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Delegation 2004 to Colombia - First-Hand
Reports
Cacarica: July 18-August 7, 2004
San José de Apartadó: July 18-31, 2004
Organized by
Chicagoans for a Peaceful Colombia
and Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR)
Third Report:
Our experiences over the past two days have not only shown us the complexity
of Colombia's civil conflict but have demonstrated to us the tenacity
and innovation of the people who are working towards a social transformation
that can overcome it...
Thursday July 22
Off Bogota's
main square lies City Hall, seat of the most important municipal government
in the
country. After passing through strict security we were
admitted to a lush garden where we waited as the staff scrambled to accommodate
us on the day of the Spanish Prime Minister's visit. We were ultimately
attended by Mayor Lucho Garzon's charming chief of staff, Francisco Miranda
Hamburger. The Mayor of Bogota is the second most important elected official
in the nation, after only the president himself, presiding over this capital
city of some 9 million. We were pleasantly surprised by Miranda's description
of the mayor's platform. A moderate leftist and former presidential candidate, "Lucho" imagines
peace as based not only in a negotiated settlement, but in a "social
peace" that addresses the hunger, illiteracy, unemployment, and poor
living conditions in squatter neighborhoods which underlie the conflict
itself. However, he must constantly struggle in a political terrain in
which President Alvaro Uribe Velez seeks to use militarization and staunch
repression to wipe out undesirable political elements. Lucho's municipal
police share the streets with the federally-controlled National Police.
The latter recently launched, against the mayor's will, a program of social
cleansing against the capital city's homeless population, many of whom
are refugees from the fighting in other parts of the country. Despite the
political difficulties involved in coexisting with a national government
bent on militarization, Mayor Garzon is an important voice in a growing
alternative movement which has the potential to revitalize the left and
move toward a progressive social peace.
After a refreshing new look at the potential possibilities residing in
the municipal government, delegates attended a talk with Amanda Romero
of the American Friends Service Committee. Perhaps the most striking aspect
of Romero's talk involved the work and approach of this Quaker organization.
Their work with indigenous and Afro-descendant communities has allowed
human rights to fit within the cultural vision of these communities. For
example, a workshop with an indigenous group made space for an indigenous
guard, and other culturally specific methods of nonviolent resistance.
AFSC has also sponsored a number of meetings between ethnic communities
split by national borders, and have worked to bring together groups from
different cultures but with similar interests
and social needs. Romero's work brought her to Putumayo province, the
first front on the military campaign to eradicate the guerillas. Romero
made the point that militarization and fumigation have entirely disrupted
the social fabric of he region. However, Romero and her colleagues, a skeleton
staff of brave and committed workers have been able to implement programs
in the area.
The alternative
media program, Desde Abajo spoke about the loss of legitimacy of a Colombian
left alienated from the poorer sectors of society most in
need of a political alternative. They also offer newspapers which put forward
information which the timid and conservative Colombian media does not report.
One of he stories that does not appear in the mainstream media is the degree
to which Colombian internal policy is dictated by laws passed in the U.S.
Congress. Plan Colombia, for instance, dictates Colombian policy to a degree
surpassing even the U.S. influence on the fledgling Iraqi government, according
to Desde Abajo. They emphasized that not re-electing George Bush would “save
thousands and thousands of Colombians from death."
Desde Abajo
also has a series of social programs, some of which take place in Ciudad
Bolivar,
a poor neighborhood in the hills above Bogota. The delegation
followed the winding trail through the barrio to Cerros al Sur, an education
project in the outskirts of Bogota. The school is a center for programs
ranging from Academics to economic support, Human rights education and
fulfilling family needs. The school was described as, “a place without
walls closing it to the community, without bells and alarms, no formal
syllabus." Instead, it relies on “principles which guide its
actions." Cerros del Sur's pedagogy “comes from the community
to transform the community." The optimism and solidarity of the people
of the community were an inspiring example of the principles we had heard
about earlier in the day being out into practice.
Friday July 23
We awoke early on Friday morning and boarded a small propeller airplane,
which ferried us over the tapestry of green that is Colombia's mountainous
terrain to the city of Medellin. Stepping off the plane into the tropical
air was a welcome contrast from the damp and cold of Bogota. Our hotel
in Medellin, set in the leisure district of the city, showed us the brisk
pace of life in a city famous for its efficiency in the business of making
money - and death. In our first meeting with a number of representatives
from grassroots organizations of displaced people, political prisoners,
and relatives of the disappeared, we began to see that the manifestation
of the armed conflict in Medellin was far more intense and prolific in
the city itself than in Bogota. Many of the testimonies of the community
leaders included tales of conflict between militia-gangs allied with the
guerrilla, and others associated with the paramilitary. The association
of this latter group with the state appears to have allowed them to take
control of the city, to the point where jailed paramilitary leaders were
able to make the city bend to their will by stopping traffic in 70% of
the city only this last Monday. Cooperation between the urban paramilitary
and the state was crucial in a series of events that unfolded in one of
the city's most marginal barrios - Comuna 13 - where a series of combined
police, army, and paramilitary incursions massacred, mutilated, and disappeared
a number of innocent civilians. We heard about this blatant flouting of
human rights directly from people who had been living in that neighborhood.
Many of these people, often unassuming women like those in some of our
families and some of our communities was incredibly impacting. These men
and women continue to brave the threat of disappearance, imprisonment,
or assassination by the state or the paramilitaries as they continue to
bear witness against the atrocities enacted by the state and its paramilitary
allies.
After a brief lunch hosted at the SUMAPAZ building, we walked a few blocks
to the headquarters of Ruta Pacifica, an umbrella organization for women
community leaders committed to a nonviolent solution to Colombia's brutal
civil violence. Much of their work deals with training women how to confront
their fear in situations where they face the daily threat of armed incursions
into their communities, where young girls are forced into prostitution,
where the police could arrest them arbitrarily at any time, and where they
are unable to protect their families from the dread that living with violence
has engendered. They face these conditions with the courage of sisterhood,
nonviolent strategies, symbolic demonstrations and psycho-social support.
The delegation was left inspired and touched by the stories and strength
of women who manage to maintain hope under unimaginable circumstances.
***
____________________________
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
©2004
Fellowship of Reconciliation |
