El Chocó, Colombia, is an area of great natural beauty, mostly low-lying tropical rain forest, with an incredible level of biodiversity. More than 80% of the inhabitants of El Chocó are Afro-Colombians. Around 10% are indigenous people from a half-dozen ethnic groups. The rest, less than 10%, are “mestizos,” people of mixed racial/ethnic inheritance.
Traditional Afro-Colombian and indigenous social and economic life is centered on the rivers. The main ones are the Atrato, which flows north and empties into the Gulf of Urabá in the Caribbean coast, and the San Juan and Baudó Rivers, which flow to the Pacific.
Until recently, this was an area of people who were poor, but not miserable. Despite official neglect and incursions by multinationals, the people managed to maintain themselves through activities like fishing, hunting, sustainable lumbering, panning for gold and platinum in the rivers, planting plátanos and family crops. An active flow of cargo and people along the rivers and to the coasts provided the possibility of commerce and interchange.
In the 90s, this environment was dramatically and tragically destroyed by the arrival of the Colombian civil war among the three armed groups—the FARC and ELN guerrillas, the right-wing paramilitaries, and the national army and police. Since the late 90s, when the paramilitaries arrived under protection of the security forces, the people of El Chocó have suffered the consequences of war, among them: many deaths, the displacement of thousands of persons, control of the rivers by the armed groups and damage to their social, cultural and economic lives.
In this short series of images, I present portraits of some of the people of El Chocó who have been displaced by the violence, as well as some of their expressions of their desire for peace and justice. I think it is crticially important that documentary photographers avlid the all-too frquent trap of presenting thepeople whose pictures they take as little more than victims. I hope that I have been able to show as well some of the strength, the creativity, the resistance of the people. My intention is that viewers will be inspired to learn more about these people, and in doing so, broaden their (our) view of humanity.
