We ask for prayers for the Guayabo community who have been resisting for over ten years against the violence of large landowners and against the complicit silence of the local authorities who refuse to allow the community to live in peace on their lands. Today they are rebuilding their homes that were destroyed when they were evicted by the national police.
In the last ten years, the community of El Guayabo has witnessed the arrival and departure of paramilitaries, police, army and politicians who seek to displace the community from their lands and hand them over to large landowners who, through violence and in collusion with violent groups, claim the rights to the lands from which the families of El Guayabo survive.
With each new attempt of displacement, the community has experienced threats, evictions, gunfire, beatings, and harassment. One of the actions against the community—the most successful so far—was the one pushed forward by Rodrigo López Henao and carried out by the police. In this eviction, they destroyed several family homes in an attempt to remove them from the area and destroy the connection that each of them has with the land.
Today we celebrate the tenacity and hope of the community of Guayabo who have decided to return to the land and reconstruct what was destroyed, returning to the place from which they have never truly left and which they call home.