Marta Perdomo, 45, of Huitoto ethnicity, moved from the Amazon region to Bogotá eight years ago and settled in Ciudad Bolívar, one of the largest and most populous neighborhoods in the Colombian capital.
“The situation was very difficult, the white man and his companies are advancing on the indigenous people, we have less and less resources and our family members are being killed by the Colombian conflict”, he tells the Sheet. “Here I knew I would have indigenous relatives, a cheaper way of living in the city, but the adaptation cost me — it took me two years to learn Spanish.”
Perdomo is a monitor at the Museum of the Self-built City, the cultural center of Ciudad Bolívar’s memory. The town was born in the 1940s, as a settlement for migrants displaced by the violence between the army, guerrillas, paramilitaries and drug trafficking factions. Today, it is a microcosm summarizing challenges of the new government of Gustavo Petro, sworn in as president this Sunday (7).
According to the UN, Colombia is the Latin American country with the highest number of so-called internal “desplazados”: 7 million. Most are on the outskirts of large cities, such as Ciudad Bolívar — with 1 million inhabitants spread across slopes south of the capital. The neighborhood, which gained legal recognition in 1992, is also the town in Bogotá with the most Venezuelans; Altogether, indigenous, immigrants and Afro-Colombians make up more than 80% of the population.
Ahead of the mayor’s office from 2012 to 2015, Petro led several initiatives in the region. The most symbolic was a cable car, which reduced the travel time from two hours to 17 minutes from there to the first subway and bus station that leads to the center – where most residents work.
Celebrated, the initiative still has the nickname of Petrocable. “She ensured that more people could spend time with their families, take courses, have access to healthcare,” says Luis Manjarres, coordinator of the museum, which is next to the cable car’s end point, in a square with Wi-Fi and accessibility.
“Urbanization in recent years has accelerated. A lot is done by community organizations, but the help of mayors like Petro and [Enrique] Peñalosa was essential.” It was the initiative of the successor of the new president, from the center-left, to distribute paint for the population to paint the neighborhood. Today, when arriving in Ciudad Bolívar by cable car, you can see the mountain full of colorful houses and graffiti.
In June, Petro received the vote of 75% of the locals. And the expectation for the new government is great. “It feels like we’ve been dreaming ever since. For me, having a black vice president is a victory. We hope we don’t wake up from that dream,” says Francisco Posso, 42, leader of the Afro-Colombian Alliance in Ciudad Bolívar, referring to Francia Márquez.
The euphoria is visible in the reports and campaign posters, still scattered on the streets. There are, however, those who are also afraid. Jorge Ariza, 65, is an internally displaced person who left the department of Tolima in 2006 due to violence. “We saw children recruited by factions, we had to pay bribes to these groups so that they would not destroy their plantation, their commerce”, he says. “When I came, I didn’t want to live in the center of the city, it would kill me. Here, I can have a little land for a vegetable garden, build a bigger house. But only collectively can we press for water, health, sewage.”
Ariza is the community leader of a settlement in Ciudad Bolívar, with paved streets and brick houses. But, around, the dwellings are more precarious; built on the slopes with wood and sheet metal, they are always vulnerable in the rainy season.
“Life works because we are organized. Everyone knows each other and, if a neighbor is missing something, we help. On Saturdays there are parties, we make collective pots of food, with Venezuelan dishes, from the regions of Colombia, from the indigenous people. But we have to work hard “, he says, while showing the system he developed with urban planning students to recycle rainwater.
The Museum of the Self-built City, based on the oral history of residents seen and heard in videos around the hall, also displays a painful past. “We believe that building memory is what makes us strong,” says Manjarres. There is a history of local massacres, such as one in 1992, in which 17 boys were killed by paramilitaries and abandoned in a square. “It is common for these groups to visit vulnerable neighborhoods to murder poor young people, as if this extermination could lessen the violence.”
Ciudad Bolívar also suffers from the existence of a dump, where waste from various parts of the city is deposited. For local collection, residents organize and work voluntarily. “The State is not entirely present here”, evaluates the museum coordinator. “Petro promised us to solve this, to fight mining companies that contaminate our mountains; if he doesn’t, it will be a disappointment.”
The speech is echoed by analysts who weigh the weight of high expectations around the new president, who takes over with 64% approval. But also in other parts of Ciudad Bolívar. Francisco Posso says that the worst that can happen is for the government to act like the previous ones. “They’re going to need political favors, and we can be left with nothing. That’s the worst, let nothing happen.”
Ariza is hopeful, but says he has learned to live without the state. “I’m not going to put my arms down and wait for them to come and offer me sewage or a basket of food.” Perdomo adds: “We’ve already had 500 years of genocide — that’s how the different ethnic groups here think. We can’t wait any longer.”
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