MEETING WITH THE YOUTH GROUP

We met with a small group of CAVIDA members, aged 19-23, who told us of their role and lives in Cacarica. These young adults are committed to staying in the community and abiding by its principles. Since 1997, the year of their displacement, they have focused on recuperating their ancestral customs, such as music, dance, and cultural legends. Along with regaining traditional culture, four young men studied rap music of the U.S. and decided to form their own group, Los Renacientes (The Reborn) in 1998. With other community musicians, they recorded a CD, "Oyeme Choco," in 1999, and in 2000 the rappers were invited to Amsterdam by Amnesty International to be part of four concerts there. They were interviewed on Dutch television and got the chance to speak about the Cacarica community. They also were invited to London for two weeks, where they visited schools, performed, and told their community's story of displacement, returning to their land, and daily life. They sang three songs for us, one of which was entitled "Ya paren la guerra," meaning "stop the war now." The lyrics are about resisting the war, fighting for their land, standing up against injustice, and fostering community pride.

Since May 13, 2003, when the military started a base just across the river from the original Esperanza en Dios settlement, they have suffered direct and indirect hostility from the soldiers. Both the military and paramilitaries have offered the young people of the community money for information about the community and its leaders, and they also try and get them involved in the planting of African palm and coca. They have burned the community's "humanitarian zone" sign, offered young women money to sleep with them, and accused the young people of being guerrilla supporters. When asked about how they, as pacifists who refuse to support either side of the war, deal with armed actors about their same age, the young men said they have to remind themselves that these young men are sons of poor campesinos like them but are very ignorant and very often don't know what they are fighting for. Poor, uneducated young men can be attracted to joining the military, enticed with promises of money, a cool uniform, getting women or a motor scooter.

We asked them to tell us a bit about what life was like when they were displaced and living in a coliseum (el coliseo) in Turbo. One young man said he was 13 at the time of displacement and spent a year living in the coliseo. He remembers people sleeping crowded on the floor and that the same people that displaced them would surround the coliseo and take out leaders to harass and even kill them.

SELF-EDUCATION
In many ways the conflict between the Cacarica community and those who want to empty the land for agroindustrial and other megaprojects is about the clash of worldviews: the peasant way of living in self-sufficiency from the bounty of the land, and a development-oriented ideology which sees the land as exploitable, from which cash-generating goods can be extracted. The importance of maintaining the peasant lifeways makes education a central concern in Cacarica. Among the communal rights guaranteed by Law 70, the law which granted the community their land as a traditional Afrocolombian community, is "ethno-education." The community has used this right to create its own curriculum, with the help of the Colombian NGO Justicia y Paz. The community's curriculum emphasizes local culture, the community's history, traditional medical and agricultural practices, and the value of political organization instead of the dry lessons of standard Colombian textbooks, which often focus on the glories of the fatherland and the story of the "civilizing of the land," the very ideology which the community must confront. Although the government has resisted certifying or paying the community's teachers, Cacarica luckily has a small core of motivated, intelligent, and committed young teachers who manage to provide a solid local education on a volunteer basis, even as they manage their responsibilities as peasant farmers. Their commitment and innovation seem to have paid off: against a backdrop in which the Army and other forces of the state seek to absorb young Cacarique–os into their ranks, the children and young people we met have a strong commitment to the community's cause.

WE CONTINUE TO LEARN
Our minds are bursting! This experience has often felt like an intensive doctoral-level seminar. Our hearts are bursting too. On our final evening in the new Esperanza en Dios settlement, nearly everyone gathered with us on the porch of one home to tell jokes, sing and pray together. We fanned ourselves vigorously to keep the mosquitoes at bay as we strained to catch every word. One beautiful woman recited Psalm 91 from memory, and at last we reluctantly went to bed with those words about abiding under the safety of God's wings ringing within us.

Warmly, The Cacarica delegates

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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