the hike that kills...

I posted this originally a couple of weeks back. I had to make some changes and, I guess, didnt repost it until now.

So I recently came back from a 6 day accompaniment journey to a remote village called Mulatos about 16 miles to the north east of La Union. Mulatos is the site of the 2005 massacre in which community leader and ideologue, Luis Eduardo Guerra, his wife, his son an two other community members were murdered, dismembered and buried alongside the river by paramilitary groups. Since then, the village was vacated and has slowly re populated as people come back from displacement. In addition, the peace community has made Mulatos its future center of operations, both because of its memorial importance and because of its geographic centrality amongst the villages of the peace community.

Me and my teammate, Isaac, were to accompany the president of the peace community´s council first to the community villages in the department of Cordoba, where we were to meet up with other members, and then to Mulatos where we would join delegations from all of the villages that make up the peace community. In total, about 200 community members (along with about 30 people from a peace community in Portugal called Tamera, and several others from Israel, Palestine, Holland and Germany) gathered for the regular Assembly, during which, community leaders from the various regions would bring up problems in their regions and here about potential solutions. In addition, the community´s leaders, including those providing ideological and political direction from the cities, held workshops and lectures on topics ranging from community ideals, to sustainable agriculture and political aims. During these two days, the community ate together, (they slaughtered and butchered an entire cow…see the picture of the cow´s feet on the roof) sleeps together (in very tight arrangements) and plays together (mostly consisting of the swimming hole in the nearby river, joke sessions in the kitchen and campfires with music at night) In all, it was reminiscent of church summer camp, but for a bunch of largely non-religious peace activists.

As accompaniers and in accordance with the agreement FOR has with the community, Isaac and I are prohibited from directly participating in their internal meetings unless we are specifically invited. This means that during the day while the community members are meeting from 6am-6pm, Isaac and I had very little to do. We would meet with people during meals to get our own information about the status if the villages that are usually difficult to get a hold of, but largely, we sat around, read and watched the community interact. While at first the whole event did feel like summer camp that, from my point of view, promised to be pretty boring, I ended up appreciating being there more than I could have thought.

I started this job with, what I liked to think of as, a healthy dose of skepticism. Not only about the Colombian Conflict and the press surrounding it, but about everything...even the complete veracity of the peoples’ stories. It wasn’t that I didn’t think the stories occurred, or that I doubted the armed actors have committed several atrocities, or even that the government has done many things to completely destroy trust with the country´s rural population. Rather it was that I never really let the true gravity of such things, like witnessing a massacre that was orchestrated by the military you thought was protecting you, really sink in. As a result, I found myself focusing on things like the use of the word ´massacre´ and debating whether or not that was really appropriate...(really? was it a massacre or just a murder?) Or, I cynically focused on the feeling, which everyone was quietly talking about, that the members´ devotion to the founding ideals of the peace community were starting to falter as things in Colombia have been improving, albeit slowly. This always raised the question of what happens to the peace community when there is no longer the threat of violence to bind the people together? How can the community continue? In my mind, this painted a picture of a dying community with not much chance of lasting past this current generation.

My view of the community changed these past few days because I got to witness the community actually wrestling with them. I am not lying when I say that the hike is killer. It is 8-10 hrs of walking strait up and down mountains on trails covered in three feet of mud so sticky it is like cement if you let you foot rest for longer than 15 seconds, but so slippery that if you go too fast you´ll find yourself half-way down the hill you just spent 45 minutes trying to climb. Yet, despite all that, it was important enough to these people to be able to meet with fellow community members, exercise what it means to be a part of this peace community and to remind themselves that they are part of something larger than their fincas or families. There are some serious problems that led to some serious arguments that even resulted in serious departures from the community. While discordance is present in the community, harmony is not what makes this social experiment great...but rather the fact that people make serious sacrifices to work with others to achieve security a better political future.

I was really excited to see this happen and for the first time really felt that I was working alongside something truly exceptional.

To top that off, I was also able to talk to some of the community´s most highly regarded, and thus most highly physicall- threatened, leaders. Late into the night, we sat and listened as these leaders, whom are way too serious to ever exaggerate, told, in vivid detail, about the three massacres that have occurred over the past 15 years. They described paramilitary troops entering their communities, taking everyone from their homes, separating out a few leaders and executing them point blank in front of everyone, even children. Or they waded through the story of trying to resist or hide, but the paramilitaries broke down doors, fired at people as they ran or found people in their hiding spots. I don’t know how to relate the feeling to you, but something clicked that night. I had come to know these people in as community politicians, mothers and fathers like any other, never really thinking how unlike any other mother, father or politician their experiences make them.

It is still impossible for me to truly understand that horror, but what I did begin to understand that night was how horrifying it is to me that my mind, which has been exposed to article after article and movie after movie describing things as violent as the Rwandan Genocide, cannot process their experiences enough to develop the emotions that must have resulted from watching their neighbors get executed. It terrifying to me that the pain they suffered is so deep that I will never understand it. It is out of my league, like the expanse of outer-space or the rationalization of faith.

Now, when I think of the community and the Colombian context in which it exists, I still am skeptical about things like who’s to blame for what, or who is telling the truth or what news source is biased and how, but what I am not skeptical about is the complete and utter veracity of these people´s stories. As a result, I am much more confident that this community has the memory and the momentum to continue to work together to develop tools and activities that will hold the community together long after the violence as subsided.

I guess NOW I have a HEALTHY dose of skepticism.

Vacation

I just got back from my first monthly vacation. I went to Subsurro, a Caribbean Costal town right on the border between Panama and Colombia. It was fantastic. You can only get their through 2 boat rides; the first is two hours in a speed boat and the second s 15 minutes in a canoe. There are, obviously, no cars and very little actually going on. However, there is a beach called La Miel on the Panamanian side of the border that is probably the closest thing to the Corona commercials that I have seen in real life. I didn’t do much read and walk along the coast. The rocks here are covered in these tine pockets that look like the result of critters burrowing themselves a home. Each of these pockets is then lined with ring sharp enough to cut off ones toe. Needless to say, exploring the coast was a bit more difficult than I imagined. But it just made the beer and fried fish in a hammock afterwards all the better.

I stayed in this cabin owned by this Bogota couple who have this house that is incredible. It is practically all screen and almost completely open. The upstairs consists of an I-shaped walkway that is big enough to have an art studio on one end and an office on the other. Their desire was to let nature in without actually letting it in. They surly accomplished this with the three stories of screened in windows and almost no internal walls. It is great.

On the way home, we stopped by this group of Colombians finishing out of a wooden canoe that looked like it was ridden by pochahantsus (sp). They used nothing but fisinhg line...no pole, no stick, nothing, so it looked like they werent pulling anything in until the huge fish at the end came flopping into their boat. The drivier of our boat, just pulled up along side the canoe and everyone in the boat just started buying fish driectly frfom the fishermen. Talk about fresh!

I didn’t take too many pictures because my camera is running out of batteries. Here are a few though

Combat

I have some pictures of my recent vacation to the coastal carribean towns on the colombian panamanian border. But first, a bit of buisness. On October 28th there was an explosion on the other side of a hill close to our community where there is a permanent military instillation. It was then followed by about 2o minutes of gun shots. Here is a video that my co-worker made to describe the incident and the after effects.

http://www.vimeo.com/16777027

All of this talk regarding questionable information and suspicious insinuations might seem a bit paranoid and over-sensitive. I still feel this way sometimes. However, what I am starting to realize is that my tendency to toss these assertions off as mere paranoia is mostly a result of the fact that I have not lived in Colombia the last 35 years and thus have none of the internalized, deep seeded and well earned distrust of the Colombian government, the Colombian military and the guerillas. Unlike me, the community has lived through almost 200 deaths, the majority at the hands of the military or military-paramilitary links, as well as repeated political attacks from the government aimed at discrediting the community´s aims. At times the discussions revolving around governmental responsibility and political/military problems often SEEM so exaggerated that it frustrates me. However, it only seems exaggerated because I don’t know the history.
The below all offer evidence of strong connections between the military and the paramiliatry forces that often carried out group murders.

http://www.pbs.org/wnet/wideangle/blog/new-evidence-reveals-close-ties-between-colombian-military-and-paramilitaries/6249/

A little dated (2000) but still is a good source for historical background:
http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/cahier/ameriquelatine/hrw022000

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/04/17/AR2007041702378.html

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=51006

In addition, while it is hard to come by in main stream media, the military commanders involved in the community´s 2005 group murder have admitted to their involvment.


For those who don’t watch the movie, no one was injured or hurt from the community. In fact, very few people seemed worried. Whether a coping mechanism or not, the community members continued their day as if nothing had happened.

The real problems arose the days after the combat when news stories of the event started to be released. There are some serious discrepancies between what the military tells us, what the radio tells us and what we heard ourselves. According to the military, it was a minor incident that occurred in response to a threat from terrorists. The military was protecting the community, nothing serious happened and there were no injuries or deaths. From the radio we heard that a soldier, when doing regular rounds, had stepped on a mine that was place close to, or inside of, community boundaries and there was one death. According to our observations, there was one large explosion and 20 minutes of machine gun fire. Our partner NGO´s reported an unconfirmed death, a possibility that is supported by the movement of helicopters to and from the base, something that doesn’t happen unless they need to move bodies.

The fact is that there is no way to know exactly what went on, who attacked who, and how many died. However, we do know a few things.

First, the military told us one story and the radio another, and neither story represented what we observed; there was definitely more to this incident that one explosion and there was definitely a grenade that landed 5 meters from a civilian house.

Second, while the military is there to protect the community, what is not mentioned is that the government place the military there despite the fact that the Constitutional Court has ruled that they could only do so with the permission of the community. That permission has never been granted. In fact, as a result of the many murders the community has suffered in the last 10 years, the community has official severed ties with the government. However, it has always stated that it is ready to resume communications as soon as the government works to re-establish credibility within the community; that includes apologizing for recently stating that the community is little more than terrorist allies as well as making more of a serious effort toward punishing those responsible for the 2000 and 2005 massacres. The constitutional court has recognized that the responsibility lies with the state to reconcile.

Third, while it may seem a bit conspiratorial, the fact that the military unnecessarily mentions that the land mine was in or around the community reinforces the government´s groundless assertions that there is a relationship between the guerillas and the community and works to worsen the community´s un-earned reputation as harboring terrorists.

La Union

hey all

Currently, I am in Apartado after a long weekend of about 30 hrs of almost constant bus rides. I was accompanying a group of about 40 campesinos (rural folk) from the peace community (La Union and Cordoba) to Bogota. They are making this pilgramage to draw attention to their community with the hopes that that national attention will force the government to repspect the community´s borders and it´s desire to remain neutral in the conflict. (That means no police, army, paramilitary etc in or near their boarders.) As my first accompanyment experience, it was a good one. It reimforced that I am not a participant in anything the community organizes, but rather just a neutral observer. It was interesting to be able to drop generals´and colonols´names and thus treated with the respect at all of the military check points. Thuis respect, in turn, gives the poeple I am with the sense of security they need to feel like they can carry out the actions they have to carry out. In a nutshell, that is my role. Be with the communiyt members in anything that they do so that theyfeel like they have the freedom to act in the way they see fit.

Now I am sitting in Apartado watching the town burst with little kids in costume as they go from buisness to buisness trick or treating. I missed out on the adult haloween celebrations last night because I got to Medellin too late. Now Im hoping to be able to just grab a beer around the square and people watch before I head back to La Union (aka one of the towns in the peace community)

La Union is wonderful...no streets, no sidealks, about 20 housholds, as many chickens as kids and a sun that blisters. We are on the top of a small fountain in the the foothills of the Andes, so while it is hot and muggy, there is usually a nice breeze and a bit of cloud cover to shield from the sun. The people are timid and always behave as if I am fliritng with them, or they talk to me
as if spanish is my first language. Luckily, their version of bullshitting consists of lots of laughter, random noises and punches on the shoulder. While Im still not as comfortable as I need to be to be confident enough to make friendships, I am encouraged by the fact that my mere awkeardness is hilarous to everyone...needless to say, making them laughter leads to coffee which leads to food which , eventually, leads to god-parenting.

The houses FOR workers live in are actually much better than I imagined. There are no holes
in the walls, there are wooden floors, and indoor shower and toilet and we each get our own room. I have two windows, one that faces west and the other that faces the ´´street,´so I plan to spend a lot of my days like the old women in town...sitting with my head poking out the window, waiting for someone to acknolwedge my presence.

The guys I am working with are serious about the work, but balanced in their thinking and careful about what they say. They are eager to share their accumulated knowledge and, i think, see me a bit like a little kid in that I cutely find everything sooooooo cool.

The hike up here was brutal in that we have to clime a bunch of hills in 90 degree heat with 100 percent humidity. We had a donkey to carry our bags, but, while her name means Dove, the subborn ass was anything but dovely. Plus we couldnt seem to get our bags tied on right and
they kept sliding to one side, threatening to pull the poor donkey over a cliff and into the river on a couple occasions. In the end, I have never been so happy to be greeted by ten chickens , 6 dogs, 5 cats two horses, a pig and a cow, all grouped at the entrace of an assembalge of randomly organized, clapboard buildings.

I am anxious to get off the computer.
Here are some more pictures for you.

The office (below)













The family Room

The Shower (below) The back deck (below)

Landed in Bogota

I have made it to Bogota. My flight couldnt be easier and the reception couldnt have gone smoother. I am staying at the FOR apartment in a district of Bogota called "the chapinero." The apartment is nice and I am comfortable. The plan is to stay here a few days while I register with the DAS (similar to a CIA/FBI combo) get my I.D. and get my bank accounts set up. I will start my journey to the community on Saturday morning when I will take a bus to Medellin, stay over night, take another bus to San Jose de Apartado and then meet my horse for the walk up to the community. Finally, I have a horse.

Bogota is definitly a Latin American capital. It is sprawling, always active and saturated with exhaust from the millions of cars that run only on diesel. The streets are narrow and often in a state of serious disrepair, but drivers drive as if they are at the indy 500. Walk signals at cross walks mean nothing, and daring to cross a 4 lane main artery wherever you want is a common practice. The city, like most others Ive been to in South America, have an amazing ability to have a grey, soviet-style concrete skyscraper that looks about ready to fall right next to a house with moldy, spanish-style tile roofing right next to a glass office building that looks like Chicago's Trump tower with the added treat of color changes every 15 seconds. I havent gotten to do much of my own getting-to-know you yet, but from what I hear, Bogota has some beautiful parks, great night life, welcoming people and a public transportation system with a reliability that is among the highest of all Latin American cities.

The fact that I was woken up at 6 am by the garbage man pushing an empty metal dumpster over a street riddled with potholes right under my window means that I will have plenty of time to see the city today.

Anyway, just wanted to let you all know that I have arrived safely and that I am comfortable.

How Do I Donate to the Fellowship of Reconciliation?

I know you are all sitting on the edge of your chair waiting for the answer to this question, or, at least you knew this was coming.

Anyway, hopefully you all think that FOR does some good work that is worthwile to support. Like most non-profit organizations, FOR depends largely on individual donors to continue and expand it's operations.

Here's how it works:

Go to this website:
http://www.forcolombia.org/donate

Follow the instructions.

FOR does like to keep track of who from the organization is bringing in the donations, so if you write a check, put my name in the memo line.

If you want to donate online by credit card, there is a link on the webpage that will take you where you need to be to do so.

Let me know if you have any problems.

Thanks a lot ahead of time!
Jon

Why Am I doing this?

I have narrowed it down to six reasons, in no particular order:

1. I want to get better at speaking Spanish
2. I want to live in a rural area
3. I want to live in Colombia
4. I am motivated by the tenacity San Jose de Apartado has shown by taking ownership of its own future and actually doing what they see as necessary to improve their own situation. On top of the typical hardships of living in a rural area in a developing country, this community has endured general disregard from the Colombian government as well as assassinations that go unpunished all the while upholding their their commitment to non-violence and neutrality for 13 years.
5. FOR is in the community only because it was invited to do a very specific job and will stay only as long as the community members deem that they are necessary.
6. Lastly, but probably most importantly, I am attracted to this job because it is addressing the community's problems on a long-term systemic level. FOR recognizes that the community would be able to build schools, irrigation systems and farms IF their basic need for an adequate sense of security were met. As citizens of the US and other influential countries, FOR Human Rights Accompaniers posses the connections necessary to pressure the Colombian government to respond to, and work to prevent, human rights violations. While human rights law is a long way from being fully enforced and respected globally, the international community, including Colombia and the United States, do see human rights compliance as a source of pride and are humiliated when exposed as human rights violators. Capitalizing on such concern for international reputation, FOR uses political contacts, both in the US and Colombia, that it has built up over the years to effectively push for adequate responses to previous human rights violations, and prevention of future ones.
   

(On specific source of pressure comes from the Leahy Law, which requires the US government to certify that any country receiving US money is in compliance with human rights law. Colombia is currently recipient of the third largest quantity of US aid, so while there are a lot of loop-holes through which the US and Colombia can avoid the onerous vetting process, it is still a source of legal leverage for human rights advocates.)

As a result, as a FOR human rights accompanier, I can be confident that I am doing work that is not only needed and desired by the community, but also utilizes tools that I, as a US citizen, uniquely posses to address the larger issues that are preventing the community from getting past their violent history, getting on with their lives and accomplishing their own set of goals.

Background

I am going to Colombia sometime in October and will be living in La Union for a year. La Union is one town in the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado in the region of Uraba and the department of Antioquia. To the left is a map. Underneath the city Turbo, you'll see "San Jose de Apartado." That is the main city in the Peace Community Region. Outside of San Jose there are many tiny towns such as San Josecito, La Union and others.

Now that we got location down, here are some more in-depth explanations of places, terms and organizations.

San Jose de Apartado- This is a group of small towns in Northwest Colombia that collectively declared themselves a Peace Community in 1997. Farmers settled this region in the 1960's but were forced out by escalating violence through the 80's and 90's. Today, these farmers are attempting to resettle their land, but have been frequent targets of violence from the government police force, the paramilitaries and the FARC. Recognizing that violence comes from all sides, the Peace Community adopted a stance of complete neutrality and pacifism. As a result, they reject any presence of government police or any other group that utilizes weapons.

Fellowship of Reconciliation- FOR is an international organization founded in 1917 in anticipation of WWI. It has chapters all over Europe and the US chapter was founded in 1918. It is a pacifist organization dedicated to peaceful resolutions of all conflicts. Since 1917, FOR has fought for the rights of conscientious objectors, aided Jews during the Holocaust, worked alongside Martin Luther King Jr. and taken an active role in opposing nuclear proliferation. It's members have included academics, politicians and activists including Albert Einstein, Coretta Scott King and Tich Nhat Hanh.
For more info see: www.forusa.org

FOR Colombia Project- This is the specific part of FOR that organizes the project I will be working on. For details see: www.forcolombia.org. FOR was invited by the Peace Community in 2002 to be representatives of the international community and to make a statement that human rights violations will not go unnoticed. Since then, FOR has had a permanent presence in San Jose de Apartado and works to put political pressure on the Colombian and US governments to stop attacks on the community and punish perpetrators of previous human rights violations.

The Colombian Conflict- Starting in the 1940's after the assassination of populist president Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, the conflict has its roots in competition for land and power. It continues today and is centered around the Government and paramilitary troops against the FARC.

FARC/Guerrilla groups- These groups arose in the 1960's in response to the growing centralization of land and power in the hands of the country's elite. While there have been several different groups, both urban and rural, the FARC is the most prominent. In the 1980's the FARC attempted to join mainstream politics through the formation of the national political party, the UP. However, after wining wide-spread support, many, if not all, of the party's leadership was assassinated. As a result, the FARC lost it's moderate/intellectual core and became an underground organization operating through criminal means. The guerillas have historically been responsbile for a considerable part of the violence that Colombia has faced. Today, their ranks and violations have diminished significantly.

Paramilitaries/AUC--these are private militias that were formed by the landed elites to stop the encroachment of the guerrillas. The AUC became the umbrella organization for most of these militias and became increasingly connected and utilized by the Colombian military. After many reports citing egregious human rights violations at the hands of these paramilitary groups, President Uribe, attempting to clean up Colombia's international image, announced in 2006 that these groups were officially disbanding. As they disbanded, many paramilitary fighters said that they had been working closely with the Colombian military, thereby calling into question the President's vocal dedication to protecting human rights. Further, many of these groups did not, in fact disband, but ended up refroming into new paramilitary groups under different names. Today, these new paramilitary groups are funded, in large part, by the drug trade and continue to be responsible for up to 80% of human rights violations in Colombia. Most of the violence against the Peace Community, including a 2005 mass murder, has been attributed to the paramilitaries.

Plan Colombia-An US Aid package to Colombia that started under President Clinton as an effort in the War on Drugs. President Bush expanded the aims of the program to be included as part of the War on Terror by giving additional funding to fight FARC and other guerrilla groups.

Former President Alvaro Uribe-championed the Plan Colombia and made the eradication of the FARC as well as cocain production his central political platform. He is incredibly popular in Colombia, especially with the urban populations, as much of Colombia's drastic increase in safety is attributed to his policies. However, his tenure as president is tainted by several scandals dealing with extrajudicial killings (killings by the military that don't result in any legal action), wiretapping cases and strong links to the paramilitary forces. He has recently been replaced by Mr Santos who has promised to maintain his predecessor's line of politics.