Dear friends,

AGRICULTURE IN THE RAINFOREST

On one day in Nueva Vida, we learned about several aspects of CAVIDA's agricultural methods and process. First we visited the "huerta escolar," or school garden, in the company of five students and their teacher, the venerable Don Pacho. Then we were taken to see the extensive plantings on Don Pacho's own land. This day illustrated not only how the Cacarica people make the most of their land but also how their values are being passed to the next generation.

At the huerta escolar, boys aged roughly 10 to 14 have cleared a section of several acres by machete. They have now planted numerous food crops, including plantain, yucca, sugar cane, palm (for hearts of palm), cilantro, and tomatoes. Each of the tiny plants is staked to distinguish it from the surrounding growth of weeds and jungle plants. The boys clearly have fun with their project and are proud of the results. They also demonstrate their great respect for Don Pacho's skill and knowledge, especially for the organic farming methods that are at the heart of the CAVIDA's philosophy of caring for the land.

To reach Don Pacho's "finca" we were led down path after path for 20 to 30 minutes until we arrived at a large clearing in the midst of the jungle. He explained that scattered fields, as well as lightly traveled paths, help with security in case the "paras" should decide to burn a particular field. Having scattered fields also limits potential damage from insect pests and blights.

Don Pacho showed us beautiful fields where he combines the three staple crops of yucca, rice and plantain. He also showed us some of the tallest corn, over 12 feet tall, that any of us had ever seen. In a smaller area he grows fruits and vegetables, including eggplant, squash, watermelon, papaya, and various peppers and beans. One of his pet projects in an ever-expanding collection of medicinal plants used for traditional treatments of many common illnesses and health problems. These and other plantings supply each settlement's "health promoters" with important resources for the community.

Don Pacho explained that with organic farming and natural fertilizer, he can continue using the same fields indefinitely. Without these practices, the jungle soil becomes depleted after three or four years, requiring the continual clearing of new land, which CAVIDA opposes. Numerous CAVIDA members stressed that the rainforest represents the "lungs of the world" and must be protected for the benefit of themselves and others far away.

At the Limón settlement, the schoolchildren have begun a large reforestation project, with an eventual goal of 250 hectares (or about 600 acres). They have planted and staked dozens of native oaks, with each child adopting a particular tree to water during the dry seasons. In the next phase they hope to add "teka" trees to their project, trees which produce a particularly fine lumber at maturity.

Further up the Rio Limón, at the new Esperanza en Dios settlement, numerous houses are under construction. Lumber comes from houses taken apart at the older settlement but also from selective logging in the adjacent forest. Scattered through the dense forest growth are huge trees, some more than 8 feet in diameter. Like surgeons with chainsaws, the CAVIDA men convert practically every inch of a felled trunk into near-perfect planks for housing and furniture, using only basic tools and a practiced eye. The care with which they do this logging maximizes the benefit to the community while minimizing the impact on the forest and other maturing trees.

DELEGATE HEALTH & TRAVEL

Despite the very primitive conditions in the new Esperanza en Dios settlement where we stayed for most of our visit, not one of us got truly ill in the three weeks of our delegation! Uncomfortable nausea/indigestion was cured by two different medicinal-plant drinks supplied by community members. Several of us did get more densely bug-bitten than we had ever been before, and once we were back in Bogotá three came down with colds, probably a reaction to the drastic temperature/elevation shift. But we were thankful for overall good health & spirits.

We left the community with many warm hugs and waves on Wednesday, August 4. Because of a problem with our return tickets, we ended up staying that night in Medell’n and flew to Bogotá the next morning.

UNITED NATIONS HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE, BOGOTA

Our host at the UN Human Rights office, Juan Carlos Monge, is a superb diplomat with a droll sense of humor. He kept his remarks rather neutral but sometimes punctuated them with gestures and facial expressions that gave us clues to what he was really thinking.

The UN High Commissioner for Human Rights was invited to establish a Colombia office seven years ago and it has been functioning here ever since, alongside the High Commissioner for Refugees office and several other UN agencies. It publishes an annual report which, like Mr. Monge himself, uses quiet, diplomatic third-person language (with verb phrases such as "expresses concern" and "deplores") to note grievous violations of human rights--use of landmines, arbitrary executions, mass detentions, selective violence against indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities. The 2004 recommendations ask the Colombian state and all armed groups to end such abuses and work to establish a "human rights culture."

INTERCHURCH COMMISSION OF JUSTICE AND PEACE

Our next meeting was at the office of the Comisión Intereclesial de Justicia y Paz (JyP), the NGO that accompanies Cacarica as well as 13 other communities in resistance. We had gotten to know a couple of JyP staff during our time in Cacarica--twentysomethings who teach in the community high school, strategize with the coordinators, communicate with the Bogotá office regarding threats and attacks, and generally immerse themselves happily in the life of the rainforest community. A representative of CAVIDA was in our office meeting too, along with a representative of Jiguamiandó, another peace/resistance community JyP accompanies; it lies southeast of Cacarica in Chocó province.

In the office we were treated to sober, thoughtful analysis of the government's often unfriendly responses to Cacarica and Jiguamiandó--the only communities in the Upper Atrato region that have managed to stand their ground and remain on their land doing sustainable farming. Colombia's increasingly authoritarian government is rankled by the survival of such outposts of peaceful opposition to militarism, multinational dominance and environmental devastation. Members of the communities are not being killed or disappeared these days, but they are subject to detention, false accusations, economic pressure and constant threats. They will not be surprised if there is a resurgence of more open violence against them.

Our JyP friends stressed that what they and the communities are seeking is not revolution but a transformation that is more profound: "Some call it the kingdom of God." It would mean healed, transformed relationships between women and men, between human beings and the earth, a remaking of power and economic structures.

NATIONAL HUMAN RIGHTS OFFICE

Late in the day on August 6 we had a very different meeting with Carlos Franco, national director of human rights, and three members of his staff. In response to concerns we raised, Dr. Franco asked us to acknowledge a human rights achievement of the present administration in regard to the Cacarica community: no violent deaths or disappearances in more than two years. Generally he minimized the pressure they've been under from the army, discounted paramilitary presence, and professed skeptical ignorance of the "repobladores" (displaced people from another region of Colombia brought in by paramilitaries to work on palm plantations in community territory). He claimed that the community's current struggles against clearcutting and a fraudulently elected legal representative are all due to internal disagreements.

Some statements by Franco and his staff were wildly discrepant from what Cacarica residents had told us. Gently but firmly we held our ground on their behalf in the conversation. Especially we insisted that current disagreements in the community are NOT the result of a free, open debate; those who say they want to allow the lumber company's clearcutting have been under enormous pressure from the paramilitaries and are receiving financial enticements from the company. It's not a simple difference of opinion.

In the end we reiterated our ongoing care and support for the Cacarica and Jiguamiandó communities and said we would be paying close attention to their struggles. It's humbling yet wonderful to know that just making such a statement to a Colombian government official can contribute to the protection of these brave people.

U.S. EMBASSY, BOGOTA

The only U.S. embassy meeting we could get was on Monday August 9, after most of the delegates had returned home. But a couple of us were there to tell about our visit to the Cacarica community, ask pointed questions, and express our concern about U.S. military aid to Colombia: it has been important in strengthening an authoritarian "parastate" and fueling a war whose victims are mostly civilians.

Of course the embassy spokeswoman, Kiersten Stiansen, didn't share our overall political analysis. But she was very interested in hearing about Cacarica and assured us that the State Department is quite aware of paramilitary presence in that region--contrary to Dr. Franco's denials. She said she hopes to visit there someday. There are some information issues we'll be following up with her via e-mail.

MUCHAS GRACIAS!

Thank you for caring about this delegation to San JosŽ de Apartadó and Cacarica. For many of us it has been a life-changing experience, inspiring, sometimes appalling, clearly calling us to action. We hope you will pitch in, calling for major changes in U.S. policy toward Colombia and telling others about the small but determined campesino communities that are creating alternative societies of peace in the midst of war.

In early September an investigative commission will be visiting the Jiguamiandó community to assess the encroachments of paramilitary-sponsored oil palm projects there. Mass graves have been found in some of the planting areas, and these will be investigated as well. If you speak Spanish and would like to be an observer on the commission, contact Ruth Goring (rgoring@chicagoans.net) and she'll get you info about how to do that. Also there will be an international encounter in Cacarica in early November, and Ruth can let you know more about that.

You have already received an invitation to subscribe to the Fellowship of Reconciliation's "Colombia Peace Presence" monthly newsletter. We now invite you to sign up as well for the "Colombia Observatory Bulletin," a free monthly e-mailing from Chicagoans for a Peaceful Colombia that highlights issues of human rights and environmental justice and includes periodic reports from Cacarica, with whom we have an ongoing partnership. To sign up, send your name, postal address, phone and e-mail address to <colombia@chicagoans.net>. Or go to the website, <www.chicagoans.net>, and click on "Subscribe to Our E-Bulletin" in the upper left-hand corner.

Un abrazo grande (a big hug),

2004 Humanitarian Delegation to Colombian Communities

Chicagoans for a Peaceful Colombia

www.chicagoans.net

Fellowship of Reconciliation, Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean

www.forusa.org/programs/colombia

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