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| Colombia Peace Presence Update, July 2004 In this Update: Thank you for your concern and
support!
We are very happy to report that 63 congressional representatives signed a letter to President Uribe in support of international volunteers and the Community. The letter was sent on June 25. The fact that well over ten percent of the house representatives signed the letter shows how grassroots action works - your calls to your representatives were essential to make this happen! Thank you very much for all your efforts and support for our volunteers and the Peace Community. We are including the list of signers so you can thank your representatives for speaking out in favor of human rights defenders in Colombia: Jim McGovern (D-3rd MA) SPONSOR, Jan Schakowsky (D-9th IL) SPONSOR, Aníbal Acevedo-Víla (D-PR), Thomas Allen (D-1st ME), Tammy Baldwin (D-2nd WI), Chris Bell (D-25th TX), Sherrod Brown (D-13th OH), Michael Capuano (D-8th MA), Wm. Lacy Clay (D-1st MO), John Conyers (D-14th MI), Elijah Cummings (D-7th MD), Danny Davis (D-7th IL), Peter DeFazio (D-4th OR), William Delahunt (D-10th MA), Rosa DeLauro (D-3rd CT), Rahm Emanuel (D-5th IL), Elliot Engel (D-17th NY), Anna Eshoo (D-14th CA), Lane Evans (D-17th IL), Sam Farr (D-17th CA), Chaka Fattah (D-2nd PA), Bob Filner (D-51st CA), James Greenwood (R-8th PA), Raul Grijalva (D-7th AZ), Luis Gutierrez (D-4th IL), Maurice Hinchey (D-22nd NY), Eleanor Holmes-Norton (D-DC), Dennis Kucinich (D-10th OH), James Langevin (D-2nd RI), Barbara Lee (D-9th CA), Nita Lowey (D-18th NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-14th NY), Edward Markey (D-7th MA), Karen McCarthy (D-5th MO), Betty McCollum (D-4th MN), Michael McNulty (D-21st NY), Marty Meehan (D-5th MA), Gregory Meeks (D-6th NY), Juanita Millender-McDonald (D-37th CA), George Miller (D-7th CA), Dennis Moore (D-3rd KS), Richard Neal (D-2nd MA), James Oberstar (D-8th MN), John Olver (D-1st MA), Donald Payne (D-10th NJ), Joseph Pitts (R-16th PA), Bobby Rush (D-1st IL), Martin Olav Sabo (D-5th MN), Loretta Sanchez (D-47th CA), Bernie Sanders (Independent VT), José Serrano (D-16th NY), Chris Shays (R-4th CT), Ike Skelton (D-4th MO), Pete Stark (D-13th CA), John Tierney (D-6th MA), Stephanie Tubbs Jones (D-11th OH), Chris Van Hollen (D-8th MD), Maxine Waters (D-35 CA), Henry Waxman (D-30th CA), Lynn Woolsey (D-6th CA), David Wu (D-1st OR). Mark Udall (D-2nd CO), Nidia Velazquez (D-NY). For the full text of the letter go to: http://forusa.org/programs/colombia/col-pp-letter-uribe.html 44 Non-Governmental organizations, churches and unions from the US and Canada also sent a letter to President Uribe in support of our work and human rights in Colombia. In addition, our sister organizations in Italy and Sweden sent letters. It is very encouraging to see how much support the Peace Community and the accompanying organizations have. We know from previous experience that this show of concern improves the security for the population in the community and for our volunteers.
August 5th to 9th at Occidental College in Los Angeles, CA. Join the oldest and largest interfaith peace organization in the United States in voicing the call for worldwide peace and justice. Keynote speakers, from builders of the Beloved Community to war resisters and civil rights activists, will lead us in creating the movement to change the world. Join us for reflection, discussion, meditation, prayer and training as FOR celebrates it 90th year of nonviolence and peace and justice work. Speakers will include Kathy Kelly, organizer of Voices in the Wilderness; Rev. James Lawson, one of the principal architects of the civil rights movement; Dorothy Cotton, who worked closely with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Bishop Gene Robinson, first openly gay bishop ordained in the Episcopal Church of the United States; Donzaleigh Abernathy, daughter of Ralph Abernathy, who worked with Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.; Cindy and Craig Corrie, who lost their daughter, Rachel, when she was killed by an Israeli bulldozer in the Gaza Strip; Fernando Suarez del Solar, member of Military Families Speak Out, a national advocacy group of over 600 families, Suarez has traveled around the country speaking out against the invasion and occupation of Iraq. The conference also offers 60 Workshops, Plenary sessions, Nonviolence Training, Mediation and Reconciliation Training, Youth Programs, Muslim-Jewish Peace Walk, and more! Only 5 weeks left to register! For more information and to register please go to: http://www.forusa.org/conference2004/default.html
President Uribe, in a statement on June 16, while condemning the massacre, focused much of his attention on the fact that Amnesty International did not immediately publish a statement of condemnation. He accused Amnesty International of "abusing its good name to denounce the Colombian public forces" while not condemning the terrorists with whom they "seem to have ideological coincidences." He said that his government would not allow that Amnesty International "legitimizes international terrorism" asking the organization to choose whose side it is on. In response to these accusations, Peter Drury, Amnesty International's Colombia investigator said that "President Uribe asks which side Amnesty International is on, and we answer that we're always with the victims, no matter who the perpetrator is." According to an article in El Tiempo on June 17, he asked why, if the Colombian government also is on the side of the victims, it continues to implement policies that "contradict UN recommendations and foment impunity." "What kind of message are the paramilitaries, who recently committed a massacre in La Guajira, receiving from the government? And what about the soldiers who possibly are responsible for the recent deaths in Nariño (Guaitarilla)?" Drury asked according to the article. He explained that Amnesty International did not issue statements without an investigation. He thought it was strange that Amnesty International was not criticized when they also did not issue any public statement after the massacre in Tame nor after the deaths in Nariño (Guaitarilla). Julia Tamayo, from Amnesty International in Spain considered that "messages such as those by President Uribe put the lives of human rights defenders at risk." (El Tiempo, 6/17/04) On June 19 El Tiempo reported that the US State Department let President Uribe know that it "does not agree at all with the criticism" and that "it is our vision that internationally respected Human Rights NGOs make a significant and important contribution in Colombia and other countries." The State Department spokesperson also spoke about "the seriousness with which we consider the possibility that these NGOs can work safely in the exterior." (El Tiempo 6/19/04)
BOGOTA -- A colorful parade up busy Carrera Septima here yesterday [June 27] spread smiles and giggles among tens of thousands of spectators, many of whom preserved their delight by taking photographs. The entertainment was a civil-rights march, the centerpiece of Bogotá's fourth annual "Pink Series." The two-week festival commemorates the June 28 anniversary of a 1969 revolt at New York's Stonewall Inn, birthplace of the gay rights movement. Besides the march, the festival includes lectures and two dozen films. Drawing standing-room-only crowds, the events suggest Colombia's GLBT movement is gaining strength despite unrelenting machismo and moral hypocrisy in this war-torn Roman Catholic country. Sponsored by the Goethe Institute, Cinemateca Distrital and City TV, the festival opened Friday with a screening of Eytan Fox's "Yossy and Jagger" (2003), the story of a romance between two Israeli soldiers struggling for privacy on a base along the Lebanese border. Other films include Toronto-based director Deepa Metha's "Fire" (1996), which follows electricity between two married women in India, and "La desazón suprema" ("The Supreme Frustration"), a new documentary by Luis Ospina about Colombian novelist Fernando Vallejo. The lectures, beginning this week, include "Faith and Sexual Diversity: Catholic Fragments in the Key of Gay" by British theologian James Alison and "The Church and Homosexuals: From Condemnation to Recognition of Dignity" by German sociologist Michael Brinkschröder. The festival, ironically, suits Colombia's identification with Western culture, in which homosexuals have always figured prominently. In ancient Greece, the enthusiasts included Socrates, Plato and Sapho. The Bible gave us Ruth and Naomi and the love triangle of Saul, David and Jonathan. In Rome, the maestro was Virgil. The list of artists begins with da Vinci, Shakespeare, Michelangelo and Tchaikovsky. In politics, there's Edward II, Joan of Arc, Catherine the Great and, yes, César Gaviria, Colombia's president from 1990 to 1994. Yet hatred of homosexuals remains virulent here. One source is a decades-old war that promulgates machismo and violence. In a country with 3,500 annual political homicides, paramilitary "cleansings" of sexual minorities receive little attention. The Colombian military, paradoxically, can't afford to kick out openly gay soldiers. "If I fulfill my functions like a good soldier, the Army doesn't care if I'm gay," a 31-year-old captain told journalist Francisco Celis Albán for his book "Colombia erótica" (Intermedio Editores, 2002). "What matters to them is that I don't mariquiar [initiate gay sex] in our battalion. Our camouflage doesn't include skirts." Other mixed messages come from a clergy that's brimming with queers. "When I was still in conflict with my sexuality, I went to speak with a priest who didn't know I was gay," one cleric recalled to Celis. "He told me I could construct something from it and encouraged me in my work as a priest. That was very helpful." Colombia's 1991 Constitution expanded rights for indigenous people, Afro-Colombians, women and many others, but not gay folks. In 2002, Sen. Piedad Córdoba Ruiz proposed legislation requiring the government to recognize same-sex unions. The bill won support from dozens of lawmakers, but not enough to keep it from getting tabled last August. If she reintroduces the measure next year, as expected, she may find greater support. Gay bars are proliferating across the country. More gay characters are showing up in movies and soap operas. GLBT communities are growing in neighborhoods such as Bogotá's Chapinero. Queer political and social groups are forming. And, as yesterday's march confirmed, many straight Colombians are open to such changes.
After two weeks in Bogotá, I came home to La Union today. On the way up the road I stopped to chat with the community members who were widening and flattening the path. Up above where they were working I saw the baby donkey that I had heard was born while I was away. For those who have never seen a baby donkey I can inform you that they are extremely cute. This one had thick gray fur and looked like a stuffed animal. Just like Eeyore, actually. I tried to get it to eat a fern from my hand but it was afraid of me. "Yes, life goes on in La Union," I thought as I continued up the path and the clouds above shifted to cover the intense heat of the sun. When La Union is peaceful it is hard to imagine that anything bad could ever happen in place as quiet and pretty as this. Two weeks ago, President Uribe visited Apartadó to condemn the bombing of a discotheque there. During his visit he spoke against both the peace community and the internationals who work with them. He accused the community of obstructing justice with the help of internationals and claimed, as usual, that San Jose was a corridor for the FARC. In response to the president's statements the community and the organizations that work with them scheduled meetings with Colombian and international officials, wrote letters, and in other ways mobilized the political support that we count on. I was in the middle of this political work in Bogotá running around between meetings with the Embassies and the United Nations as well as other NGOs to inform, analyze, and strategize. In Bogotá, the international organizations were actively responding. Never before had such a high official questioned our work with the community. As accompaniers, our tool for protecting the community as well as ourselves, is the respect that the Colombian government has for our foreign governments. Any adjustment to that delicate equation can make us less effective and less safe, living as we FOR volunteers do, deep in a conflict zone. The community also relies on international support, from the organizations that work here, but also in a political sense from the Embassies, UN, and the other international bodies, who help confirm the community's legitimacy. During the week in Bogotá I noticed that the NGO people, especially the ones from the international organizations were very concerned. Questions swirled through and behind our activities what does this mean for accompaniment? What does this mean for international cooperation in Colombia? And while my mind could go around and around with this kind of worry I was also usually able to remember the level of risk that we, as internationals, actually face. While they may try to get us to leave, we still believe the government won¹t really hurt us. While this is the first time the president has spoken against us, the attack is truly directed at the community. In this case, it is directed at the community through trying to frighten their international support away. In the midst of all this, the attitude of the community members who I accompanied during those days was remarkable. One evening, we heard a report of a new threat to the community, a Colombian congressman who had spoken in support of Uribe's statements and taken them even further. The community member I was with, a man who the police had asked for by name when they entered San Jose a few days before, laughed, "Yep, they sure are attacking us from all sides," he said, "But have you heard how the Colombia-Ecuador soccer game turned out?" It's not that this community member was belittling the risk that the president's statement and others put the community in. The community took the comments and their repercussions very serious and were doing their best to combat them with this round of political work in the capital. At the same time, they know that there is more that matters in life than what the president said and how it might effect them. It matters that the president has given legal and illegal armed actors encouragement to attack the community. It matters that the presence of international accompaniers makes it harder to attack the community with impunity and that now they are trying to discourage that accompaniment. It matters that many people in the Colombian government, like the president himself, want to get us out of here. It matters that the UN and the Inter-American court and most foreign embassies support this community's right to stay on their land and peacefully resist the conflict. It also matters - to some - that Colombia lost to Ecuador 2 to 1. It matters that the people showed up for community work today and now travelling on the road to San Jose will be a little bit easier. It also matters - to some and to me - that Dona Laura fell off her horse because the seat came undone, that the avocado harvest is going well, that Anji is pregnant again, that our garden needs weeding, and that an adorable baby donkey was born a few days ago. *** 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
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©2004 Fellowship of Reconciliation |