Towards Peace and Justice in Colombia

Deals for up to 350 million dollars, especially for goldmines. Demonstrators alert about dangers caused by the “boom”.

September 12, 2011 by Rachel Dickson

Original article written in Spanish can be found at: http://notiagen.wordpress.com/2011/09/12/colombia-vii-feria-internacional-minera-en-medellin-negocios-por-350-millones-de-dolares-especialmente-en-minas-de-oro-manifestantes-alertan-por-los-peligros-que-acarrea-el-boom/ or http://www.periferiaprensa.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=752:el-boom-minero-visto-desde-la-vii-feria-internacional-minera-en-medellin&catid=109:edicion-66-septiembre-2011&Itemid=596 

From August 31^st to September 2^nd, 2011, the Grand Convention Plaza and Exposition Center witnessed the seventh annual International Mining Fair, organized by the Ministry of Mines and Energy, the Regional Government of Antioquia, and Asomineros (Miners Association Chamber) of the ANDI (National Association of Industries). Outside of the event thoe opposed to the “mining locomotive” – proposed by President Santos –were demonstrating against it.

The VII Mining Fair, an international event, took place in the city of Medellin and its visitors agreed upon the fact that the mining industry is at its “boom” stage of exploration in the Colombian territory. Especially since only a few projects have been executed, such as the Buriticá and Frontino projects in the department of Antioquia and the Marmato project in the department of Caldas. Nevertheless, there are many others that are yet to be executed, such as the famous project named La Colosa, in the department of Tolima.

 While the fair was taking place within the walls of the Grand Convention Plaza, a group of people were protesting outside the building because the legislation and the National Development Plan disregard them and would make their economical activities disappear only to be controlled by the multinational companies. Among these people there were some independent miners associated withthe National Confederation of Miners of Colombia, some of which are considering to be mining illegally for not possessing mining titles.

 Another one of the protestors was Juan Ceballos, an environmental lawyer who has taken to court cases against various multinational companies in Colombia. “You cannot eat money,” he said. The lawyer chained himself to a tree in order to receive more attention to raise awareness about the impacts of the mining industry on the environment, the displacement of the fauna, the destruction of the flora, the pollution of the waters and the violations of human rights again the Colombian population. “Only when the people have felled the last of trees, poisoned the last river and caught the last fish, they will realize that you cannot eat money”. Then, he added: “The young people here protesting worry about the future of their children and that of the children of their children, not the future of foreign investment”. 

The speed of the locomotive

According to Luis Alfredo Ramos Botero, governor of Antioquia, the fair welcomed the participation of more than 20 countries, 290 investment companies and 15 thousand visitors, 10 more times than the attendance four years ago, which transforms it into the mining event with the second highest attendance in the world, the first one taking place in Toronto. At the closing time of the fair, deals for up to 350 million dollars had been made, most of which were related to goldmines.

Eduardo Chaparro, CEO of the Asomineros Chamber of the ANDI, revealed that between now and the year 2020, the Colombian government expects a total investment in mining of 24 billion dollars. Adding to that, the president of the mining company Goldplata, Georges Patrick Juilland, affirmed that Colombia is the only completely unexplored country in the continent, but that it has a great mining potential.

It was precisely one of the Goldplata projects that the Constitutional Court ordered to stop through the T-129 sentence of 2011, which ruled “in favor of the territorial rights, of the previous consultation (to the indigenous people) and their autonomy (to execute their own plans)”. The sentence is about an exploration concession of about 40 thousand hectares (98.842 acres) in the municipality of Ancadí, department of Chocó. “The High Court, says a report by the Regional Indigenous Council of Cauca, CRIC, as well as the Constitutional Court, argued in their decisions that one cannot go against the ‘general interest’ and the ‘progress’” to protect an economic group. (For further information in Spanish go to: http://www.corteconstitucional.gov.co/relatoria/2011/t-129-11.htm).

Some of the pulic speakers at the fair focused on the Colombian mining tradition as an argument to support the “boom.” Sergio Restrepo Londoño, president of the Asomineros, emphasized that the mining industry is not new in Colombia. When the Spanish came, the indigenous people had two principal occupations: agriculture and mining. In the XIX century, stresses Restrepo, Colombia was the country with the most mining activity in Latin America and had the presence of several US and British industries.

Strategically speaking, the event was very important to the Colombian government: President Santos bases his development plans on five locomotives that will boost the economy, one of them the mining industry. According to Sergio Restrepo, the mining exports of Colombia in 2010 were equivalent to 9 billion dollars, making up 23.7% of all exports, and the country relied on 2.05 billion of dollars of foreign direct investment (FDI).

In addition to that, the human rights Organization José Alvear Restrepo Collective of Lawyers says that an alarming 85% of Colombia’s exports are primary goods, which entails little economic development for Colombians in the long run. (Further information in Spanish: http://www.colectivodeabogados.org/La-politica-minera-del-gobierno).

The golden rise of the mining industry

Michael Tistl, a German geologist who has lived in Colombia for the last 20 years and is a member of the Condoto Platinum Company, says that Colombia is a country very rich in resources and with many possibilities. He affirms that in the last decade the conditions for development in the mining industry have significantly improved. For some years, says the geologist, the mining activity decreased a lot, mainly for two reasons: the low world prices of precious minerals and the internal conflicts in Colombia, which almost terminated the mining industry. In 1980, says Tistl, there were only two big mining companies: Cerrejón y Cerro Matoso.

According to Tistl, mineral prices have increased partially because of China’s economical evolution and the growth of the world’s population, which doubled in the past 40 years. There is more need, more consumption, more construction work and a higher global demand for coal; and due to all of this, there is much speculation.

China and India are the biggest buyers of gold in the world and according to a report in the 21^st Century Business Herald, a Chinese business newspaper, a consultant from the Chinese government confirmed that the Central Bank of China plans to buy large quantities of gold in the following years with the objective of incrementing their stocks, which would make the world prices go even higher.

Similar information is given by the Financial Times, an international newspaper. It informs that Chinese Officials have said publicly that China needs to buy 10 thousand tons of gold to project its economical power and support their stocks.

The decrease of the world’s gold production in the last 10 years and the difficult and lasting world economical crisis have encouraged central banks and investors to buy more, leading jewelry consumers to buy less because of the high prices. The dollar continuous to be weak and the interest rate is almost zero, as the banks’ demand for gold goes up. For a number of reasons, gold has been traditionally the most popular alternative currency when other traditional currencies are declining: it is universally accepted, little is affected by the fluctuations of only one economy and the investors do not have to worry about the arrears of the debtors, unlike with other investments.

Prices remain high in the world indexes of gold investments and the current perspective of investors is to bet for a prosperous future based on a mining economy. The gold market was very in decline in the 80s and 90s, but this tendency shifted mostly due to the fears in economy generated after 9/11: people and banks restarted buying gold and other minerals; nevertheless, some economist wonder if the current values could be maintained in the long run, meaning, if this speculative bubble will remain as non-prioritizing and as one that does not take into account the internal production, which is led to satisfy the basic necessities of the Colombian population.

In Colombia, the reserves of gold are estimated to be near 25 million ounces and other minerals also have immense reserves. There are civic demonstrations in many parts of Colombia against of converting the country into a mining country and, yet the Colombian government has distributed 9 thousand mining titles, 30 per cent in Antioquia; and there are 20 thousand more applications for about 40 million hectares, meaning, the 35 per cent of the whole national territory. In addition to what has already been distributed, the government intends to grant at least 18 thousand mining titles in the next few months, according to Francisco José Lloreda, High Presidential Counselor for Security and Coexistence.

In this sense, Lloreda urged companies to hire directly their own security units, since although the National Army has already 12 thousand soldiers assigned to 12 different battalions who are in charge of the energetic and mining security, it would be impossible for them to cover the entire territory of the newly granted mining titles.

In the opinion of Human Rights Organizations, such as the Council on Hemispheric Affairs, security unites hired directly by the mining companies, called by many as paramilitaries, have harassed the civil population, the small mining businesses and unions; they have murdered and dispossessed people of their territory, to serve the interests of such companies. (For further information, go to http://www.coha.org/colombias-gold-rush-the-silver-lining-for-paramilitaries-and-guerrillas/)

Hernando José Gómez, director of the National Planning Department, announced to the attendees of the Fair that the Colombian government would create the National Agency of Minerals, which will exclusively treat mining affairs and will take care of applying fines, much higher fines, for illegal mining. Furthermore, the national government will work extensively during the next couple of years in the reform of the Mining Code. This Code was declared inextinguishable by the Constitutional Court in May of this year, because it does not comply to the procedures of the previous consultation.

Luis Carlos Villegas, president of ANDI, proclaimed it’s been sought to mark the limits of the forest reserves, which will be subject to technical, economical and social criteria, as well as to clear rules in relation to excludable activities for temporal subtraction in forest reserves. In the opinion of the environment lawyer, Juan Cabellos, protection of the environment needs to increase, not decrease. The megaprojects in Colombia have already caused enormous damage and to exclude a zone from protection would be a crime against nature.

Manuel Mora, president of the Fifth Commission of the Senate of the Republic of Colombia, hopes for Colombia to reach successful mining levels, such as the ones of Brazil and Chile. Notoriously, Brazil, Colombia and Chile are the three countries in Latin America with the highest rates of inequality between the rich and the poor. (For further information in Spanish, go to: http://hdrstats.undp.org/es/indicadores/67106.html). Big mining industries seem to reinforce inequalities, while the people are expelled from their own land with nothing but the clothes on their back and, while it all becomes about the minerals game.

Colombia´s Gold Rush

(short documentary by Al Jazeera English)

 Sunday, January 15 6:30pm

Maya Essence

4357 N. Lincoln Ave

ALSO: short documentary on the Red de Hermandad, and a discussion and Q and A about what’s going in Colombia, maybe some dancing and music, and info about what you can do to get involved!  

For more information, please  call 773-517-1330.

Dear Friends and Family,

 

Merry Christmas, Happy New Year’s,  and Happy Hanukkah!!  As most of you know, I’m still living in Medellin, Colombia (almost three years now in Colombia) and I imagine most of you are wondering what exactly I’m up to now.  Good question!! I actually need your help! Keep reading….

 

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By forwarding this e-mail to your contacts, you are already helping hugely. Thank you for your interest and contribution! Please read entire email carefully.

I am not just asking for monetary donations, but also for your time in reading articles (attachments are articles I’ve written recently on Colombia), help in getting other organizations and people involved, translations, and publishing journalism articles.  Spread the word.  Educate yourself and others. 

Chicago area Invite:  Please come to a fun, family-friendly educational event on mining in Colombia that I am hosting at Maya Essence 4357 N. Lincoln on Sunday, January 15th! (Will send email confirming the hour soon). Short documentary screening on the current Gold Rush in Colombia, short documentary on the Red de Hermandad, and a discussion and Q and A about what’s going in Colombia, maybe some dancing and music, and info about what you can do to get involved!  

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Here’s what I’ve been doing:

 

For most of this year I’ve been involved with the Red de Hermandad and Solidaridad con Colombia (Brotherhood and Solidarity Network with Colombia).  For info on RedHer in English, go here.  It’s an international network of organizations, many of which are Colombian, but also European, Argentine, Ecuadorian, Canadian, as well as from other countries, that are against the inequalities and injustices brought about by neoliberalism and world monopoly capitalism, and working many fronts (political, social, economic, ecological, environmental, communications) to fight it. It’s an internationalist agenda, that shows by working together and across borders we are better equipped to fight against oppression (But as equals, not as one country dictating policy and economic resources for another, which is the landscape of many international NGOs these days).  RedHer (Red de Hermandad) has an international campaign called the Campaign Against Dispossession, that has been focusing primarily in Colombia on the role of multinational companies in mining and hydroelectric projects (one of the biggest current causers of displacement, these two industries are growing exponentially in the Colombian countryside).  This year we started an investigation team in Antioquia, and are investigating the connections between the Colombian government and their policies, the multinationals and economic interests, the violence, and subsequent dispossession of Colombian civil society, through loss of rights and land and economic sovereignty. The idea is to synthesize the information we find and bring it to the communities affected — through popular education and relationships with the communities, we can help them to organize themselves, as opposed to organizing in the international and national spheres at NGO and governmental levels, to affect policy change, in which frequently other people are still imposing their ideas and interests on communities. 

 

I’m also writing for a Colombian newspaper, Periferia Prensa Alternativa (one of the most widely known progressive print newspapers in the country, although still with surprisingly little funding) .  Periferia is 7 year-old newspaper that believes in popular communication, and that communication can be a fundamental tool in social, economic, and political transformation. Worried about the omnipotent and consolidated power of the mass media and their alliance with authoritarian political power, Perifieria is a monthly print newspaper with collaborators across the country that tell their stories, stories of the “periphery” of society, with the goal of transmitting their stories to the periphery as well, to help construct collective identity and struggle. We are also currently interested in starting an “internationalist” column, so if anyone is interested in submitting the occasional article about their struggle at home, please do (Periferia can do the translations).  Some of my articles have been translated to English, please see attachments below and read one (but not all of them have been published.  If you would like to publish one of these articles on your website, blog, etc…, please let me know!!).  This year, Periferia plans to broaden its international relationships with other communicators and activists, start a radio program to reach low-income neighborhoods and rural communities, and hold communications workshops in underprivileged communities to help start news collectives.  

 

Part of what makes me believe so much in these two causes is that we aren’t just being critical of and denouncing governmental and international policies, but we areworking towards alternatives, different forms of communication and education, and of economic organization with a focus in community identity and local production.  With that in mind, I would like to ask for those who can give it, a donation to one of these projects.  Periferia will also be sponsoring me (with money I raise that is) to go to an Investigative Reporters and Editors (www.ire.org) workshop in Missouri next week, to get some important skills to help with my investigative journalism skills.  Attached is their recommendation and letter of support for me to attend the IRE training, certification of the work I’m doing, and tax ID number for tax write-offs (in Spanish and translated to English as well).  

 

So please donate what you can afford, and feel free to specify to what: RedHer Campaign Against Dispossession, Periferia Alternative Press, or IRE workshop for Rachel.  Grassroots causes like these need your help the most, and generally use the small amount of money they have the most effectively. 

 

The total cost of the IRE workshop is $700.  The cost of a Periferia radio program is $200 a month.  The cost of a single communications workshop in a neighborhood in Colombia is $50-$100.  The cost of a journalist writing an article for Periferia that involves travel is $150 or more. The cost of making a popular education booklet for the Campaign against Dispossession to distribute in ten communities is $2500.  You decide what you can donate and to what cause. 

 

Donate to Colombia Solidarity Work!! Pay online with credit card or mail check to arrive before January 18th:

 

Rachel Dickson

(re: Colombia Solidarity Work)

2504 W. Hutchinson St. 

Chicago, IL 60618

 

If you want more info about these projects, or want to get involved (writing, publishing, translating, etc..) or have organizational contacts that would be helpful, please write back and let us know!! 

 

Best, Rachel

 

Contact: Rachel Dickson

773-517-1330

Colombia: +57 313 861 7735

rachel.s.dickson@gmail.com

By Kristian Herbolzheimer
Conciliation Resources
Colombian President Juan Manuel Santos has been in office for just two months but has already hailed the beginning of the end for left-wing rebels who once controlled large swathes of the country.

Two weeks ago, the military commander of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Farc), Mono Jojoy, was killed during a large-scale military assault on his jungle stronghold.

The challenge for the government is to turn military success into lasting peace
It was the government’s single strongest blow against the Farc in 45 years of counter-insurgency operations.

The challenge for President Santos is now to move from a major military success to peace – to turn a vicious cycle of violence into a virtuous cycle of conflict transformation.

This change could have happened at any time over the last four decades, had the parties to the conflict been serious in their struggle to reach a resolution for the benefit of the people.

Had successive governments been sincere in their commitment to defend Colombians from insecurity, they would have used their power to address the underlying structural problems in the country such as access to land and natural resources, inequity, and violent exclusion of critical voices.

Rebels would then have lost the narrative that sustains their struggle.

Had the Farc been more strategic, they would have invested in strengthening their soft power, that is, matching the means with the ends of their campaign, and living up to the international standards of conduct in warfare as well as developing their negotiation and dialogue skills.

Lost chances
None of this happened and, instead, peace talks have been hostage to calculations of military strength.

Both the rebels and government neglected the human costs of their approach in terms of killings, abductions, drug trafficking and massive displacement of populations.

President Juan Manuel Santos’ success on the battlefield was compromised by major scandals
In 2002 the newly elected President Alvaro Uribe promised to wipe out the guerrilla forces during his term. He reframed the challenge from fighting an armed conflict to what he called a post-conflict scenario where the democratic institutions had to defend themselves from ‘narco-terrorist’ organisations.

With unprecedented popular support, the government’s approach severely damaged the rebels’ military capabilities, allowing people to enjoy freedom of movement in the cities and on major highways without fear of being kidnapped.

At the same time the government negotiated the demobilisation of right-wing paramilitaries and promoted the desertion of rebels, in exchange for leniency.

Continue reading the main story
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Start Quote

Trying to terminate an armed conflict by defeating the enemy is a high-risk gamble, with uncertain outcomes”

According to the government, more than 30,000 combatants have entered its reintegration schemes.

The government’s success on the battlefield was nevertheless compromised by three major scandals that severely undermined the country’s democratic institutions:

evidence of collusion between high-ranking government officials and their political allies with drug cartels and other forms of criminality
illegal surveillance of dozens of NGOs, journalists, politicians and members of the judiciary, carried out by the national intelligence agency
the extra-judicial killings of hundreds of young people from marginalised communities whose bodies would later be presented as rebel fighters killed in combat
Challenges ahead
The death of Mono Jojoy is a significant victory for the government.

It remains to be seen whether it is a victory for the Colombian people as well.

President Santos has committed himself to avoiding the dark side of his predecessor’s legacy.

Peace talks provide a space for dialogue on national reconciliation
He is unilaterally addressing several points the Farc has recently asked to discuss at the negotiating table:

plans for increasing the number of US military bases are on hold
land restitution is now a government priority
the president has committed to acknowledge and support victims of state violence
political and economic reforms have been promised
If the president succeeds in this approach, he will be walking the path to peace.

Peace talks between the two sides are nevertheless still desirable.

This is not so much to allow political negotiations between the government and the rebels, but to provide a space for inclusive dialogue on national reconciliation and a transition to a post-conflict Colombia.

Trying to terminate an armed conflict by defeating the enemy is a high-risk gamble, with uncertain outcomes.

The huge costs are inevitably born by the people.

Addressing the structural problems and strengthening democratic institutions is a far more constructive, humane and even cost-efficient alternative.

Peace in Colombia is about respecting human rights: all human rights, of all Colombians.

To date, Colombian governments have neither wanted nor been able to take this approach seriously.

It is up the new Santos government, as well as to Colombian society, whether to choose the path that can lead to a sustainable and positive peace.

It is up to the international community – notably the US – to choose which approach they want to support.

In August, Colombia hosted the first “International Summit of Women and People of the Americas against Militarization,” which was attended by almost 3000 people, including around 200 international delegates from the Americas and Europe.  The event provided a unique space for organizations and social activists to come together to share, denounce, and visibilize the effects of militarization and war on the bodies of women, territories, and civil society, with the objective to systemize the experiences of resistance against militarization and to define a strategic agenda to coordinate a social movement of women and people for the defense of territories.  Although the Colombian Constitutional Court deemed the agreement leasing seven Colombian bases to the U.S. unconstitutional on the second day of the summit, the focus of the attendees remained centered on building a strong opposition to the rise of U.S. military presence in Latin America.

The summit, convened by the Social Movement of Women Against the War and for the Peace, came out of a long process involving 60 Colombian social organizations that have spent the last four years developing a common agenda against militarization.  According to Betty Puerto of the Women’s Popular Organization (OFP), the goal of the movement is to eventually present a proposal of peace from women to the Colombian national government urging a political negotiation to the armed conflict, along with various measures to assure that human rights are protected in Colombia.  The Social Movement of Women was spearheaded ten years ago by the OFP, when they began to collect information about the suffering of women caused by the effects of the internal conflict.  Jacqueline Rojas, the Barrancabermeja regional coordinator, said that they later opened to the movement to other regions of the country, where other organizations already had initiatives, and began a campaign of popular education in schools and neighborhoods, teaching the effects of militarization on the bodies of women and civil society.

The movement now includes indigenous communities, labor unions, housewives, Afro-Colombian communities, political organizations, church organizations, academics, student movements, displaced people, small-scale farmers, community mothers, and regional peace processes, all of whom were represented in the summit, united under the slogan “We do not birth sons and daughters for war.”

The summit took place at a moment when U.S. imperialist forces are carrying out aggressive strategies of re-colonization to reposition and recuperate from the crisis of the capitalist system, according to the women of the movement.  This has had dire effects on the people of the entire region; inequality, unemployment, violence, sexism, and poverty are becoming endemic in Latin America.

Colombia is no exception – a country abundant in natural resources such as minerals, petroleum, carbon, water, and biodiversity, where 65% of the population lives in poverty on less than $5 a day and 56% of Colombians are unemployed or underemployed, according to Felix Posada of the Popular Center of Communication in Latin America, who gave a talk on the Colombian context the first day of the summit.

The territories of Colombia, and likewise all of Latin America, are being exploited by transnational companies, who use the tactics of militarization, war, displacement, and murder of the people to claim control of territories.  U.S. economic interests are protected by U.S. military bases, which are strategically positioned all over the continent, and have been used to exert influence and control over the region.  Although the history of U.S. military intervention in Latin America is well known, many feel the trend continues – the plane that carried the Honduran president out of the country after a military coup last year stopped at a U.S. base, suggesting U.S. participation. Berta Cáceres, a summit atendee and resistance leader in Honduras, thinks the CIA was behind it.

Violations of human rights are further aggravated by U.S. presence – in Colombia, U.S. military personnel contracted by an oil company to protect a pipeline participated in the massacre of 17 civilians in 1998.   A recent study published by FOR found that despite legal mechanisms to prevent U.S. military aid to Colombian army units that commit human rights violations, not only has the U.S. provided assitance to such units, the number of extrajudicial executions went up in more than half of the units after they received aid linked to Plan Colombia.

The implications for women living around bases are even grimmer, where the number of rapes goes up dramatically, with a 98.6% impunity rate for the perpetrators, according to summit speaker Ana Maria Diaz, the sub-director of Investigation at the Colombian Commission of Jurists (CCJ).  A 2009 annual report released by the Interamerican Court of Human Rights shows the state can be held responsible for 65.8 % of sexual violations in Colombia (committed by both public forces and paramilitary groups linked to the public forces).  Diaz claims that other sources point to an even higher rate, with the military as the major perpetrator.  Another concern of Diaz’ is that U.S. soldiers in foreign countries generally receive diplomatic immunity, meaning they can’t be tried for their crimes in foreign countries, and there are numerous cases of sexual abuse committed by U.S. personnel, sometimes to young girls, that remain in impunity.  Prostitution rates also skyrocket around bases, with military-sanctioned “entertainment houses.”

To see these effects first hand, international delegates from 19 different countries participated in humanitarian commissions to twelve different heavily militarized regions around Colombia in the first days of the summit.  They found evidence of multinational companies around the country allied with police, military, and paramilitary forces to end social organizations and gain control of territory, according to the report written and presented during the summit.  They found women to be extremely victimized in these regions due to the militarization, and social movements to be severely stifled by the state.

In Barrancabermeja, the delegates joined over 2000 Colombian activists from the organizations that make up the Social Movement of Women Against the War for two days of seminars, workshops, and speeches.  Colombian Senator Piedad Cordoba, who has been involved with the Movement for sometime, told the effects that the largest business in the world, war, has brought to Colombia – cadavers floating down the Magdalena River, women’s corpses missing a head or arms, and more than 5000 false positives, civilians killed and dressed up as guerrilla by the army.

Women presented the topic and talked about the issues they faced from various perspectives: indigenous, small-scale farmers, Afro-Colombians, urban dwellers, union leaders, artists, and internationals were all represented.  One afternoon the Movement held the largest march to happen in Barrancabermeja in 8 years; participants carried banners, candles, and rocks to remember those who had lost their lives in the conflict.

On the last day of the summit, the group caravanned to Puerto Salgar, home to the air base Palenquero, one of the seven bases “given” to the U.S. in the 2009 agreement.  According to a study contracted by the Social Movement of Women and released at the summit, prostitution has grown at an alarming rate in Puerto Salgar since the installation of the base.  The study also showed the strong influence the base has had on cultural, political, and social life in Puerto Salgar.  The women held an 8-hour vigil in front of the base, complete with musicians, speakers, dancers, and theater acts.  One impressive youth dance group from Barrancabermeja highlighted the devastation to the environment and civilian life in the city due to oil company control.  Colombian Senator Gloria Ines Ramirez spoke of the need to continue the struggle, and a message of encouragement to the Movement was read aloud, written by Clara Lopez, the president of the Polo Democratico, the only major Colombian political party to oppose to the U.S.-Colombia bases agreement.

The summit successfully brought together a lot of people working against the expansionist interests of the U.S. in the region, people who denounce the growing militarization of the region as a strategy of appropriation of the natural resources and wealth of territories, and the effects on women in particular.  Women’s bodies are used as commodities in war, and while femicide rates are rising, women are frequently left behind to raise and support the family when their partners go to war or are killed.  The event brought hope and promise to a broken movement, a movement that has been systematically marginalized, threatened, and suppressed by the powers that be.  Already many women who helped organize the event have received subsequent threats – one organizer has been followed by men on motorcycles taking pictures outside her house, another has been forced to flee the country.  Around the time of the event a human rights defender was found murdered in retaliation for her participation in public, international human rights events.  The picture remains grim inside Colombia and out, but the international community of opposition to the status quo gets stronger after each event such as this one.

May 15th was International Conscientious Objector’s Day

For 25 years, May 15 has been celebrated as International Conscientious Objectors’ Day, a tradition of struggle led by anti-war and pacifist groups. Conscientious objectors stand up for human rights and dignity, democratic rights, and international law. Widespread public support and pressure can help protect these courageous individuals from feelings of isolation and from repression of them and their rights. That’s why the Youth Network of Medellín is looking for international support to organize actions at Colombian Embassies and Consulates throughout the world, to draw attention to the problem of forced recruitment in Colombia, and the specific impacts on youth. Read more about the call to action below.

The Youth Network of Medellín (Red Juvenil de Medellín) has been actively dreaming, looking for, and creating peace and social justice for 20 years, and this year on May 15 was no exception. In the name of Conscientious Objector’s Day, the Red Juvenil launched a campaign “For a dignified life and the demilitarization of our bodies and lands,” whose objective is to encourage disobedience as a means to transform youth confronted with a militaristic and patriarchal culture.

During the week in the name of the campaign, the Red Juvenil staged a collective direct action in the streets of Medellín, put on a play about the U.S. military bases in the University of Antioquia, and held a forum for the release of a 2009 study called “The Dreams of Youth Can’t Be Camouflaged,” about the increasingly violent and dangerous realities of city life for Colombian youth.

The report, released in a forum at the University of San Buenaventura on May 14, focused on abstract as well as pragmatic aspects of the reality of youth in Medellín. “The cement hides the poverty but does not make it disappear. Militarization controls the inconformity,” said Alejandra, a four-year member of the Red Juvenil. “We talk of all time at the same time, because we recognize as reality the downtown city known by tourists, as well as the city overwhelmed by bullets and hunger. In Medellín, it’s as real the asphalt and bright lights of Christmas (a dazzling display of lights sponsored by the government that features over 14.5 million light bulbs and has earned the city quite some fame), as the darkness reminiscent of the 14^th century that 60,000 families live today, disconnected from electricity,” said Jhony, a University of Antioquia student and 5-year member of the Red Juvenil.

The presenters went on to scoff at the education projects offered by Medellín, which has publicized greatly its significant social investment, but that according to these students, has provoked few tangible results. Infrastructure is not a guarantee of the quality of education, they claimed.  Furthermore, they went on, schools teach students so that they can graduate quickly and get jobs to keep the economy going; they are not taught to think.  Due to this phenomenon, the harsh realities become dire necessity for many teens, and for many in Medellín neighborhoods, joining an armed group represents the most viable means of survival. The armed groups use youth, specifically for “errands,” or murders, taking advantage of the cheap labor and greater levels of immunity from prosecution for minors that commit crimes, exclaimed a speaker. The state’s Democratic Security policy has naturalized force – one has to relate to the war in order to come out ahead, said another speaker at the forum.

The relentless violence encouraged by the Democratic Security policy means the Colombian military has a high need for bodies – recruitment, including forced recruitment, is a necessity. Several members denounced the practice of batidas, in which soldiers drive around in a truck without license plates, picking up young men who do not have their obligatory papers, trucking them off directly to the barracks to begin their military service. The commander of the Army’s 4^thbatidas as prohibited, but he admitted it continues to happen when recruiters have trouble meeting their quotas. Brigade, Alberto Mejía Ferrero, has condemned the practice of

Young men are not the only victims, as women face especially brutal persecution. Women are utilized and seduced for their services, explained Alejandra at the forum.  She claimed that not only are women exploited sexually from a young age by virtually all of the armed groups, they are frequently forced to transport drugs and weapons, taking advantage of the machista and militarized culture that rarely requires women to be searched.

“The degree of militarization is not only made visible by the presence of the Army, but also of criminal gangs and paramilitaries permanently occupying public spaces, extorting money, and setting tariffs for local businesses and residents in exchange for ‘security,’” Red Juvenil says. “In Medellin alone, a city with approximately three million inhabitants, there are 7,500 members of the police and army, some 15 community informant networks, more than 170 gangs compromising at least 7,500 armed youth.”

Furthermore, the paramilitaries collaborate with the armed forces in many neighborhoods, according to a Red Juvenil letter.  Illegal social control is rampant, and in many cases new families can’t enter certain neighborhoods, forum presenters said.  It is common knowledge that in Medellín there are invisible boundaries, and if an unknown person steps across the boundary without being accompanied by a known neighbor, he frequently is murdered. Young kids get caught up with the “duros” or tough guys of the barrio, and their already impoverished families are extorted. There remain almost no possibilities for popular participation in the neighborhoods. There is no space for dialogue, Red Juvenil says. At the Red’s forum, Jorge Ceballos, the human rights municipal attorney for the Personería (local ombudsman?) of Medellín, said the mafias have been strengthening in the last three decades, as opposed to disappearing as the state claims.

And militarism only serves to put in place structures without dismantling the historical structures that feed the conflict, says Jhony. According to the Red:

Militarism is not an ideology; it is an instrument of ideologies. Apparently, the U.S. and other empires have made it appear a strategy or ideology of defense, but it is an exercise of domination, expressed through armies or automatous collectives; it’s a method utilized so that the ideology prevails, dominates, and subdues through brute force and elimination. In the history of humanity it has been utilized for different ideological proposals of political, religious, and economic character.

The Red Juvenil of Medellín does not just seek to articulate the problem, but to offer proposals and alternatives, to create a different world. They suggest participating, marching, communicating, recovering space, protesting, thinking collectively, planning actions, and creating art such as murals and theater. They encourage disobedience of traditionally-imposed practices. They keep dreaming and acting in the present. They believe in being at the forefront of social change, and in fact they see that youth have played a decisive role in political transformations.

For instance, the Red Juvenil played a role in the October 2009 ruling of the Colombian Constitutional Court wherein it judged that the right of conscience objection to military service is protected by the Colombian Constitution, annulling a previous ruling from the 90s. The Court has now entrusted the Colombian Congress with the task of passing a law on the subject, but due to a conservative government, the fear remains of restrictive legislation that doesn’t meet the international standards. “As long as the indiscriminate batidas remain a common practice, it will remain extremely difficult for conscientious objectors to exercise their right to object to military service,” according a War Resisters International analysis.

The legality of conscientious objection in Colombia

The Colombian Constitution’s Article 18 allows for the fundamental right of freedom of conscience, and specifically within this right is the possibility of every person to not do something that goes against his or her convictions, calling this act of resistance objection of conscience. Colombia has also signed various pacts and treaties that protect and support the right to conscientious objection, such as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and a resolution by the United Nations Commission on Human Rights.

Yet according to the Red, “we must remember that rights are not won in the courts, although in these spaces they do end up being guaranteed and recognized; rights are won in the fights of people for their own recognition, and these fights are not only judicial; for this reason, while the Court rules, the objectors should keep on organizing, mobilizing, demanding, and showing that we are here; that the objectors with or without recognition of the law and the constitution will continue in the streets, in the murals, in the communiqués, in the denouncements, and in the direct actions.”

Outside of the legal framework, the Red Juvenil promotes art as a space to escape, and alternative to the war. They also help promote the strengthening of other organizations of youth that are outside of the dynamics of war. The group of conscientious objectors of the Red Juvenil, called A.R.T. (acting, resisting, and transforming), founded in 2002 as a proposal of youth interested in not loaning obligatory military service, not supporting the war, and rejecting and denouncing its causes. For 7 years they have constructed through direct nonviolence a form of protest, through concrete actions that leave messages, that communicate their ideas and arrive to people as an alternative in the face of the generalized panorama of militarization and mercantilism of life, forced recruitment, and the disrespect of the rights of the people; this is not a recipe to save the world, but a collective construction and form taking on vision of a world without wars, a society that resolves its conflicts without the use of violence, and a society that acts in solidarity and fraternity. (“Alternativas, Organización y Resistencias en una socieda militarizada” -Red Juvenil).

An example is the collective action exercised the Wednesday before Conscientious Objection Day. Around 40 members of the Red Juvenil dressed as clowns, made posters condemning the war and militarization of society, demanding that youth not become clowns of the war. They walked the streets of central Medellin for a few hours, entering commercial centers and shopping malls, passing out flyers and directly engaging with men, women, and children of all shapes and sizes. They banged drums and chanted, “The Youth will not go to War.” For more on the Red Juvenil’s clown ideology, read here.

Recently, the Chilean publication American Economy named Medellín as the 15th most favorable city for investment in Latin America. Unfortunately, there has not been much investment in the youth, in a city where it is a risk just to be young. A city where most youth do not feel safe walking the streets, day or night according to an informal poll conducted at the forum. The Red Juvenil is just one group looking for justice, and they want your help too.

CALL TO ACTION

In the context of the Red Juvenil’s campaign, “For a Dignified Life and the Demilitarization of our Bodies and Lands,” they are inviting internationals from all over the world (in particular U.S. residents, since U.S. foreign policy has a direct and distinct impact on Colombia) to organize direct actions at Colombian Embassies and Consulates, to draw attention to the problem of forced recruitment of youth.

The idea is that individuals and collectives come up with an action proposal and contact the Red Juvenil to get support and relevant information and texts to help plan the action. Specifically, they want to encourage direct action in the month of July (the month of Colombian independence), and the month of October (the month of Race Day in Colombia, or Columbus Day in the U.S. Actions can be big or small: staging a clown protest of 3 people or 300, writing a letter, calling the Embassy, calling your representatives, performing a play, making a mural. Contact the Red Juvenil using this page. Or contact the FOR team in Bogotá for support: bogota@forcolombia.org.

The SJA team has been quite busy since the beginning of November, accomplishing various tasks. We have responded effectively in seven emergency situations, including one in which we did an emergency accompaniment. In addition to the emergency accompaniment, we have accompanied community members on seven other occasions. We have had four formal meetings with officials, attended three humanitarian roundtable discussions with various other NGOs that work in the zone, and also held various informal meetings with partner organizations in the zone.

In November we performed an emergency petition to help bring a community member that had stepped on a mine in Mulatos to safety in town. We responded to an explosion in a hill near La Union; two combats in the zone; two entrances of soldiers in community territory; and provided support and advice to a fellow accompaniment organization that accompanied a sick woman being carried from Mulatos to town.

We have accompanied internal council members to town to run errands on two occasions; accompanied a previous council member to town to sign official community paperwork; accompanied a council member to a family member’s house in the area to cure a sick cow; accompanied schoolchildren carrying chairs from town to the school in La Union to begin the new school year; accompanied two community members to renew their ID cards in town; and accompanied the entire community to a work project, meeting, and celebration in Mulatos for Christmas.

We have met with the mayor of Apartadó; the General of the 17th Brigade; the second in command of the police of Urabá; and the community defensor of SJA to voice concerns and get information. We have also met with Padre Javier Giraldo, one of the community’s most trusted advisors, and have had many informal meetings with Peace Brigades International, who accompany the peace community as well. We have attended three roundtable meetings to analyze the context in the zone with partner organizations such as CINEP, ACNUR, OCHA, SAT, and PBI, among others.

We have also accomplished a lot in the house, making major repairs to rooms and bathrooms, painting it, and deep-cleaning. We also finalized an updated version of the training manual for new volunteers in December.

This past weekend, my teammate and I accompanied a large, community-wide asamblea in the vereda of La Resbaloza, an eight-hour walk from our home in La Unión. The meeting was filled with energetic representatives from all of the veredas that have peace community members: San Josecito, La Unión, La Esperanza, La Cristalina, Guineo, Mulatos, La Resbaloza, Arenas, as well as the newer additions to the peace community that are part of the adjacent department Córdoba – Naín, Alto Joaquín, and Las Claras.

The message of the meeting was simple, although various topics were discussed: the peace community members must continue their fight as campesinos to live on their land and resist the war that surrounds them, primarily through becoming as self-sustainable as possible. Although the young as well as the old worked hard throughout the day, meeting and discussing their present situation and plans for the future, it also was a celebration of their lives, complete with a soccer tournament, two dances, and delicious food – four pigs and a cow were consumed.

Community leaders and advisors led most of the discussions, reminding community members of the struggle at hand, to resist through education and organization. While the future was a primary focus, the past was not forgotten, and more than once those present were called upon to remember those who had lost their lives fighting for the peace community, especially two of their most prominent leaders – Luís Eduardo Guerra and Aníbal Jiménez. The latter was the composer of the community hymn, which was sang in unison accompanied by three guitars at both the beginning and end of the event. The lyrics are:

Glory on the path to peace that opened the brilliant light of neutrality. We all support one another rescuing the values of civility. We all go forward with care and much love, with yours and ours and all of humanity. It´s the brilliant teaching of the prophet, our God, who illuminates the minds of those that want peace. Let´s go campesinos, to strengthen the peace community, it’s the only way to reconciliation. Let´s go campesinos, to strengthen the peace community, of the rights of people and the freedom. We all go forward with care and much love with yours and ours and all of humanity. We remember brothers of the deaths that we have had and we offer homage with care and much love; let´s go campesinos to strengthen the peace community. We all go forward with care and much love with yours and ours and all of humanity.

A major topic, which was discussed in small collectives of individual veredas as well as together as a whole community, was the economic development of the community through agricultural projects. The baby banana project was evaluated extensively – they determined that they were in extreme underproduction due to a lack of organization on their part. Previously, the community had been selling many of their bananas to the Colombian company Uniban. After facing the hard evidence that Uniban, like other multinational banana companies such as Chiquita and Dole, was supporting paramilitaries that were charging a vacuna, a large fee in return for protection, the community cut off relations with the company. Currently, the community’s major banana project is with the German fair trade exporter BanaFair, which has stipulated that they would like to receive 400 boxes of baby bananas every week, or 4,800 kilos of bananas. Instead the community is able to produce about half of that, shipping the 400 boxes every two weeks instead of every week. The community earns $12 USD for every box, or 12 kilos, of bananas, as well as an extra dollar designated as a ¨fair trade¨ expense, which the community puts directly into education. Although BanaFair pays for the boxes and overseas shipping costs, the community is expected to pay overland transit expenses in Colombia. These costs, as well as the costs of organic supplies, such as natural fertilizers, dip significantly into the earnings of the community.

The other major community crop is organic cocoa. Cocoa is also under produced, although more due the fact that the weather isn’t ideal – the crop could use more sun and less rain – and that a lot of the community’s cocoa trees are older, some thirty years old, and ridden with different types of pests. They have had organic analysts come and make many suggestions, among them calling for newer, healthier trees to be planted to replace the older ones. The community has a set of new, expensive, processing machines, donated by a European organization, to turn the dried and fermented cocoa beans into processed bars of unsweetened chocolate, free of preservatives and chemicals. Currently, the German fair trade company Gepa is buying peace community cocoa for export, as well as Luker, a Colombian company based in Medellín. The community hopes to invest in newer cocoa plants in order to improve production.

In the veredas at a higher elevation, the emphasis has been more on growing beans, rice, yuca, and corn, crops which give a higher yield at higher elevations. Although they sell these products on a small scale, they do not have large, commercialized projects such as they do with cocoa and bananas.

A newer agricultural project is cultivating sugar cane. Although in the past sugar cane has been planted and harvested in the region, in recent times it has not, and several veredas will now be renewing efforts to grow it. There was also talk of harvesting other fruits besides bananas. Las Claras is starting a project growing pineapple and Alto Joaquín will be growing passion fruit, two products new to the area. Currently, on a very small scale, certain individuals harvest avocadoes or zapote or star fruit for sale in town, but there is not an organized, communal effort to expand these projects.

These community agricultural projects are part of a larger effort for the economic diversity and self-sustainability of the community. The projects are by and large going well, although the community hopes to improve upon them. Many non-community members in the region rely on state welfare, generally from the state-sponsored agency Acción Social, which receives some funds in humanitarian aid from the U.S. Yet this is another form of economic and political control over the people by the state, since many recipients of the aid are coerced into being state informants, and the community wants autonomy.

Another focus of discussion was community education. The stated goal of educating their children is to create youth that have consciousness and love their rural land. One educator mused that many rural youth are taught to move to big cities, where they will maybe get a job selling newspapers if they are lucky. But being born in rural lands and not in cities, they must use the resources they are given. In other rural communities across the world, the young and bright are encouraged to migrate to cities, sometimes even other countries, to find better work to send money back to their impoverished rural homes, but in this peace community the aims are quite different. The most intelligent are especially encouraged to stay, to be educated in their own community, and to become community leaders and educators themselves. Many of the leaders in the community are in fact young.

Currently, the veredas of San Josecito, La Esperanza, Mulatos, La Resbaloza, Alto Joaquín, Naín, and Las Claras have community-sponsored alternative schools for children, while La Unión still has a state-sponsored school, led by teachers from the town of Apartadó who come up to the village every week to give classes. While the state-sanctioned teachers are successful with the children in La Unión, due to legal requirements they must stick to a strict curriculum and do not teach peace community values, principles, or history, something seen as a serious fault in the program. Although some parents wish to keep the state teachers in La Unión, since this allows their children to receive primary education that is recognized by the state as opposed to the alternative education of the community that has no legal merit, there is a strong movement to change the schooling in La Unión. As it is, the youth in La Unión lack the awareness and consciousness that is taught in the other schools, through extensive lessons about their history, the community process, and the tools disposable for resistance. Most likely within a year, a community-run school with replace the state-run school in La Unión.

In past years, the community has hosted a Universidad Campesina, a conference for farmers and youth in the area to come and consolidate knowledge, sharing skills and techniques. There are workshops in alternative education, food, with a focus on organic agriculture and growing new crops in the region, alternative healthcare, and legal matters, specifically pertaining to the constitutional court sentences that provide special measures of protection for community members. The next Universidad Campesina will be held in October of this year.

Although they ran out of time to discuss as extensively as they would have liked, alternative healthcare in the community was also mentioned as an important component of self-sustainability. The community is expecting the extended visit of a Colombian doctor who studied in Cuba. She has extensive knowledge of the properties of medicinal plants and their uses, and the hope is that she can impart this information onto the community, so they might rely less on costly treatments that must be bought in town. This is yet another example of their quest to depend on their fertile lands as much as possible.

Currently, an agricultural center is being constructed in San Josecito. The site will be a center for investigation, research, workshops, and a library, with a curriculum focused on growing techniques, organic methods, and the study of new crops for the region. They also intend to investigate methods of solar energy production, in hopes to implement a system within the community to harvest their own energy. Like any thoughtful, separatist, revolutionary leadership, the community council has deemed it in their best interest to do their own research on site. Considering the community is in ruptura with the state, that they refuse to communicate and negotiate with the government, and that most multinational corporations that fund research in the country are closely allied with the state, conducting their own studies seems to be their best option.

Another up and coming community project is the establishment of an aldea de paz in Mulatos. The aldea will be a small village of five families at one of the sites of the 2005 massacre, in which 8 community members, including Luís Eduardo Guerra, one of the community’s most influential leaders, and three children, were assassinated, their bodies chopped into pieces, in a joint operation between the 17th Brigade of the Colombian Armed Forces and paramilitaries. The village will serve as a spiritual center and home for the community. Centrally-located in the peace community, currently only one family lives at the proposed site of the aldea. They moved there in February of 2008, as part of a community-sponsored return to their lands in both Mulatos and La Resbaloza, veredas they had displaced from following the 2005 massacre. They plan to build houses, a soccer field, and a library for archives of the community. They hope to use the place as a center for debate and community-consciousness building, being both a geographical center for the community, and a significant place in the historical memory of the community.

Amidst all the exciting plans for the future of the community, above all the Celebration of Life showed me that this community process is not about passive resistance, not about civil disobedience, but about conscious action, defiance and the never-ending search for alternatives. Being quiet and subdued will not bring the community peace, but instead they must be vocal, bold, and courageous.

The day before the event started, a troop of soldiers passed through the village of La Resbaloza and camped out in the hills above the houses. Surely they heard the lively celebrations below, the noise of the generator, the announcements over the loudspeaker. They must have seen the single light bulb that was moved from house to house, and listened to the children running, the soccer fans screaming, the loud music and nightly dancing, the pigs cry and the children squeal as feasts were prepared, the smells of which made their mouths water after eating their bland, rationed envelope dinners. They must have felt the energy. But they didn’t bother us.

Back in April, I accompanied a community member on a trip to La Resbaloza, bringing the large, metal signs that are hung at every entrance to a peace community village, announcing the community mandate. They say:

The community freely participates in community work, says no to injustice and the impunity of crimes, does not participate directly or indirectly in the war nor carries arms, and does not share nor manipulate information with any of the armed actors.

It was reported that since the hanging of those signs in April, the military presence in the village has been markedly less. They have ceased bothering the residents as much as before, showing the sheer strength of the message of the community, that their signs alone have an impact.

Soldiers from the 17th Brigade of the military, which operates in the region, are instructed to carry a pocket-sized brochure with them at all times entitled Legal instructions to guide the behavior of troops toward the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. The brochure cites the sentence of the Colombian Constitutional Court, No. T-327 declared in April 14, 2004, which is based on International Humanitarian Law. In the brochure, the peace community is defined as “a group of people that, victims of violence perpetuated by the FARC and the AUC in the ´90s, were obligated to displace from the rural zone of San José de Apartadó to the town center of Apartadó, returning only after declaring themselves a peace community, neutral to the armed actors and naming their territory a neutral zone. They possess their own internal laws and occupy a defined territory in which armed actors are not permitted to enter.” The brochure directs soldiers, upon coming into contact with a peace community member, to immediately advise their commander so that special treatment and care can be offered to the individual. Their identifying documents cannot be held onto and under no circumstances can they be taken to the brigade headquarters. It is explicitly stated that members of the peace community shall not be made victims to stigmatization or false accusations. Although not always obeyed, the existence of this brochure should not be taken lightly, but instead as a signal of the weight of the peace community and its success in gaining notoriety.

On the last day of the assembly, the community work coordinator of La Resbaloza told us, with emotion brimming in his voice, that years ago, when they had been forced to move off their land by paramilitaries, he had never imagined they would be able to live on their land again, using it to its fullest, like they had that weekend. He had looked at their soccer field, and never thought it would be played on again. It brought him tremendous joy to be proven wrong.

I walked away from La Resbaloza after winning a new pair of rubber boots – the prize given to the players on my soccer team for winning the tournament, after dancing the infamous hour-long traditional panadera song that people either love or dread, and after gaining a strengthened appreciation of the efforts of the community. Unfortunately, the morning we left, someone had left the pasture gate open and our horse, along with many others, had run off, so it was a long walk home with a heavy pack.

Having been away from the peace community of San Jose de Apartadó for a few months, I´ve come back to find many things have stayed the same, while new threats are also on the horizon. 

Most notably, a demobilized guerilla who goes by the alias Samir has done a series of interviews on national radio denouncing the peace community as members of the FARC. Samir was the commander of the 5th Front of the FARC which operates in the region of San Jose de Apartadó, and for a long time has been said to hold a grudge against the peace community because of their policy of expelling guerilla supporters. Samir claimed that community leaders have inappropriately kept foreign donations for themselves, while forcing community members to live in abject poverty and misery. The community has responded with the assertion that their goal has never been to develop the region, but simply to subsist and resist the violence.

In a recent internet-published communiqué, the community asserts, “We have never tried to offer to the region development alternatives based on outside financing. Rather we have proposed to the people entering our Community voluntarily, a plan of survival based on their own efforts. That has helped us build a unified economy, without incentives for the acquisition of wealth, but always with the perspective of dignified and unified poverty.” The community model is unique, relying on work groups of two to seven people within the community that share their profits equally amongst themselves.

They continue: “Those who enter our Peace Community voluntarily never come seeking riches nor forms of business development that are lucrative and competitive. One of our basic principles has always been the refusal of power that is built on weapons or on force. Alias “SAMIR” demonstrates a deep-rooted misunderstanding of our Community when he says that we keep farmers oppressed with exhausting labor because he is unaware that participation in our Community is voluntary. The work just demonstrates that the people are keeping to principles of human dignity shared by everyone.” The community believes that the Colombian government has generally sought to make everyone who seeks legitimate alternatives of justice and equity into an “insurgent.” Using the false testimony of Samir to further these claims has served to scare the community a lot in these last few months.

In other news, in April of this year, a document compiled by the Cuerpo Técnico de Investigación, a branch of the Colombian Attorney General’s office, was released stating that a secret group with the Colombian DAS (the domestic intelligence agency) called the G3 was launched to “restrict and neutralize” political opponents of the government through illegal surveillance. It was revealed that ten community leaders have been on constant surveillance by the government since at least 2004. The community’s email account has been intercepted since at least July of 2005, and cell phones of community members and key supporters have been tapped. Their economic activities, family relations, and daily routines have been recorded as well. The term “offensive intelligence” was used repeatedly in G3 documents, meaning they collected and manipulated information intended to sabotage and criminalize legitimate activities. Other than the peace community, two of the country´s most prestigious lawyer´s collectives, as well as many religious groups and Colombian NGOs were targeted as well. Although the president denies involvement, three of his aides have been linked to the scandal.

A few incidents of concern have also taken place in the community itself recently. In July, members of the Colombian army robbed community members of food they had grown, such as beans and corn. The next day, the army detained a community coordinator while walking home. They submitted him to torture, beating him, while threatening to kill him if he didn´t leave or demobilize, as though he were a collaborator with an illegal armed group. The held him and beat him for over two hours.

There have also been a few mysterious deaths recently. In the first week of August, a man was taken from his house and brutally murdered in a neighboring village. Currently, it is not considered a political murder, although people close to him have disclosed that he was the victim of previous threats from both the state and the guerrilla.

Within a week, a body was found in La Unión, within minutes of the village where I live. Little is known currently about the circumstances of the death or the identity of the person, but incidents so close to home strike a chord and worry people here.

Many community members have also mentioned in passing an issue that although does not directly affect the peace community, is still of great concern. The U.S. has proposed contracting seven Colombian military bases as a means to replace the current U.S. base in Manta, Ecuador. This agreement contradicts Obama’s promises of non-intervention and demilitarization of U.S.-Latin American relations made during his campaign. For more information on the bases agreement, read my teammate’s article. The bases will not necessarily be accountable to either U.S. or Colombian law, and the potential for further human rights abuses is great. To express your concern to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton about the bases contract, please visit this site.  You can also call the White House Comment Line at (202)-456-1111.