In this article I invite you to the subregion of “Catatumbo”, from the amazement and fatigue in the face of the conflict that does not cease but also to the hope and commitment for a necessary but so elusive peace.

^{IN THE MIDST OF FORESTS, WATER, OIL, COAL, URANIUM, COCA AND STRUCTURAL PROBLEMS, THE CONFLICT} 

The subregion of Catatumbo, "house of thunder" in the Barí indigenous language, with more than 4,800 km², is located in the northeast of the department of Norte de Santander, in Colombia; it is made up of the municipalities of Ocaña, El Carmen, Convention, Teorama, San Calixto, Hacarí, La Playa, El Tarra, Tibú and Sardinata. It is home to the Motilón-Barí and Catalaura-Gamarra reservations, where the ancestral "Barí" people live.

This subregion has been involved in cycles of violence derived, among others, from structural problems of historical social, economic and political inequality, also exacerbated by the geostrategic position of the region, since it is the route from the north of Colombia to Venezuela and therefore the passage for products from licit and illicit economies.

Catatumbo encloses a great biological diversity and natural wealth made up of natural ecosystems sources of biodiversity, climates, landscapes, natural resources and a large supply of mineral resources such as oil, coal and uranium. It contains the Catatumbo-Bari National Natural Park, the only one of the tropical rainforests in northeastern Colombia and is one of the last areas inhabited by the Barí or Motilones indigenous people. Was
in the first half of the twentieth century the first oil province in Colombia and although its basin has been one of the most prolific in the country, crude oil did not bring the expected progress for the subregion.

It is crossed by numerous rivers, streams and streams that give it a great water supply and the Catatumbo River that gives it its name, which runs throughout the subregion, from its source in the mountains of Ábrego, to its mouth in Lake Maracaibo in Venezuela, becoming a source of food, work, a means of transport and a symbol of identity for its ancestral inhabitants and migrants from regions of Colombia and Venezuela who have settled here.

In addition to being one of the richest sub-regions in resources, it is one of the best geolocated in Colombia. "In geographical terms, Catatumbo connects the north of the country with Venezuela" (Jorge Mantilla, doctor in criminology at the University of Illinois at Chicago, quoted by BBC Mundo). "To completely control Catatumbo, as the ELN, FARC dissidents and paramilitary groups are fighting for right now, would be to dominate the Colombian-Venezuelan border and northern Colombia. This is, in practice, to take over a vast and strategic territory full of natural resources from which millions of dollars can be extracted" (BBC Mundo).

Catatumbo has been involved in a cycle of violence since the 1970s with the presence of illegal armed groups and was also for years a morgue for the bodies left by paramilitary brutality in the area in the late 1990s. Although the violence has not completely ceased, there was a "chicha calma" for two decades. However, since January 15, Catatumbo has been hit by attacks resulting from clashes between the ELN guerrillas and the 33rd front of the FARC General Staff dissident group.

The conflict has led to a humanitarian crisis. Government sources indicate that 395 people have been extracted, including 14 peace signatories and 17 of their relatives; in addition, that as of January 22, 2025, the evacuation of 52 people was pending. The reported number of forcibly displaced population ranges from 36,137 to 50,000 people.

^{Photo 2 Massive forced displacement in Catatumbo. Source https://www.bing.com/images/search?view}

^{HOPE AND COMMITMENT FOR A NECESSARY BUT SO ELUSIVE PEACE}

In the face of the humanitarian crisis, President Gustavo Petro has decreed the "State of Internal Commotion and Economic Emergency", based on Article 213 of the Political Constitution, in accordance with the provisions of Law 137 of 1994 Statutory States of Exception and has regulated the Declaration with fifteen (15) Legislative Decrees. The Decrees contain economic, environmental, social welfare, administrative and public order measures and programs that seek to serve the population, territories and properties of the rural population.

These are measures to protect lands, territories, assets, and prevent accumulation and hoarding in the agricultural sector to mitigate the effects derived from the public order situation; measures to protect agricultural areas, production and supply chains, agri-food systems, as well as initiatives that seek social welfare, recover public order and aimed at preventing the misappropriation of land by violently displaced families through the suspension of the cadastral registry, that is, the sale-purchase of rural land in the municipalities of Catatumbo. This is a very effective prevention measure given that in Colombia, conflict, dispossession and displacement have been intimately linked to the appropriation and concentration of land.

_{^{Photo 3. March for Peace in Catatumbo. Source https://www.bing.com/images/search?view=detailV2&ccid=}}

Social, popular, academic, environmental, ethnic organizations and processes, human rights defenders, feminists and diverse populations, assume initiatives in commitment and hope for Peace, among them the March for Peace of Catatumbo, an initiative that mobilized citizens from different regions of Colombia in support of the communities affected by the serious humanitarian and environmental crisis that affects Catatumbo and crying out for Peace.