Colombia

Paula Andrea Galeano Bermúdez is a 28 year-old conscientious objector from Colombia. She is an activist with the Red Juvenil (Medellin Youth Network), an organization that was started in 1990 by young people who had lost loved ones to the armed conflict. The heart of the Network's mission is to encourage young people's belief in the value of all human life, to work together to overcome fear, and to become empowered to live and espouse these values. The group trains youth in nonviolence and cooperative play, supports young men who refuse to serve with the police, military or illegal armed groups, and promotes respect for human rights and young people's ideas in Colombian society.

Me (at left) facilitating the transformation of the war machine at Goshen College in Goshen, IN. At Goshen we had over 100 people gathered for both Paula's keynote lecture and Invicible's show, and we facilitated two Not Your Soldier workshops & one Art and Action workshop, all well attended. Go Goshen!

It’s the eleventh day of the tour and we’ve introduced a new word to both the Spanish and English languages – it is a cross between “tranquila” which means “relaxed” and is a pop cultural reference to Transylvania: the place in Romania where vampires originated and the planet where the dancing extra-terrestrial transvestites in Rocky Horror Picture Show come from.  

Paramilitary forces are making increasingly violent threats against members of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó and other peasant families in the area, with no apparent action by the Colombian government. Immediate action is needed by US Ambassador William Brownfield to leverage Washington’s enormous influence and prevent further violence against the community and area’s civilian population.

Colombian Army commander Mario Montoya resigned Tuesday, in the wake of a scandal over army killings of civilians that a United Nations official on Saturday called “widespread and systematic.” A protégé of the United States, Montoya was an architect of the “body count” counterinsurgency strategy that many analysts believe led to the systematic civilian killings. His record is full of reports of collaboration with paramilitary units, from the 1970s into the 2000s. 

The Fellowship of Reconciliation believes General Montoya’s departure because of criticism of his human rights record reflects an important step in the effort to make human rights a central measure for military officers’ performance. We urge Colombian authorities to pursue all relevant investigations of crimes committed under General Montoya’s command.

The front page of the web site of The New York Times this evening (and potentially of Thursday’s print edition) features the following story: “Colombia Killings Cast Doubt on War Against Insurgents.” The article follows up on a lead editorial published two months ago by the Los Angeles Times which also focused on documentation done by FOR’s Colombia program and Amnesty International.

We have 1200 miles to drive and a minivan to get us there: our fall '08 Drop Beats Not Bombs tour includes 15 stops in 6 states, launching in Minneapolis and ending in New York city. But the minivan is only the cover of this book and not to be judged: inside we are hip hop, we are action, art, community across borders, a laboratory of resistance and visions of another world that is possible, a world that is being formed, built and created as we speak.

This essay of mine was recently included in a collection by the magazine Mother Jones called "Mission Creep: US Military Presence Worldwide."

What impresses about the sprawl of US bases and its reconstitution since 2001 is the lack of accountability. The US military presence overseas serves as an implicit threat of intervention to host countries and neighbors, and so enables the United States to defy international law and other obligations to the global community. The bases are also themselves unaccountable, especially as polluters, purveyors of sexual violence, and sites for torture. For most nations, it is an exercise in frustration to use political, diplomatic, or judicial channels to address the United States' abuses or extralegal demands, because Washington's military stands ready for aggression.