Colombia Project

This piece is from delegate Reggie Hansen, which he was inspired to write and then read aloud to the rural community of La Esperanza, where we heard testimonies of forced displacement, fumigations of farmer's crops as part of Plan Colombia, and forms of community solidarity and resistance.

Impunity is the theme of this 2008 delegation. For me, it's turned into a quest for a proper democracy for Colombia. There is no regard or care for the people of the land. The roads are bad and the way to them are only traversed by mule or foot. Thus, one can only take small loads to the market. Then everyone else takes a piece of the share. From police to buyer. Impunity you say!

Update on our delegations: The Iran trip scheduled to leave August 5th, and then delayed to August 12th, has been denied travel visas.  We are still in negotiations and hope the delegation will be able to leave in the next few weeks.

Meanwhile our delegation to Colombia is well underway and we recently received this blog entry from a delegate:

After many years of not visiting my birth place, I am falling in love with it again.  Being around my family and recognizing glimpses of my childhood within the streets of Cali, I finally got a sense of belongingness.  But having grown up outside of Colombia, I am discovering the essence of the strength and determination of a people living in midst of a prolonged and silenced armed conflict.  

For the last four days, as delegates of FOR, we have heard testimonios of human rights defenders in their struggle against impunity.  Many of them have described the different types of impunity that ensures the continuation of both direct forms of human rights violations as well as structural forms of violations.

It was like a Hollywood picture. Intelligence agents infiltrated the Colombian FARC guerrillas and led them to believe that their commander wanted to move 15 high-profile hostages held by the group, including former presidential candidate Ingrid Betancourt and three U.S. military contractors. Army commandos posing as representatives of an international nongovernmental group then landed a Russian-made helicopter and picked up the hostages. Then they were free, without a shot being fired.

We celebrate the freedom of these 15 people. They suffered greatly during up to 10 years in captivity, bound in chains in the jungle. The world could identify with their suffering, which was extensively reported.

But absent from the rescue story are many communities threatened by violence from growing right-wing paramilitaries, army killings and guerrillas, and the nearly 4 million others who are internal refugees from the war. Will the international community show interest in their suffering, and in resolving the conflict, now that Betancourt is free?

Tomorrow morning (Friday, July 11, 2008) John Lindsay-Poland of the Fellowship of Reconciliation will appear on the  Pacifica Radio program "Wake Up Call." Lindsay-Poland is co-director of FOR's national Task Force on Latin America and the Caribbean, which has been engaged in human rights accompaniment work in Colombia for the past six years. In conversation with the program's Friday morning host, Mario Murillo, Lindsay-Poland will discuss this past week's dramatic release of several high-profile hostages from the FARC guerillas, and what it might mean for those who to build a lasting and just peace in the country.

This column I wrote was published in the East Bay Express on July 9, 2008.

Hurricane Katrina did it for Escenthio. At his high school in Oakland, he was enrolled in a JROTC program and was on his way to joining the military. But one of his teachers invited him to a benefit for the victims of the hurricane. It made Escenthio question his involvement in the class and our country's priorities in general. "Why are we over there killing people in Iraq when there are people in need right here?" he asked.

Soon afterward, he decided to organize a debate at his school around these issues, and invited the JROTC army officers to the table alongside Pablo Paredes, a well-known conscientious objector. The debates created quite a stir — and Escenthio became one of the central youth activists of BayPeace, an Oakland organization doing counter-recruitment work in high schools.

"He's one of the most amazing young activists I've met," said Susan from BayPeace, who recommended that Escenthio join our Youth Arts and Action delegation traveling to Colombia at the end of March. At eighteen, Escenthio had an important voice to bring: a young, African-American man finishing his last year of high school, a spoken-word artist, and counter-recruitment activist. I was quite excited about him joining us: a group of organizers, activists, artists, and young leaders who would travel to Colombia to meet up with two youth-based organizations working on the issues of conscientious objection and how militarism affects young people's lives.

FOR has worked with and accompanied the courageous anti-militarism youth group, Red Juvenil de Medellín (Medellin Youth Network) since 2003. Red leaders and supporters were recently subject to a death threat from the newly emerged "Black Eagles" paramilitary group. We urge readers to respond to the Red’s appeal in the face of this threat.

Click here learn more and sign our petition.

Below is a letter from our friends at Red Juvenil:

We wish to inform human rights organizations and other official entities that our organization has been the subject of a death threat from the paramilitaries known as the Black Eagles.

Facts:

1. Thursday and Friday May 29 and 30, the Red Juvenil (Youth Network) received an email from the address redesnegras@hotmail.com with the following message:

"Death to anarchists disguised as pacifists, no more drug concerts or communists, this is the last warning." Those threatened were eight people: members and close friends of the Red Juvenil. It was signed by the group Black Eagles.

After hours of waiting in the hot Santa Cruz, California city council room, listening to the impassioned arguments in favor and against off leash dog use at a nearby beach; and seeing a lengthy power point presentation on the plans for a new building in downtown Santa Cruz, we were losing our steam.

It seemed likely that our resolution, requesting that all US military aid to Colombia be re-directed to domestic drug prevention and rehabilitation programs, wouldn’t be considered until after 7pm when the council members returned from their evening recess.Fortunately Santa Cruz Mayor Ryan Coonerty noticed that we had been patiently waiting all afternoon (thankfully we had all brought work with us: the UCSC Colombia research cluster grad students were grading papers and others worked on their laptops) and pushed our agenda item to the top of the list before the break. At 6pm, life-long activist Bert Muhly from 3 Americas took the floor.