Sureya from the ELN: I Fight for the Welfare of My Community

I am an indigenous woman born in Antioquia, since I was 6 years old I was brought to the Bajo Atrato in Chocó, where I grew up, I had my childhood and adolescence. I studied a year of school, I speak Embera Dóvida language and Spanish.

Since I was a child I began to know the guerrillas, I met the ELN in 2015, I joined in 2016. When I arrived at the camp the command spoke with me and explained the regulations I had to comply with, how was the coexistence of comrades in the group. I arrived on December 30 near a river, at 10 o’clock at night we went to sleep, each to his place to be aware of the security. From there began my guerrilla life until today, in all these years I have encountered many things, experiences, good practices and some negatives, but there are more than a few positives; I joined a company of the Western Front, which is called Néstor Tulio Durán Quintero.

I started to participate in the collective studies that they give on guerilla, on ideology, learning to read and write; they taught me the hymn, the rules. Like everyone, I fell in love and got a boyfriend, we started talking and became a couple, here for one to come together to live with a boyfriend you must have 3 months of knowledge, in other words, this is a courtship.

The activities I have carried out are guarding, ranching, surveillance in outposts, looking for provisions 3 or 4 hours away; after receiving political and military training my command took me to combat with the paramilitaries; when I was not fighting, I helped prepare the food to take to comrades in ambushes, I also helped to attend to the wounded, carry the sick and carry the medicines.

At the moment I continue in my struggle, I think a lot about my indigenous people, because they have many needs, they are displaced a lot by paramilitary groups and the government army. I too have lived displacements when I was a child, together with my family, so I fight for the welfare of my community and from the ELN I tell them to live always organized and united, for the defense of the territory that is our Pacha Mama, I feel very happy to have taken the path of belonging to the ELN.

 

Source: ELN Voces