Colombia Peace News: March 2009

1. Letter from the Field: The Change They Want to See
   
2. The "Un-Threat"
3. Momentum Builds for Days of Prayer & Action: April 19-20
   
4. The Fate of Plan Colombia
   
5. Families Remember in Solidarity Actions
   
6. International Womyn’s Day March in Medellin
7. August 2009 Delegation to Colombia

Letter from the Field: The Change They Want to See

By Moira Birss

The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó celebrated twelve years of existence and resistance on March 23 with a small ceremony and a brief march to the cemetery in the village center of San José, where many of the community’s dead are buried. Those present honored, with two minutes of silence, the memory of the 184 Peace Community members killed in the last twelve years, and reaffirmed their resistance against a litany of state crimes: massacres, forced displacement, rapes, extrajudicial executions, food blockades, house burnings, robberies, and threats.

According to state officials, however, the Peace Community just needs to get over the past. In a recent meeting, an army official complained to us that the Peace Community is always harping on the past, and that they should move on and think about the future. "Things are different now," he said. "We train the soldiers in human rights. In fact, the army has declared 2009 ‘the year of human rights’."

If I myself, an outside observer, can’t forget the brutal history of the Peace Community, how can those who’ve actually suffered it actually forget a past that includes, just four years ago, the massacre and dismemberment of five adults and three children, committed by the army in collaboration with paramilitaries? The state wants to wipe the slate clean, and so condemns the community for conserving its memories and demanding an end to impunity.

But even if the slate of history were swept clean, would the present look much different, as the official asserted? The day following the community’s anniversary, we set off on an accompaniment trip to La Resbaloza and Mulatos, the two outlying veredas (hamlets) in which the 2005 massacre occurred and where just over a year ago the community sponsored the return of several families that had fled from their land after the massacre. The recent actions of soldiers in La Resbaloza indicate that, just because the army is conducting some form of training in human rights, doesn’t necessarily mean that those human rights are being respected. Last week, according to the community, soldiers attempted to rape a woman in La Resbaloza, and threatened her and the man with her with death if they reported the attempt.

In another recent incident, a community leader — a sweet older man who has land in La Resbaloza and spends about half his time there - returned to his farm to find much of his freshly-harvested bean crop eaten and several pots and tools missing after a troop of soldiers had passed through. Now, when he leaves the farm for a few days, he has taken to hiding his pots, pans, and tools so they’re not also taken. All the soldiers are desconfiados, he says. Untrustworthy.

Back in the towns and cities, paramilitaries have been distributing leaflets threatening "social cleansing"; in other words, death to prostitutes, drug users, and other "undesirables," and a recent increase in murders confirms the validity of such threats. When questioned about these leaflets, the same army official dismissed the threats as unimportant since they had been distributed throughout the country, as if somehow their widespread distribution negates the danger.

As a community leader affirmed during the twelfth anniversary commemoration, the community dreams of a different world. But they don’t just dream about it. Contrary to the army official’s assumption, the Peace Community is building that different world. At the commemoration ceremony, the construction of a new agricultural research and study center was announced, and the Peace Community can pride itself in many years of operating under a cooperative work model, practicing nonviolence, and having developed organic cacao and baby banana export projects. With memories of the past — loved ones murdered, tortured, robbed, raped — to drive them forward, the community continues, as Mahatma Gandhi said, to be the change they want to see.

Read more from Moira at her blog.

[top]

The "Un-Threat"

Responding to a recent spate of leaflets distributed all over Colombia threatening "social cleansing" — the murder of prostitutes, drug addicts, and thieves by paramilitary death squads - activists with the Center for Research and Popular Education didn’t sit on their hands.

Instead, they decided to launch a competing message delivered openly, in the daytime. Twenty thousand leaflets will circulate with the message: "We want the crime rate to go down, that there be less irresponsible drug use, that women and women not be forced to making their living from sex, that our youth not see their life choices reduced to the street or crime, that theft not be the way we subsist. We don’t support more violence to eradicate violence."

The "un-leaflets" are being handed out in poor neighborhoods in Medellín, Bogotá, and other cities.

[top]

Momentum Builds for Days of Prayer and Action: Sunday/Monday, April 19-20

On Monday, April 20, people in a half dozen cities across the U.S. will creatively and publicly present 4,000 paper cut-out dolls, each one representing 1,000 of Colombia’s four million displaced people, to governmental representatives. These symbolic actions, intended to raise the profile of Colombia’s crisis, will take place in New York, Washington D.C., Chicago, Portland, San Francisco, and Los Angeles.

In the United States and Colombia, doll-making parties have served to connect people and inspire creativity in the making of thousands of paper dolls.

How to participate: More than 300 churches in the US, Canada and Colombia are planning to participate in the April 19 Day of Prayer. (Resources, such as a faith action packet, prayer, and bulletin insert in English and Spanish are available here.)

Even if you aren’t near a city or don’t belong to a participating church, you can participate by sending postcards and calling President Obama as part of the National Phone-in on April 20 to urge Change Colombia Can Believe In — assistance for the displaced and a negotiated end to war in Colombia, instead of for gunships and military training.

[top]

The Fate of Plan Colombia

By John Lindsay-Poland, FOR

Readers of this Update will be accustomed to criticisms of Plan Colombia — the U.S. counterinsurgency package of over $500 million a year since 2000. But it may be a surprise when Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos calls for an end to Plan Colombia. That’s what he did on March 15, in an angry interview published in the daily El Tiempo.

"Plan Colombia has helped us a lot and was very important at a critical moment," he said. "Now, it is not needed."

Santos framed his proposal as an indignant and patriotic rejection of Democratic Party impositions, including demands for prosecution of human rights crimes as a condition for assistance and the passage of the Free Trade Agreement. "We are not only allies and friends, but the only country in Latin America where the image of the United States is positive," Santos said. "Nevertheless, they mistreat us."

Claudia López, a columnist for Semana magazine, interpreted the vice-president’s comments: "The interview could be summarized," she wrote: "’Before, we did the same thing and nobody questioned us about anything. Now, they ask us why unionists are killed and we don’t produce judicial verdicts to clarify the crimes; how are we going to ensure that labor rights are respected for free trade; they ask us why we wiretap and follow judges and journalists who make us uncomfortable; why members of the security forces kill innocent young people to give false evidence of combat progress; why criminal gangs continue to operate in zones where the paramilitaries supposedly demobilized. They ask us how we spend those piddling 550 million dollars that they give us for Plan Colombia. It is an outrage! They must respect us!’"

"Santos, in effect, complains about the only U.S. intrusion in Colombians’ lives that has not been completely perverse in its effects: the only one that has saved human lives," writes columnist Antonio Caballero. "I don’t remember any other."

Santos’ suggested rejection of human rights conditions on military assistance as a form of US intervention is reminiscent of the Guatemalan and Indonesian militaries’ rejection of U.S. conditions on aid in the 1980s and 1990s, leading to partial bans on military aid that lasted more than a decade.

Claudia Lopez refuted Santos’ claim that Democrats are seeking enforcement of human rights conditions as a way to humiliate Colombians. "They are interested in issues like democracy and human rights. Because they are a central part of the political platform with which they won the elections. — But you haven’t noticed this detail. Your indignation about the questions, and not about the facts and violations, only reinforces the well-founded doubts that this government now has, and makes them think that you don’t care a bit about whether they kill unionists or violate human rights."

Congressional Democrats may also be motivated to cut military aid to Colombia in the wake of budget resolutions in late March that reduced the overall levels of international affairs funding - if constituents urge them in that direction. The bulk of Plan Colombia money comes from funding managed by the Foreign Operations subcommittees chaired by Rep. Nita Lowey (NY) and Sen. Patrick Leahy (VT). Lowey’s committee is expected to ‘mark up’ this budget between now and June.

The Pentagon, on the other hand, continues its quiet negotiations with the Colombian military to move the U.S."Forward Operating Location" from Manta, Ecuador to Colombia, when the Ecuador lease expires in November. For that, Defense Department officials will be grateful, and may reward Colombia with more assistance, through funding streams that are far from transparent in our country.

Translation of López and Caballeros columns by Center for International Policy.

[top]

Families Remember in Solidarity Actions

The National Day Against Extrajudicial Killings on March 6 was marked by rallies and marches in several Colombian cities — Bogotá, Medellín, Cali, Bucaramanga, Cúcuta — and in Europe: Madrid, Barcelona, Berlin, Paris, and Rome, as well as in Mexico City and Buenos Aires.

In Bogotá, according to organizer Franklin Castañeda, "when we started to organize this event, we thought of 50 or 70 family members participating. But there are more than 200 people participating who represent so many cases of extrajudicial killings, including ones from February of this year."

According to human rights attorney Liliana Uribe, organizations have documented 1,477 victims of extrajudicial killings and forced disappearances by state forces since 2002, many of them "false positives" — the Colombian army’s practice of killing civilians and claiming them as "positive" kills of guerrillas. The National Prosecutor General’s office is investigating cases for 1,171 of these victims, but in only 32 cases has the Prosecutor General moved the process toward a verdict and sentencing.

The day before the event, Defense Minister Juan Manuel Santos claimed "the problem of ‘false positives’ has been resolved." Standing next to U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Admiral Michael Mullen, Santos asserted to the media that there has not been a single report of a "false positive" since October. March organizers have documented five extrajudicial killings between October and December.

"The strategies have changed," Castañeda says. "Once human rights defenders have revealed some of the methods, they have gone to others. Once we revealed the strategy of extrajudicial killings of peasants — the State took up the strategy of kidnapping poor youths and later presenting them as killed in combat. Once that was denounced, we’ve noted more cases of forced disappearances that are not reported as combat casualties."

The day closed with a symbolic act, "The Night of White Sheets," in the central plaza.

[top]

International Womyn’s Day March in Medellin

By Mayra Sofia Moreno

[Note: I spell "womyn" with a ‘y’ to completely distinguish it from the gender of men.]

International Womyn’s Day inspired events and marches all over the world. In the city of Medellin in Antioquia, Colombia, a march was organized to honor this day. Womyn of all sectors, social stratus, and ages joined to express, voice out, and speak out against issues that affect them directly.

The Medellin Youth Network (Red Juvenil), one of FOR’s partner organizations that works with nonviolence against the militarization of their society, asked us to accompany and observe this event.

The march was scheduled to start around 9am in Barrio Aranjuez. When we arrived several groups representing female organizations were gathered on the street corners. We noticed the vibrant colors of all the womyn: some dressed in costumes, others wearing bright shirts, fairies with slogans on their wings, and an artist with several instruments. The diversity was noticeable and it was obvious that the march was going to be vibrant, its energetic crowd heard, and with many social issues identified and highlighted in a way that also celebrated the day dedicated to their gender.

After an hour the crowd was larger and Red Juvenil members dispersed to join the activities. Some grabbed their instruments and joined the music groups, others joined the jugglers and dancers, and some were in charge of stamping the walls with stickers with information about womyn’s rights.

We noticed immediately that all the patrolling forces were womyn! Even in the police forces they were recognizing International Womyn’s Day. We formally introduced ourselves to the commander of the police unit present and explained our role as human rights observers. We expressed our concern for the security of the people we accompany and the civilian population in general.

As routine, we were asked to walk close to the beginning of the march. We always place ourselves on the periphery of the march so as to not be confused and/or perceived as being participants. This confusion can result in the immediate deportation of internationals, as it is against the law for foreigners to be active participants in anything that seems like a political event in Colombia. Also, more security is always needed in the front of marches because of the risk of confrontations with the police and/or interruptions or incidents that might create an obstacle for the march to continue its course.

Nonetheless, participants throughout the march always fear being documented by civilian-dressed police and undercover agents of Colombia’s intelligence agency, known as the DAS. The danger here is that march participants become targets and pictures and videos taken of them are arbitrarily used by the authorities to charge them with being terrorist, rebels, or guerrilla collaborators. There is also a history of violence that is still practiced, in which subjects are identified, pictures are taken of them, and they later appear murdered and or are disappeared.

All along the way more and more people joined the march and we could hear loud voices on megaphones saying: "Ni del Estado, Ni de la Iglesia, mi cuerpo es de mi pertinencia" (Not the State’s, not the church’s, my body belongs to me). "Mujeres marchamos contra la violencia!" (Womyn march against violence!).

Activities were taking place in different points along the march that extended at least five blocks. Kids danced traditional Colombian music in the front, musicians in the middle, clowns and fairies throughout the crowd, student activists dressed in black chanting slogans, and all in all, anywhere you looked you saw movement, color, and heard voices of varying strengths and tones.

The march ended in the Parque de los Deseos on the city’s east side at around one pm. Luckily, there were no major incidents that put at risk march participants.

FOR was glad to observe an event where non-violent activists participated collectively, not only to speak out against those problems that still affect more than half of the world’s population, but to also celebrate the energy and fundamental roles that incredible womyn continue to play throughout societies worldwide.

Click here for video of the march produced by the Communication Team of the Antioquia Peasant Association.

[top]

August 15-29, 2009 Delegation to San José Peace Community, Medellín and Eastern Antioquia

Witness the incredible commitment and experience of the Peace Community of San José and other Colombian grassroots initiatives. $1,500 from Bogotá. For information, contact John Lindsay-Poland, johnlp@igc.org. To download an application, please click here (DOC) .

[top]