Diego Velez, waiting for asylum

Diego Velez doesn't know how to feel anymore. The 22-year-old Colombian immigrant has experienced more violence, trauma, and loss in his short life than the average 80-year-old. "After seeing so much pain," he says, "it's hard to touch me."

Velez (not his real name) grew up in the mountain village of Cisneros, where his father, Ernesto, ran the family's coffee, sugar-cane, and pig farm. But by the 1990s, the FARC had seized control of the surrounding Andes mountains. Packs of rifle-toting guerrillas started crossing the farm and demanding money -- a tax -- from Velez's father. "My father tried to keep peace," he recalls. His father would refuse to hand over his earnings, but would offer crops instead.

Then right-wing militias moved into the region, hot on the guerrillas' trail. At first, the paramilitary death squads remained quiet, barely noticeable to the Cisneros community -- until the killings became routine. Every few weeks, paramilitaries would torture and murder civilians because they were thought to sympathize with the guerrillas.

Paramilitaries branded Velez's father a sympathizer too. In July 1995, while he was towing farm supplies, the paramilitaries sought their revenge. Four men on two motorcycles passed Ernesto's car as he drove with his wife, Gilma, and their son Julian. The men fired a hailstorm of bullets. Both of Velez's parents were wounded and died within days. Only his nine-year-old brother survived.

After three years of watching his back, Velez experienced his own nightmare. In October 1999, close to 100 paramilitaries descended on the farm, held him and 20 farm hands hostage, and then stole his truck. The day his vehicle reappeared with the message "tenga cuidado" ("beware") written on it, Velez said goodbye to his family and fled his country.

"The Colombian situation is terrible," says Velez, who now lives in East Boston and has applied for political asylum. "The campesinos are being torn apart on all fronts. They can only take so much."

-- Kristen Lombardi

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Kristen Lombardi can be reached at klombardi[a]phx.com.