Colombia Peace Presence Update - Special Alert!

Colombia Peace Presence Update, July 2003

In this Update:

FOR/Global Exchange Peace Delegation to Colombia
US Congress votes on Military Aid to Colombia
Main paramilitary federation agrees to talks
New FOR team getting settled in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó

FOR/Global Exchange Peace Delegation to Colombia

Building Peace in Wartime: Colombian Communities in Resistance

Join Global Exchange and Fellowship of Reconciliation on our upcoming delegation to Colombia this November 5-18, 2003.

On this delegation we will:

• Learn about the sociopolitical and economic roots of the conflict in Colombia.
• Focus on Colombian peace initiatives.
• Travel to Bogotá, Medellín, and northwestern Colombia to meet with peace communities and organizations working for nonviolent and negotiated solutions to the conflict.
• Meet with US and Colombian government officials.
• Return home to share what we have seen and heard with the media, Congress, and our communities.

APPLICATIONS
Due by September 15, 2003 with a $100 deposit. Balance is due by October 15, 2003.

COST
The cost is $1400 plus airfare. This includes all meals, accommodations, facilitation, translation and transportation while in Colombia. Fee also covers briefing materials and extensive training. Fundraising tips will be provided!

FOR AN APPLICATION AND MORE INFORMATION, CONTACT:

Liza Smith
Global Exchange
2017 Mission Street #303
San Francisco, CA 94110
415-378-9962
colombia@globalexchange.org

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U.S. Congress votes on Military Aid to Colombia

Military aid to Colombia proved to be one of the most contentious issues in the foreign aid bill during the congressional debate on July 23. Congressmen Jim McGovern (D-MA) and Ike Skelton (D-MO) offered an amendment to the bill to transfer $75 million in Colombia military aid to global HIV/AIDS programs, citing the Colombian Armed Forces’ poor human rights record and the inefficacy of U.S. anti-drug policy as grounds for the shift in funds. McGovern said in his statement to congress that "despite human rights conditions placed on U.S. military aid to Colombia, our aid continues to flow uninterrupted. We keep writing huge checks, even though every reputable human rights organization in the world concludes that the Colombian armed forces directly collaborate with paramilitary forces. These are the same paramilitary forces responsible for the majority of human rights abuses against civilians. These are the same paramilitary forces on the State Department's list of terrorist organizations. These are the same paramilitary forces that President Uribe's own hand-picked commission determined control at least 40 percent of the drug trade in Colombia and receive 80 percent of their funding from drug profits." To read the full statement of Rep. McGovern (and other representatives) go to:
http://frwebgate.access.gpo.gov/cgi-bin/getpage.cgi?position=all&page=H7394&
dbname=2003_record

The amendment received 195 votes in its favor with 226 voting against, up from 179 members who supported a similar measure in 2001. To see how your Representative voted, go to:
http://clerkweb.house.gov/cgi-bin/vote.exe?year=2003&rollnumber=426

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Main paramilitary federation agrees to talks

Colombia Week, July 21, 2003

Leaders of Colombia's main paramilitary federation have agreed to negotiations with the government aimed at demobilizing their forces over the next three years.

In a 10-point pact announced July 15, nine leaders of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) also agreed to fight the drug trade, even though they have funded their activities largely by processing and trafficking cocaine and heroin. The government, for its part, has agreed to help AUC members reintegrate into society.

Under the agreement, AUC fighters will be concentrated in government-administered "safe" areas. Top government negotiator Luis Carlos Restrepo Ramírez said the fighters will be able to keep their "arms, uniforms and internal structure, but not carry out any type of military action," during the talks. The Colombian Defense Ministry estimated in 2001 that paramilitary fighters numbered 8,150. AUC leaders have put the figure as high as 15,000.

Splits within the AUC emerged last year as the federation's leaders moved toward negotiations with President Alvaro Uribe Vélez's government. Leaders of at least five paramilitary groups, representing thousands of fighters, have refused to enter negotiations as long as the nation's largest guerrilla groups, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and the smaller National Liberation Army (ELN), are still fighting.

The AUC, classified by the U.S. State Department as terrorist since 2001, consists of private militias that formed in the 1980s to combat guerrilla extortion and kidnapping. The paramilitaries carry out most of the war's 3,500 annual political homicides. The killing, mostly targeting peasants, has continued apace under a "ceasefire" the AUC declared in December.

A peace commission appointed by Uribe reportedly concluded last month that the principal foe of demobilizing the AUC is the leadership of the nation's U.S.-backed military. Human rights groups have documented extensive military ties to the AUC.

Sen. Antonio Navarro Wolf, a former member of a defunct guerrilla group known as M-19, expressed doubts about the AUC talks. "Peace can come only through [negotiations] with the guerrillas," he said. "As long as there is this negotiation with the AUC, I'm convinced that the guerrillas won't advance a single millimeter toward talks with the government."

The government of former President Andrés Pastrana, Uribe's predecessor, held talks with both the FARC and ELN. Both sets of negotiations collapsed early last year. Uribe, who took office last August, and leaders of other Latin American nations asked the United Nations to mediate talks with guerrillas. But the FARC insisted on direct dialogue with the government.

Uribe said AUC demobilization may spark renewed guerrilla talks. "The FARC said they didn't negotiate because there were paramilitary groups," he noted.

Uribe spokesperson Ricardo Galán said the demobilization would pose challenges: "The state has to be able to take control of the areas where the paramilitaries now rule because the FARC and the ELN are going to try to move in."

Another issue is the fate of AUC leaders Carlos Castaño Gil and Salvador Mancuso. The U.S. government requested their extradition on drug-trafficking charges last September. The two are also accused of ordering some of the war's worst human rights abuses. "We've always supported Colombia's position for a peace process, but we'll continue to seek the extradition of those who've been indicted here, now and in the future," an unnamed State Department official told the Miami Herald. "Gross violators of human rights should be prosecuted."

Eduardo Cifuentes Muñoz, the government's human rights ombudsperson, insisted that any final agreement not "end in impunity." Restrepo, who signed the agreement, assured that abusers would be held accountable. "There is not going to be impunity," he said. "The persons that have committed atrocious crimes should be condemned."

Restrepo added, however, that some crimes could be resolved by "actions of social reparation." He noted that the government plans to introduce legislation granting "conditional liberty" to paramilitaries who lay down their arms. He estimated it will cost $90 million per year to demobilize the AUC fighters.

Anne Patterson, the U.S. ambassador to Colombia until last month, said President George W. Bush's administration has agreed to provide at least $3 million to the effort. Washington refused to participate in the FARC negotiations.

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New FOR team getting settled in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó

On July 11, our new team of volunteers arrived in the hamlet of La Unión of the Peace Community San José de Apartadó after three weeks of meetings in Washington, Bogotá and Medellín. Sarah Weintraub and Nicholas Udu-gama will accompany the community for a year and Joe de Raymond will be with them for six months. Community members said enthusiastically how much safer they feel with this international presence: "Your presence strengthens us and encourages us to continue the resistance."

Joe DeRaymond describes his first impressions:

There are about a dozen vultures wheeling high in the sky just west of the hulking forested prominence visible from the window of my room. It is hard to count them as they spiral on the air currents off the mountain, the top of which is covered with a cool gray cloud, which is bringing a very welcome breeze. It is hot in the middle of the days, cooler in the night. In the evening, there is a shower. There are several houses under construction with the normal sounds of hammering, tin, slamming of boards, and the laughing and crying of children, and omnipresent latin music blasting from someone's quite adequate sound system.

The streets are paved with grass here in La Unión, as their only traffic is horses and mules, "bestias", (and pigs, chickens, cats, dogs, etc...) and there is no need to remove the rocks as the bestias have no trouble at all with a steep, rocky, muddy trail, so they amble easily around the town as they graze. One of the poor beasts actually was forced to haul my 110 kilos-plus pack up the trail from San José a few days ago, amidst many jokes about "se muere" (it'll kill itself). Since then, I have walked back and forth, crossing various streams, up and down the hills, occasionally along a stream, through pastures, past simple houses and farms, up to La Unión, down to San José.

It has been almost a month since we started our project of accompaniment, weeks of meetings in Washington, Bogotá and Medéllin. In Washington, our accompaniment team met with members of Congress and received various letters of support for us and our mandate in Colombia. These letters do add a measure of credibility and safety for our mission.

On the Fourth of July, Nico, Sarah and I flew to Bogotá, and met Jutta Meier-Wiedenbach, of the FOR-TFLAC office, at the airport. After a relatively laid back weekend, we began another series of meetings in Bogotá, followed by flights to Medellín and Apartadó and more meetings with civilian and military representatives.

Needless to say, this is not the campesino experience. I feel that we have been dropped from the sky into the lifestyle of the Colombian campo. Yesterday, Sarah and I accompanied a work group into an upper pasture of the community, where the workers from the community reclaimed some land by transplanting grasses from a richly covered area to a hillside damaged by erosion. I tried to help a bit at times with the replanting, but couldn¹t be of much assistance. In the distance to the west, the Gulf of Urabá was visible as a slate of shimmering white through the haze of the afternoon. The Spanish of the community people was quick and hard to grasp, almost oriental sounding sometimes as I listened to them as I drifted into sleep. I got a sunburn. One of the workers climbed a huge mango tree on the way back to town, and shook down about a dozen of the rich fruit, a welcome treat at the end of the day.

The Peace Community lives a simple, agrarian existence with minimal amenities of development. The community harvests banana, cocoa, cane, corn, rice, beans. A small sweet banana called a primitivo is sold, as well as cocoa beans, which are doing better than coffee in the market right now. There is one phone in each community, with a community loudspeaker that calls one to answer a received call - "José el gringo, hacerse presente por favor" - (echoes of MASH, or the New York subway system, depending on the announcer). There is no refrigeration in La Unión. There are very few cars in San José, none in La Unión. Horses are tied in front of houses, ready for the next trip. There is cold running water in the houses, piped in from the river above, turbid after a rain.

Our meetings in Colombia did provide a wide range of opinions and analysis about our mission and the situation in the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. The efforts of the Peace Community are described by some analysts as simply a mechanism to survive in the midst of a war. Others, of the government, seem a bit exasperated by the community¹s resilience and strength in the face of so many assassinations of community members since its creation in 1997. The temerity of these people to expect to maintain neutrality, an unarmed community of peace in the midst of this very important war! Overall, there is a sense of respect for the community by all parties in this political and historical moment. At one of our meetings, an official described San José as being in "the eye of the hurricane".

There is a war in the hills around San José, dozens of displaced families at this moment living in its refuge, but the soccer tournament among the hamlets of the region will go on tomorrow, Sunday. Survival for the Peace Community is as much a function of the quiet, persistent dignity of work parties to replant grass as of a political strategy to survive a war. For the campesino, life has been a struggle for survival in times of peace. It seems a natural process to continue this struggle amidst a war. I was listening to a conversation between a community resident and one of my compatriots, as the community member was saying, "it was bad in May, better in June and very good in July." I thought they were talking about the weather, but it turned out they were discussing the currents of combat in the region.

The community is very aware of its fragility. In this moment, our FOR accompaniment and the accompaniment of Peace Brigades International is welcomed as an important buffer against invasion or envelopment by the armed struggle which embroils Colombia. International eyes, ears and attention is crucial to the maintenance of the fragile space within which the Peace Community lives. Also, there is a very effective Colombian permanent presence of the Catholic Diocese of Apartadó, in the form of a house run by an order of Franciscan sisters, a warm, friendly, helpful, group of people committed to the people here at La Unión.

The community gave us a very appreciative welcoming party, with children¹s singing and dancing, presentation of signs of appreciation, and a message of appreciation delivered by one of the community leaders.

****

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If you have any further questions about the FOR Colombia program, please contact us. Thank you very much for your ongoing support.

In Peace

Jutta Meier-Wiedenbach
Colombia program coordinator

____________________________
Fellowship of Reconciliation
Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean
2017 Mission St. #305
San Francisco, CA 94110
phone: (415) 495-6334, fax: (415) 495-5628
www.forusa.org

 

 

 

©2003 Fellowship of Reconciliation