Moira Birss's blog
Latin American Peoples Organize to Resist Increased Militarization in the Region
When President Barack Obama was inaugurated, people in Latin America, as in many parts of the world, expected a shift towards a more peaceful U.S. foreign policy. Those hopes were soon dashed by a series of bellicose U.S. policy moves in the region. But now civil society throughout the Americas has responded by organizing against increased U.S. militarization.
Eliminating violence against women in Colombia means ending the war
November 25th, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence against Women, marks the anniversary of the brutal assassination in 1960, of the three Mirabal sisters, political activists in the Dominican Republic, ordered by Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo.
In Colombia, violence against women continues to be not just an issue of domestic or sexual violence, but of women bearing the greatest burden of the armed conflict. To that end, a coalition of women’s organizations from all over Colombia gathered in Bogota today to call for a negotiated end to country’s the six-decade war.
A Christmas "card" from Colombia!
Happy Holidays from Colombia! Since June I have been working as a human rights accompanier with the Fellowship of Reconciliation. in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, in Colombia’s northwest banana — and more recently coca — growing region.
My Christmas this year will be quite a change from christmas-cookie-eating, presents-under-a-decorated-fir-tree Christmases to which I’m accustomed. Instead, I’ll be spending the holiday season eating natilla (a sweet corn pudding made with milk, cinnamon, cheese, and often coconut) and buñuelos (cheesy balls of fried dough), and dancing the nights away to vallenato (accordion-based Colombian pop music).
As much as I’m already enjoying the start of those festivities, my teammates and I remain on alert. December tends to be one of the most violent months in this region: members of the legal and illegal armed groups are anxious and on edge because they’d rather be home with their families, and attention at human rights offices of the government and other such agencies is often elsewhere as folks head off on vacation for the holidays.
