editorial: opposition on the wall

Often in Colombia the dissent has only the tribune of the colorful walls of the quarters of the cities. These photographs were taken in Bogota, where the high concentration of graffiti expresses many people's opposition to the government and its choices in terms of economic, political and national emergencies. The government exercises censorship in erasing the name of the former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez - who is more often than not the target of such criticism - from the walls.

The graffiti also stimulate passive Colombians to protest in a country where the opposition has no voice and is often brutally eliminated. Between 1982 and 2005 paramilitaries have slaughtered more than 3500 people and stolen more than 6 million hectares of land from peasants.

From 2002 - the year in which they were desmovilizados, the theoretical agreements reached with the accomplice government of the former President Álvaro Uribe Vélez - paramilitaries have continued to commit, on average, 600 homicides a year. Since that same year, there have been 3200 killings of Human Rights activists and members of the Colombian National Army have executed more than 950 people, mainly put down to falsos positivos, the euphemism used in Colombia in order to refer to the supposed errors of the military forces.

This series was shot between 2007 and 2009.