Limpiezas Sociales

bufalo says on Jan 4, 2007, 19:22:

They were the norm a while ago. Depends to what degree you're talking about. In Santa Marta they used to pick up all the street kids and ship them out right before tourist season. The other side of the coin was there were also "black lists" passed around to all the local merchants. If you were on it it meant you 'd better leave. The paras used to clean up in a more direct way. Here in Armenia, a lot of people who physically survived the earthquake, sddenty dissapeared without any real reason - a take on limpieza as well. It still happens, but not as bad as before.

"If you don't like it - lump it, take it down the road and dump it." - Archie Bunker played by Carroll O'Connor

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webjacks says on Jan 9, 2007, 13:42:

Thanks Bufalo,
I was surprised to hear the term, but figured that it was probably something done more in the past. The man who was talking about it was in his 60s. He was talking about how they used to go around in small groups to kill 'unwanted' people, like drug addicts, pedafiles, etc. in the community. The way I understand it was that a 'friend' of the police would inform the police that they were going to clean up. Then the police would look the other way. It was all done under the table so if someone got caught, they could still be arrested for it (but if a drug addict turned up missing, no one would go look for them).

- webjacks.


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juancegomez says on Jan 9, 2007, 14:30:

It may be less common... Now that, for example, in Bogotá after recent local administrations the homeless and street poor have received varying degrees of attention (insufficient given the size of the problem, but still greater than the previous zero by far).

But those acts of intolerance and violence probably do continue in other places/areas, even if not at the same scale/rate as in earlier times. I wouldn't completely rule them out, by any means, as horrible as they are, even if they've been reduced.

Similar events have also been reported in Venezuela and elsewhere though, so this kind of barbarism has not been exclusive to Colombia.

I'm still not sure if the term was invented by the defenders of this particular form of violence (the obvious answer) or by its critics (in a sarcastic sort of way), even if the two of them employ it....

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