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06 Nov, CI. – The armed conflict has had severe effects on the health sector in the various territories of Colombia for many years. Ancestral connoisseurs and traditional doctors have suffered 86 acts of violence for their work dedicated to the communities.
The Truth Commission released testimonies and stories from doctors and leaders in the Pacific region through the audiovisual “Traditional Medicine: A Legacy That Resists Conflict”.
Felipe Cuero, social leader of Guapi, Cauca, said that “the wise or commonly known as traditional doctors are those who protect traditional ancestral practices and knowledge of black communities. It is an uncoded knowledge, which is transmitted from generation to generation, which reflects the resilience of the communities and the presence in the territories which is the basis and what constitutes us as people of color ”.
Similarly, Rosa Angélica Tenorio, director of culture at Tumaco, said that “traditional medicine is the first resource we have in what has to do with cases or health situations. Before going to the doctor, we are very close to our midwives, our doctors, our experts, they are our first alternative in the various sectors, both urban and rural in the district ”.
The Colombian health system was formed between 1968 and 1984, strengthening the infrastructure for the provision of the service. It currently works through a contributory scheme and a subsidized scheme. This implies that the development of hospitals is not the same in all regions. The Pacific region is one of the hardest hit in this sense, both by corruption and by the armed conflict that affects it.
“We have seen how many communities, many doctors, herbalists, rezanderos, midwives, have been murdered for providing their work, that ancestral medicine has been hit and invested for having done a task”, denounced Leyner Palacios Asprilla, Commissioner in truth.
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Groups on the fringes of the law and paramilitaries have stolen the resources of the health sector by stipulating contracts or salaries to workers; thereby causing very poor service provision in rural areas where these groups have interference. The collective victims of these diseases are 423 and the single victims exceed the two thousand victims to date.
In 2000, the inhabitants of Buenaventura suffered the massacre perpetrated by the Pacific Block of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia -AUC-, with the acquiescence and complicity of the troops of the Pichincha and Palacé battalions assigned to Brigade 3 of the National Army.
“After the military group’s raid on 11 May 2000 when they killed the health promoter of Llano Bajo, comrade Lucio Camacho (…) We physically felt fear and this limited us to carry on the effects of our work. “he said. Rubén Neira, former rural health promoter in Buenaventura.
Rubén Neira continued “when some people asked for our help in some health field, so without knowing it there could be elements, for example by the guerrillas, then we were stigmatized and reported as auxiliary to the guerrilla, when it was not so”.
In Puerto Saija, a village in Timbiquí, they have a rudimentary health center, a single school and five hours of electricity a day. There are illegal armed groups in this area. Despite the conditions, the sage Macario Alegría helps his community to alleviate psychological and spiritual damage with ancestral rituals.
“The issue of armed conflict and everything, well, there are people who have been displaced by these things and have been looking for one: man, I’m terrified, I’m sick, I feel sick! What I did as a traditional doctor was to help them, give them small volumes that raise the issue of fear, anxiety and many other things that also plague people, “said Macario Alegría Hurtado, a traditional doctor from Puerto Saija.
Data from the national information network show that from 1985 to 2019, in the departments of Chocó, Valle del Cauca, Cauca and Nariño, nearly 1,800,233 people were reported victims of the armed conflict, which places the Pacific region as one of the most affected in the country.
“Yes, many, many threats. For both and for both. So those situations sometimes get very difficult. There is no tranquility or harmony in the community, because the community is also interested and all this, because it does not feel well (…) What we want is to live in peaceful family harmony in our territory “, said Luis Fernando Velásquez , Embera Chamí informed by Quibdó.
It is important to emphasize that the recognition of traditional and alternative medicine is a vital part of the overall health care process of the communities that have experienced the scourge of the Colombian armed conflict.
“Midwives, sobanderos, healers and remedieros are traditional doctors, guardians of ancestral wisdom who, on many occasions, are the only alternative that Pacific coast communities have to relieve pain and heal the psychological and spiritual damage that leaves the ‘impact of the armed conflict in this area, ”the Truth Commission said.
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CI JJ / CC / 06/11/2020/15: 30
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