Drugs. Violence. Cartels. Cocaine. Sicarios. Pablo Escobar.
These words are some of the first on the lips of people when speaking of Medellín.
Most innovative city in the world.
This last expression is already old news, but many people outside of Latin America still don’t know it. After the death of Pablo Escobar and the fragmentation of the Medellín Cartel, the city experienced a massive turnaround under Mayor Sergio Fajardo Valderrama. A mass transit system was built to connect distant parts of the city, new parks were built and old ones revamped and improved, a whole philosophy of architecture was put into action to help the city’s citizens connect with each other.
[Skip to the end for the “how to” information.]
Comuna 13
Total Spanish, where Jordan took classes, offered a tour to Comuna 13, one of Medellín’s most famous neighborhoods.
Comuna 13 (“tray-say”) was formerly one of Medellín’s poorest and most crime-ridden neighborhoods, or comunas. With few economic options available to its residents, many saw work in narcotraffic as the only option for advancement and Comuna 13 existed for a time as a prime area for the recruitment of low-level cartel employees such as runners, street sellers and sicarios. At the same time, paramilitary and revolutionary forces had reached the outskirts of Medellín and also recruited heavily from poor comunas like Comuna 13, intent on gaining ground in one of Colombia’s most important cities.
On October 16th, 2002, under orders from then-President Álvaro Uribe Velez, members of the Colombian armed forces and institutional equivalents of the FBI and DEA descended on Comuna 13 in an offensive known as Operación Orión. They cordoned the comuna off and went from house to house, detaining some and killing many others. At times, helicopters hovered over the neighborhood, shelling houses indiscriminately. The operation’s goal was to find and detain narcotraffickers and paramilitaries.
By the end of the two day operation, 243 people had been arrested, hundreds more simply disappeared. Bodies began turning up in a landfill named La Escombrera (the Dump), on the hillsides overlooking Comuna 13. So far, roughly 300 bodies have been exhumed and more are expected to be found as digging continues.
Nowadays, Comuna 13 is a safe and alluring tourist attraction. Its residents successfully petitioned the government to invest in the reconstruction of their neighborhood after having done so much damage to it. Situated on a steep hillside, it now boasts electric escalators to help residents move about, access to the city metro system as well as community centers, libraries and places for after school activities.
Sebastian Castro Ayala, of the tour operator Ruta 13, guided us through Comuna 13’s history as we walked its graffiti-painted streets. Art plays a central role in the comuna’s rebirth and in its ongoing renaissance. Each graffito tells a story. Each image has meaning.
Elephants evoke the community’s memory of the events that they survived. White flags waving from the elephant’s trunks are the white flags that residents waived in vain at the soldiers those bloody nights, before being beaten or shot. Two black boys smile out from a cement wall, their arms over each other’s shoulders. They are the faces of the youth lost in those two days, and especially of black youth, who many residents feel were targeted more heavily by the government forces.
Where plants fail to break through cement, their images are painted on top of it. A humpbacked whale breaks the water’s surface next to trees. The heart of one tree holds sunset colors in the shape of South America. Whales are huge creatures, says Sebastián, but they are so delicate. They eat tiny things that are even more delicate. If a small change decimates their food, then these giant creatures die. Even the biggest depend on the smallest. There’s no escape in this world. And the trees? We are the trees, continues Sebastian. Our roots are deep in America and generation after generation we throw our branches up towards the sky. (translator’s note: the words for “sky” and “heaven” are the same in Spanish and it was unclear if “sky” in this case was used poetically, religiously or both)
I don’t know whether to be surprised or not, but I am impressed that in all of Comuna 13’s iconography, I see no hint of rancor. Grief, hope and pride abound, but I can find no trace of anger or any desire for vengeance painted on their walls.
Sebastian brings us to a corner where a young boy was once shot dead by a stray bullet. The community responded by erecting a slide alongside the stairs that had been there, to encourage children to play, to be children while they still can.
With so many people coming to Comuna 13, thanks in no small part to its easy access to public transit, we ask Sebastian if the flow of people worked both ways. Do the residents of Comuna 13 travel beyond the comuna for work? Has the metro helped them find jobs in wealthier parts of the city, or just helped them to see other parts more and mingle with those residents?
That, says Sebastian, will still take some time. Only the first generation of kids since the massacre are now coming of age and the older residents remain traumatized and deeply mistrustful of the outside world. People still feel fear, he says and they fear for their children outside the confines of the Comuna.
In some ways, the cordon around Comuna 13 remains in place.
Things have gotten better, says Sebastian. You can’t even imagine…Still, real change? The kind that changes the heart of the community? Change like that takes generations.
Getting There and Getting Around
Transport: The most efficient way to get to and from Comuna 13 is the metro. Take the B line to San Javier station. Buses are another option, for which I recommend downloading the Moovit app.
Safety: Comuna 13 is fairly safe during the day, but common sense precautions should be taken. It remains one of Medellín’s poorer districts, so avoid displaying expensive items like DSLR cameras when you’re on your own. Colombians have an expression for not making oneself a target that’s worth learning: “no dar papaya“. Literally, “don’t give papaya”, it means not to offer thieves an opportunity.
Tours: We recommend them. For one, it helps the local economy and isn’t very expensive. You’ll also get a lot more information about the area that way. The more jaded travellers will correctly point out that this is not always the case, but at least in the case of Ruta 13, we felt that we got a great deal, in terms of quality, information and enjoyment.
Nearby Attractions: Comuna 13 can easily be visited in the same day as Parque Arvi, which is accessible from the Acevedo stop on the A line, followed by some pretty nice aerial cable car rides.