Sameniego Revisted: Dead Driver

Eight months since I visited, the villages of Samaniego municipality in southern Colombia remain cut off from the rest of the world by a thick fields of landmines. A friend tells me the army has advanced only 10 kilometers. Seven members of the teachers union have disapeared, he reports. And... "you remember Weimar, the guy who drove us up to the minefields?"

Sure. Odd guy in a fancy leather jacket and a flashing bluetooth headphone in his ear. In a place where most people dress in scruffy cowboy clothes. He talked about women most of the drive up the mountain. He preferred Latinas, I remember, because gringas seem so uptight. He took us as far as the army camp in El Decio, but wouldn't go into rebel territory.

"Well, a couple of months ago, they dragged him out of his house and shot him. Hitmen."

Was it drugs? Politics? "No one knows for sure. And no one asks."

Just another day in Samaniego.