community
or extinguish its plagues
38