October 2010 Colombia Peace Update

Contents

The Battle for Conscientious Objectors in Colombia

Pentagon Official: “We Still Want” Military Base Agreement with Colombia

People’s Congress: Live video

Profile: Ex-FOR team member Nico Udu-gama arrested for protesting President Uribe

Building a Movement to Confront US Militarism in the Americas

The Battle for Conscientious Objectors in Colombia

Help Release a Conscientious Objector Arbitrarily Detained and Held against his Will in an Army Base

By Rachel Dickson and Peter Cousins

Juan Diego is a young campesino in the municipality of Andes, a few hours southwest of Medellin. He works on a farm to help support his parents and two little sisters; his father’s income as a day-laborer is not enough to feed the whole family. On September 5, Juan Diego was grocery-shopping for his family in town when soldiers came up to him and asked for his papers. When he told them he did not have his military service booklet, he was pushed into a truck and taken to the 11^th battalion of the 4^th Brigade. They took away his identification and have still not returned it to him.

In Juan Diego’s words, “Since that day I have been in the base against my will, because I do not want to perform obligatory military service. In the first place, because my moral principles don’t let me participate in the war and so I do not want to be part of any army or armed force. And second, because my highest priorities are my family, which needs me to continue to work, and to continue my high school studies, which I had to temporarily suspend because of the economic difficulties in my family.” (link to declaration) The day after he signed this declaration of conscientious objection, the soldiers in the battalion asked who did not want to be there. Juan Diego replied that he did not want to be in the army because he does not agree with the war. The soldiers laughed, made fun of him, and answered that there wasn’t a chance in hell they would let him go.

Juan Diego is a conscientious objector. He was arbitrarily detained and is being forced to serve in the Colombian military. There are differing views on the legality of Juan Diego’s recruitment, depending on whom you ask. According to Lieutenant Colonel Juan Carlos Quiroz, who directs operations in the 4th Recruitment Zone, which has jurisdiction over Andes, the Colombian Constitution says that the military can go out and compel men to serve in the army (according to Col. Quiroz this includes using force). “No one wants to serve, so what am I supposed to do?” Colonel Quiroz asked us. Lieutenant An officer of the “Cacique Nutibara” Battalion 11 in Andes told us that he feels he is doing youth a favor when he rounds them up in trucks: “Many of the kids don’t have the money to pay for transportation to the brigade’s base to enlist, so we provide the transportation for them.”

However, according to the United Nations, this type of recruitment is illegal and can be defined as an arbitrary detention and a violation of personal liberty. There is no specific legal provision in the Colombian Constitution to allow for these indiscriminate street-roundups. According to the Constitution, since personal liberty is a fundamental right, an explicit written order must be in place to deprive someone of that right. The Colombian Constitutional Court has also declared that administrative detentions, even for only a minute, constitute an illegal deprivation of liberty. The military must legally request the presence of a potential recruit in a written fashion, and if the recruit doesn’t show up, they can then request a warrant or charge a fine. The Ombudsman of Antioquia has requested that the military stop this practice, as have War Resister’s International, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, the Medellin Youth Network, and FOR, among others, but they keep doing it!

Juan Diego’s recruitment was done illegally according to many authorities, and now, under Colombian law, conscientious objection is also legally recognized. A year ago, the Constitutional Court accepted the validity of conscientious objection in its ruling C-728 in a case brought by the Bogotá-based University of the Andes and the Collective for Conscientious Objectors, together with CIVIS of Sweden. In a change from earlier jurisprudence, the legal requirement for the majority of young males to perform military service is now set against the right not to be forced to act in contravention of one’s deepest moral, religious or political convictions. Last month, the full text of the Court’s judgment was made public. The Colombian Congress is now required to pass a bill normalizing conscientious objection, which may eventually also encompass some form of civil service. But in the meantime, objectors like Juan Diego must present a judge with a tutela, a writ for the protection of constitutional rights. At the time of writing, this is underway in the city of Medellín. The case of Juan Diego, therefore, may prove to be something of a precedent.

Pentagon Official: “We Still Want” Military Base Agreement with Colombia

The United States “still wants [the military base agreement signed last year] and still believes it is important,” according to Assistant Defense Secretary Frank Mora, interviewed in El Tiempo on October 11. But the Colombian Senate’s vice-president says that President Santos will not submit the agreement for congressional approval, and “we hope that policy continues.”

As FOR reported last month, both US and Colombian officials have reacted to the Colombian Constitutional Court ruling that the military base agreement is illegal with nonchalance, saying that current agreements allow the two countries’ militaries to cooperate. Asked by El Tiempo about this response, Mora said that overturning the base agreement “was a legal, political decision, and we understand. When that process ends, we will have a better vision of what will be done.”

Mora added that the agreement “institutionalizes the relationship between both countries on defense issues. It’s true that there are many things can continue to be done, but an important part of a relationship is to keep strengthening it, to formalize it.”

Colombian Senator Alexandra Moreno told El Espectador these kinds of agreements “have not produced results” hoped for and “definitely don’t compensate Colombia for the efforts it has made.” Moreno said that every day “there is less support” from the United States and it doesn’t make sense to continue the same policy that “to our detriment.”

Mora said that the agreement “increases transparency.” It is true that the base agreement was made public after signing. But Pentagon expenditures in Colombia are much less transparent than foreign aid funds, which are programmed by country and use. Mora declined this month to meet with FOR to discuss the agreement.

Meanwhile, US troops from Moody Air Force Base in southern Georgia conducted training exercises on Palanquero Air Base in Colombia in September. Palanquero was named in Air Mobility Command and Air Force documents as key for projection of US military operations throughout South America, and the US Congress approved $43 million for an upgrade to the base last year, on the condition that the Pentagon conclude a base agreement with Colombia. A staffperson for the House Armed Services Committee told FOR that he considers that requirement satisfied, but the funds have not yet been spent. The Pentagon has three years to use the funds.

Film of People’s Congress

The FOR Colombia media team presents a visual collage of the recent People’s Congress, realized in Bogota, Colombia from October 8-12, 2010. 17,000 afro-colombians, indigenous communities, farmers and others camped out in the nation’s capital and marched through the city streets to demand a sovereign nation of the people. For more information on the people’s congress: congresodelospueblos.org

Ex-FOR volunteer and long-time Colombia solidarity activist arrested in DC

I first met Nico in 2003, on my second trip up to the peace community, while he was working as an accompanier with FOR. Over the following years, I didn’t see him much, but I heard stories: how he rode the community’s fastest horse in 20 minutes down a mountain path that usually takes an hour and a half to travel, how he had founded another accompaniment organization in Colombia after leaving FOR, how he was traveling in Palestine, and then the news in September! He had been arrested for speaking out during Uribe’s class at Georgetown University. It seemed like a good moment for an interview.

LS: Tell me a bit about yourself. What was one thing that politicized you when you were young? And also, when did you first come to Colombia and why?

NU: I grew up in Virginia, it wasn’t anything exciting, just a military city. I got involved in all this stuff during university — was doing activism with some Zapatista groups and around local issues. The day after I graduated, I started hitchhiking south with a friend of mine. We visited the El Mozote massacre site in El Salvador, and villages in Guatemala where the war had happened — it was the stereotypical post-graduation Latin America tour! One time, I was in Tela, Honduras, hanging out with this kid who was living on the streets. We went with him to visit his father who was in jail. I saw what the jails were like in Honduras. Throughout the trip, I was talking to people on the street, in the countryside, in the villages and hearing their stories. I made it to Colombia and up to the peace community in 2002. Five days after I showed up in La Union, the paramilitaries came. It was a marker. It made me ask, what’s going on here?

LS: What happened?

NU: One day we were hanging out and I was teaching some of the children to read. A peace community member came in and took her son away. I went outside and all the kids were gone. I saw a guy with a huge machine gun and the letters ACCU on his armband. I was like, “oh shit.” The paramilitaries were there for six hours interrogating people. They had a kid tied up who they took away and later disappeared. I yelled at them, “what are you doing here??” I didn’t know anything about accompaniment back then.

After that, I stayed there for two months. The community displaced down to the town center of San José and I would go up to La Union every day with them for the cacao harvest. During that time, I got close to people and decided that I wanted to go back. So I applied to the FOR project, went to the training in San Francisco and joined the team in July 2003. The year that I spent in the community was an amazing experience.

Around the end of 2004, a friend and I founded IPO (International Peace Observatory) and we started accompanying organizations in the regions of the Magdalena Medio and Arauca. One time we did an accompaniment in the area of the Nordeste Antioqueño (the northeastern part of the department of Antioquia). We were told that the army had entered a farm where a campesino lived. They had dressed him up as a guerrilla and they were going to kill him. They had a knife to his neck. When we got there, they were holding him a little ways off in the woods. We demanded that the soldiers release him. It was a positive experience because we were able to do something tangible. After Luis Eduardo [and the massacre in 2005], I felt really angry. I still wanted to accompany, but I felt frustrated. At least in this situation, I felt that that the outcome was very positive.

LS: What was different in Colombia than what you expected it to be?

NU: I’m not sure what I expected, but I was able to spend time in the countryside and be in a place where there was a war going on, where our tax money was being used to fight that war. And seeing the resistance, how people are just dancing in the midst of the balaceras (gunfire). Well, it’s not quite like that, but there is a lot of great energy there. I think Colombia is really important in the Western Hemisphere because it’s the thorn in the side of the U.S. I miss Colombia a lot.

LS: How did the Adios Uribe Coalition get started?

We had seen something in [the Colombian newspaper] El Tiempo about Uribe being named as a Distinguished Scholar at Georgetown’s foreign service school. And we started hearing about it from other people as well. We set up a first meeting and about 40 awesome organizers came: unionists, church people, students and artists. People were bouncing with energy. By September 8th we had our first protest: Uribe was speaking at the faculty center so we did a banner-hang off the building and organized the Viva Colombia Fiesta, with drums.

Later we found out that he would be teaching in a Comparative Political Systems course. We decided to go into the class. He was talking about how free trade is good and other benign stuff. Then came the Q&A part and things got interesting — he started talking about how he had brought social cohesion to Colombia, how his presidency was communitarian, how it tried to include everyone. And then he said that, “no one from the social opposition had been killed or displaced during his presidency.”

At that point, I thought to myself, this guy is just straight up lying. In the media, everybody was talking about Uribe’s position at Georgetown in the context of fairness or allowing for academic debate. But I knew what he was saying were lies. So, I stood up and started clapping. I said, “Thank you so much Alvarito, for bringing social cohesion, thank you for wire tapping human rights organizations. I mentioned the mass graves in the Macarena and the people who had denounced them and thanked him for calling those people terrorists. I was trying to be as ironic as possible and at this point I had stepped up on stage. Two guys, who we later discovered were undercover cops, were pushing me back and the tension was mounting. Uribe said “can you get him out of here?” Then they pulled me off stage behind Uribe, arrested me outside and took me to jail.

The charges against me were assault on a police officer and unlawful entry. They were bullshit charges, I definitely didn’t assault a police officer. I was out on the streets by 2pm and I walked back home without shoelaces or money! They dropped the charges, although I do have a Ban and Bar letter from Georgetown, so I’m not allowed to get back onto campus.

LS: What is the focus now of the Adios Uribe Coalition?

NU: We have done various teach-ins and the students at Georgetown had meetings with the Dean of the School of Foreign Service and they are waiting for a meeting with the President. There are rumors that Georgetown might let him go quietly. But as of now, he is coming back on November 3rd and we are planning a protest. If folks want to get involved, they can check out our website: uribe-georgetown.org

It is so disgusting that higher institutions of learning are bringing someone like this to teach. At SOA Watch, we go down every year and protest the soldiers and military brass who are being trained at Ft. Benning. But people like Uribe don’t go to the SOA, they go to places like Georgetown and Oxford, where they can also train people, but in the neoliberal model. Both are part of a larger system. We were thinking of a banner for our November 3rd action that would say something like, “From the gates of Ft. Benning to the gates of Georgetown, no more training criminals!”

LS: I think that’s an important connection to make, that we have to protest all parts of these systems — not just the people on the ground who commit the abuses, but also the places like academic institutions where people are being trained in these models.

Yes, they are the intellectual authors and are helping to solidify another part of the system. When we go down to Georgia we are looking at the muscle. It may look innocuous to protest an ex-president of Colombia, but it is just as important as combating police brutality, doing anti-racist work, or protesting a base in Florida! It’s all connected.

Nico ended by saying that it would be great to party with the coalition, after it’s all over, after Georgetown University politely asks Uribe to take himself and his terrible human rights record elsewhere. See an interview with Nico on “Russia Today.”

Building a Movement to Confront US Militarism in the Americas

(Conference takes place just before the yearly vigil to close the SOA)

Organizers’ Conference:
Building a Movement to Confront US Militarism and the
Militarization of Relations with Latin America
sponsored by: the Latin America Solidarity Coalition

Thursday, November 18, 2010 1:00-7:30pm
Quality Inn, 1325 Veterans Pkwy, Columbus, GA, US, 31901

Registration: $10-$25 no one turned away
Register on-line.

Who Should Participate?
Are you a local, regional or national activist/organizer? Do you work on issues of Latin America solidarity, anti-war, social justice, or labor rights? Then you should participate.

Scope of the Conference
This is an action conference, not an information conference. There will be many informational workshops during the SOA Watch vigil Nov. 19-21.This conference is for the purpose of building a US movement to oppose US militarism and militarization of relations with Latin America and the Caribbean. Without regard to our varying analysis of non-violence, we are united in our opposition to the use of the US military to enforce the neoliberal capitalist model and to extend US political hegemony in the hemisphere. The focus of the organizers’ conference will be to develop strategies and campaigns to oppose and de-fund offensive US military capabilities, basing troops outside the borders of the US, and the militarization of relations with the sovereign countries of our hemisphere through military aid and training and Trojan Horse campaigns such as the so-called War on Drugs and immigration policy. While we recognize that all issues are interrelated, the focus of this conference will be on strategies and tactics to address the military aspects of the issues. We recognize that we are embarking on a multi-generational campaign to change the very culture and ethical system of the United States. The work of this conference will lead into an even more extensive LASC conference April 8-10 in Washington, DC.

Agenda
1-2:30pm Opening Plenary
Panel to frame issues & explanation of the conference process
2:30-4:00pm Small Group Break-out on Issues/Tactics/Campaigns
1. Bases, the Fourth Fleet and training and military aid.
2. Border militarization and immigration
3. Coups and Occupations
4. “Drug War”
5. Domestic costs of militarism and war profiteering
6. Corporate media and the promotion of the US culture of militarism
4:00-4:15pm Break (another 15 break will follow the second session)
4:15-5:45pm Small Group Break-out on Sectors to Enlist in the Movement

1. Academia
2. Organized religion
3. Cultural workers (Artists, musicians, actors, etc.)
4. Labor
5. Students and youth
6. Women
7. Veterans

6-7:30pm Report-backs, discussion and tasking to move the work forward