Goin back into the mix of things

My coworker, Gina, and I met the audiovisual and communications team from the ACA in their office at 10:30 on August 2^nd. Maricella is a tall, dark-haired teenager with broad features, perfect skin, a perfect smile and eyes that always seemed to be smirking at you with that ‘you don’t know shit’ look. She came from a community outside of Dabeiba with her good friend Dyionsys, a short, stocky 15 yr old who combined her grasp of the seriousness of the situation of violence facing her community with a bubbly, flirtatious personality typical of most 15 yr old girls. The only male student, Oscar hailed from a different community in Antioquia, San Francisco, which, as Oscar is quick to tell me from the get go, is a community that has suffered massive displacement (more than half the population) as a result of several killings, threats and presence of different armed actors in the last year. While all three obviously have a passion in documenting their communities’ experience, Oscar seems to be the most serious about it, jumping at the smallest opportunity to handle the camera or carry the fanny pack with all the supplies, always with laugh much bigger than one thought possible from such a skinny teenager.

These three students are studying documentary-film making under the direction of ACA’s veteran film makers, Gustavo and Carlos. (check out some of their films…though in Spanish, you can still get an good idea of their quality and signifance) Both of these teachers are well read, well travelled activists who are skeptical of any kind of authority and though staunchly anti-US, are able to differentiate between the disastrous Colombia-policies of the US government, and the citizens, like Gina and I, who are trying do our part in promoting change. That does not mean, however, that they let us off the hook; we are the only way the US government will change. It is our responsibility to get things moving. Naturally, I think that their self-righteousness is getting a bit out of control, until I remember all the work and difference they are making through their documentaries and audio-visual school.

The seven of us cram into two of Colombia’s typically tiny taxi cabs and get to the terminal with more than enough time to catch the overnight bus heading from Medellin to Popoyan. After an uneventful 10 hour bus ride, Gustavo wakes Gina and me up telling us, “it’s time to get off.” Thinking we were at some bus terminal in Popoyan, Gina and I were a bit surprised when we stepped on to the side of the Pan American highway amidst North Cauca’s rolling-hill countryside. Noticing our surprise, Gustavo told us to hold tight and not to worry. Sure enough after about 5 minutes, and without any phone calls or other communication, two motorcycles pull up along-side us and introduce themselves as Felipe and Gildardo from the Indigenous radio station Pu’yamat based in nearby Santander de Quilichao. As quickly as they appeared, they took off, assuring us that taxis would be by to pick us up. Within two minutes, two taxis came speeding up the high way in the opposite direction, honked twice,did a fast U-turn and slammed on their breaks right before that ran the curb and into our baggage.

Soon enough we were in the Pu’yamat’s office right of the main plaza of Santander de Quilichao. Judging from the recent news, this city has been anything but a pleasant place to live. Five bombings in one month, one would think, would turn any small town into something of a desolate ghost town. This was not Santander, however. Santander is by far the prettiest small town I have yet to see in Colombia. The plaza is full of people and even fuller of huge trees that must have been protected for decades. The weather is perfect with enough sun to keep things warm, but not too much to make things hot. Walking across the plaza, I couldn’t help but quickly forget that this pleasant town has been some of the worst violence (or at least, the most publicized) the country as seen in this summer.

Unfortunately, we only had time to eat a bit of lunch, where we met up with a Colombian who manages the Red Italiana in Colombia and an Italian traveler looking through Colombia for inspiration for her grad school thesis. Together we caught the next bus to the village of Guavito, our final destination, where the ACA was going to participate in the final ceremonies of the Rodolfo Maya film festival as well as the graduation of 20 or so students from the ACIN’s 1.5 year-long audio-visual school.

The ACIN is the (Association of Indigenous Councils of North Cauca) and is the human rights organization that fights for the recognition, respect and protection of the Nasa peoples of North Cauca. Among other programs, they have a 1.5 year-long ‘university’ where they teach activists, both local and non-local, how to make documentaries about their experiences. The idea is that such education will empower people to tell their own stories rather than wait for wealthier documentarians from the US or Europe to come in and tell the story for them. As we all know from the Michael Moore movies, documentaries are one of the most effective ways of eliciting emotion and motivating people to act around an issue. Furthermore, raising such consciousness is one of the best ways toward non-violent protection since no government likes to be known as a human rights violator. Thus, through making their own documentaries, activists, indigenous people and farmers are participating in their own protection and their own solution to their community’s problems.

Guavito is a village in the Lopez Adentro reserve which is a part of the Nasa Indigen

ous community. The Nasa people are inspiring for many reasons, but one of the most significant for me was their Indigenous Guard. The indigenous guard in North Cauca is a civil-guard that is composed of up to 7,000 men, women and children. They are armed only with canes decor

ated with ribbons represented dead ancestors and mother-nature, this civil guard is charged with being present when combat happens or armed groups encroach on civilian territory. Like International Accompaniers, the hope is that through reminding armed actors of human rights and that they are watching and ready to react in the case of violations, they can dissuade armed actors from endangering civilian populations. Most villages have a contingent and those who don’t are monitored by a neighboring village’s guard. Every guard contingent has a guard leader who is equipped with a walkie talkie used for quick notification of events occurring anywhere in the zone. They maintain open dialogue with all sides of the conflict and thus have personal contacts with higher ups of all the armed groups. As such, they were much better prepared than us to respond in emergencies because we have no contact, and thus no dissuasion, with the guerrilla forces.

The guardia was present every day of the festival, always at the end of the driveway making sure to check everyone who entered and left. Being white foreigners, Gina and I weren’t allowed to leave after 6pm. It felt a little weird to be enclosed somewhere, but hearing every day of another murder happing close by, it turned out being more than a bit comforting.

With this indigenous guard there to do any security accompaniment better than we ever could, we realized that we had been invited along more to see how people in this part of the country are organizing themselves and resisting the violence in their way. While we had missed almost the entire actual festival, we were there for the part in which they discussed how they plan on taking this event back to their communities to continue the fight in their respective regions. There were times when things became uncomfortable as the ACIN started asking for commitments from people on what they were going to do back home. They knew that while all the attendees were serious about the movement, they had lives so complicated and so full of uncertainty that unless they did not come up with concrete ideas and action plans there and then, the actions would be sacrificed to raising a family, getting medical treatment or establishing a new home.

Eliciting these proposals was a bit like pulling teeth and required much prodding and encouragement by the ACIN. However, in the end, they filled several wipe boards with small, accomplishable ideas such as organizing local community musicians into a resistance concert, or interviewing 3 or four community members about their personal struggles with Colombian violence. Individually, none was very grand. But that was the point: small, local actions that are initiated and participated in by local people have a much more long –lasting and personal effect than something that reaches the entire nation or even the world but isn’t connected to any local community.

There are certainly times when I have been starting at my computer for 5 hours in one day where I forget what it is like to feel the energy of people organized in pacific resistance to violence. Those days are wrought with headaches. However, it is trips such as this one to Guavito, where I get to know fellow young people like Gustavo and Oscar and see them so impassioned by the idea of empowering a younger generation like Marcelli, Dionysis y Oscar to take control of their own story, that rejuvenate the mind and remind me of how important it is that I do what I can as an international to help that the individual Colombian movements for peace continue.

Gettin some fresh air....and fresh start

Living in the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado, I was surrounded by people who’s mere existence was an act of non violent resistance to Colombia’s human rights and violence issues. As my teammate who just returned from the Community after 13 months attests too, being in such an environment, constantly stimulated and inspired by the people, can also wear you

down, dull your sensibilities and make you lose a bit of that ‘awe’ that we all feel in the beginning and after we leave.

As I move into my 5^th month accompanying from the Bogota offices, I have a hard time relating to my coworkers insight. To me, there are times where I want nothing more than to feel like I am back in the middle of the struggle. In these moments, the modernity, luxury, and ease of life in Bogota seem to almost wash

away any sign of conflict, struggle and resistance. If it weren’t for the mountains, pollution, and Spanish, I would forget that I wasn’t back in the States.

That does not mean that I don’t appreciate working in the Bogota office. Here we are fortunate enough to have access to people and resources those in the community would never dream of having. Within a day I can read four news papers, talk to a human rights lawyer working on some of the most high profile cases in the country and have a meeting with 5 other accompaniment organizations in which, thanks to our joint-broad coverage, we can effectively analyze the changes and differences in paramilitary structure throughout the country. It is an inspiring rush in its own right. However, one cannot evade the sense that we are all outsiders talking about things others are experiencing while we sit in front of computers and write internal documents, organize files and hope that we are being effective.

It is with this in mind that I have appreciated so much a few of the trips Ive gone on recently. First, I got to accompany the Asociacion Campesina de Antioquia (the Antioquia farmers Association) to a village in North Cuaca, one of the most several affected regions by the war. Then I was privileged enough to accompany a large, intense, enthusiastic and accomplished group of former FOR volunteers as they made their rounds to the CdP’s different villages. (for a great description of this, see: http://forusa.org/blogs/liza-smith/homecomings-far-away-places/9491) Finally, and though this took place back in May, I accompanied the Red Juvenil to the most violent barrios of Medellin while they did one of their regular peace and non-violence workshops with children, was one of the most inspiring acts of resistance I have seen since moving to the big city.

Considering the importance of the above events, I would like to take the following posts to highlight them and try to explain in more depth why they impacted me so significantly.

Willie, maybe it is good that bannanas make you vomit....

It is old news that multi-national companies do not put human rights nor any kind of social welfare at the top of their list of priorities. However, the case of Chiquita struck me as one of the most blatant and undeniable cases of a company taking advantage of a situation, making a lot of money, and not seeming to register the horrible impact their actions had on Colombia.

Chiquita has had subsidiaries in Colombia since the 80´s, operating in the parts of the country most affected by paramilitarism, guerillas and drug trafficking. In 2007, a federal court in DC found Chiquita Brands guilty of making payuments to a federally recognized foriegn terrorist organization, the AUC (Aoutdefensas Unidas de Colombia--the umbrella paramilitary organization that was formed in 1997 and is responsible for collaborating with the Military on countless massacres around Colombia, including 2 that occurred in the Community, one in 2001 and the other in 2005)

Chiquita admitted to making payments to the AUC and was fined $25 million. However, Chiquita also made it clear that these payments were extortionary and did not result in any benfits to the company, aside from not being attacked for not making the payment.

In April 2010, the National Security Archive, a research institute at GWU, collaborated with the GWU Law school to collect and publish the newly declassified internal documents from the case. This group argues that these people show beyond a doubt that the payments were not simple exhtorition payments, but rather were mutually beneficial transactions and that Chiquita was actually hiring the AUC to run the company´s security.

The papers do paint a pretty bad picture for Chiquita, including hand written comments about the need for secrecy, the accounting tricks and even the direct comment that the Convivires were paid to provide security to a few of the banana plantations. (Convivires are the government-sanctioned security communities that were run by the AUC. Side note, former president Alaro Uribe, when he was govenor of Antioquia, fully supported these Convivires which are now known to have been involved directly in the Durg trade, arms trade and massacres)

It does bother me that the company seems to have been doing business with the AUC. But what might bothers me more is how the Chiquita managers talked about, and interacted with, the AUC as if they were just the Neighborhod Crime Watchers.

Anyway, read about it all in more detail and better writing here

http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB340/index.htm

There once was a man who swallowed a Frog.....

I looked everywhere for another place to land my gaze. I mean, he was standing right in front of me, staring at me, eating the pancake and jam that I had brought, waiting for a response that I was sure he knew I would not be able to give. It infuriated me. We had come to the house for a simple visit with a nice old lady and her daughter and as soon as we entered the dirt floor kitchen, even before we could exchange social niceties with the host and explain the gifts we brought, this short man, shirt unbuttoned, cap sliding to one side, looked at us with eyes wide as half dollar pieces and shouted at me,

¨Have you heard the news! They are paying! They are paying! They are paying families who have lost children in the war! I’ve lost three!¨

To fully understand the complexity of such a statement, (beyond the horrible fact that someone lost 3 children to state violence) one has to be in on a few backstories. First, the payment the man is referring to is a sort of reparations that the Colombian Government is supposedly starting to pay for the several years in which it, in the name of stopping a guerilla insurgency in the Colombian countryside, blatantly allowed militias to kill farmers on the simple assumption that one can never know for sure who is a guerilla.

Second, after many years of death, violence and impunity at the hands of the Colombian State, the community decided that a massacre in 2005 was the last straw and they broke ties officially with all entities of the state. What’s more, since the community´s past is riddled with instances where military has made a list of people labeled as anti government, and therefore targets, there is intense skepticism and fear whenever the military asks for names and personal data. Thus, no member of the community can register for, nor accept, any assistance, monetary or otherwise, from any state agency; a significant commitment for people who barely have the money for diapers and even a bigger deal for this man who is diabetic and requires an operation he can neither afford nor get for free for being elderly.

To make this situation even more uncomfortable for me, my role in the community is a bit difficult to manage. Technically, I am a strictly neutral human rights observer, meaning that I am by no means a member of the community nor am I allowed to take part in any internal policy or action of the community. Moreover, my organization maintains relations with the all branches of the government. Needless to say, my comments and actions within the community are restricted. Nevertheless, I live here, I interact daily with the people, I bring them homemade pancakes and jam and I kiss their kids regardless of how much cow manure they played in earlier. My ¨technical¨ position in the community is often tossed aside and replaced with an attitude that screams ¨sure, you’re a foreigner and a part of a political organization, but c´mon…you see how things are! Commiserate! Bash the unfair rules! Tell me it is O.K. to bend them!

It was with this attitude that the man stood and stared at me munching on his pancake with a look that demanded a response. I hoped in vain that if I just didn’t accept his stare, then the story, and the expectations of some kind of response, would stop. But the room was thick with tension as everyone, recognizing how uncomfortable the situation was, was quiet with their eyes lowered to the floor. I began to panic look for an officially approved response I could dish out

The man was oblivious of the awkward silence he had created, an oblivion that is understandable knowing that he calls himself the frog Singer because he claims to be able to sing wit the voice of a frog he swallowed live. He paused for a good bite of pancake, and then, without finishing chewing, continued on about how badly he needed his surgery and how fortunate it was that the government was finally paying people for their passed losses, and how a soldier promised him that if he only gave him his personal data he could be registered with the health care system and get the operation for free. The entire time, I could only think about what I was going to say that would simultaneously commiserate, but not cross the line into suggesting he bend the rules.

Realizing I was not going to avoid the conversation, I stopped avoiding his stare, started tolerating the masticated food visible in his mouth, and started to listen. I quickly learned that, like many Colombian conversations, he actually needed me to say very little. Frog Singer happened to be a very sexist pig, I just happen to be the only man in the room and he just wanted to vent to someone he thought mattered. I let the man talk, nodded my head, grunted and old Frog Singer was content. So content, in fact, that he flowed right into another story, this one 45 minutes long, about the time he fell off a Cliff and survived.

That night I did not give any good advice nor did I gracefully escape long winded story forced my coworker to miss the news. I did, however, get yet another chance to chastise myself for getting missing the majority of a good story because I was so wrapped up in my own insecurities. People, especially Colombians, often are faced with situations much harder than I could ever understand. I clearly can not commiserate, nor should I every think I’m expected to. My role, rather, is to listen to the story, take it seriously and try to understand the depths of the dilemma discussed. If the person walks away feeling like someone truly heard their story, I´d consider my job ¨well-done.

Video: FOR´s work with conscientious objection

FOR in Colombia is not only focused on the Peace Community of San Jose. The team in Bogota has, among other projects, a focus on protecting and fighting for the rights of Colombian Conscientious objectors.

Colombian males have to pay one year of military service when they turn 18. In order to ensure that all 18 yr old males show up for service, there are military sweeps and checkpoints in many urban areas that ask young men as they pass by o show proof of their service. If they can not do so, and are over 18. they are taken to the base and signed up for service on the spot. There are some serious questions about the legal and moral issues behind such sweeps and, as is the case in any situation where people are pressured to do things, there is always the doubt that human and constitutional rights are not followed.

There is a law allowing for conscientious objection based on personal beliefs, however, the process of proving it is complicated, long, emotionally draining and monetarily out of the reach of lower class citizens. Whats more, while the young man is trying to get through the process of proving his beliefs, he is often separated from family, subjected to intense political pressure and made to feel guilty for not fulfilling his duty to his country.

FOR´s role in this is to work with Colombian organizations to support the young men both practically and emotionally so that they have the strength to follow through with their fight to exercise their right to conscientiously object.

Here is a short, subtitled, inverview with one of the young men resisting the obiligatory military service.

Demilitarize Your Life! from Fellowship of Reconciliation on Vimeo.

Sometimes it´s like talking to a dog about using a fork

The past 2 months since I wrote last has been full of meetings, trips and news that strike at the heart of human rights in the Community of Paz. Personally, it has been a time during which I finally settled in to life in La Union and really started feeling like I have a place here. Clearly, then, I should have been documenting it as it progressed. Sadly, I was not that judicious. As a result, I have decided that, rather than having one extremely long blog entry, I would break it up into several.

TODAY: January and February´s military meetings

1st half of January:

This period wasn’t the easiest for anyone on the team. It is right after the holidays, so those who didn’t go home are still reeling from the experience of Christmas alone and those who did go home are reeling from the shock of being back. Needless to say, January started off with a bang at new years and quickly tapered into something of a general lull for us all. To make matters worse, living in a very rural environment where the only extra-work activities include afternoon soccer, reading, thinking or talking, a person who doesn’t really like soccer and isn’t very good at talking ends up spending a lot of time alone, thinking. This can be great, but as we all know, Navel gazing, as I have grown up calling it, usually results in little more than spinning mental wheels trying get to the absolute root of all their problems, a generally impossible goal.

2nd half of January/First week of February:

Luckily, there was work (and, recently, amateur house planning) to pull me out of myself and into the world above.

Lately, work has been consumed by planning for and carryout meetings with the military, police and state-human rights departments. We do this twice a year every year, but this round was particularly important because January saw a wave of turn overs in the military and police ranks as well as a couple worrying occurrences in both Cordoba and Antioquia (I live in the latter but the community has members in the former) that we needed to mention to the state authorities. Before I get to the meetings themselves, there are a few things I have to clarify.

First, it is important to understand the relationship between the government, including the military and police, and the Community. The history is complex and long as is any history that involves corruption, a 60 year rebellion, three armed groups, murders, drugs and impotent justice system. However, the short of it all is that in 2005 Luis Eduardo Guerra, one of the Community´s most important leaders, his family and several others were murdered in n the same morning in the area around Mulatos, a small village north east of where I live. Since then, despite the fact that several soldiers and commanders have admitted to the military’s involvement in the crime, none of them has ever been prosecuted, much less punished. As a result, the community decided that it could no longer trust the government, including its justice and military systems, to protect them and their rights and thus declared that they were officially and indefinitely rupturing relations.

This means that the Community does not want the government involved in their lives at all. No social services, no social aid and especially no military and police protection. While the guerilla facts DO present a real and serious danger to the community, the community believes that military presence only works to bring the fight closer and is not protective. Instead, they believe that the only way to really protect themselves is to separate themselves completely from the conflict, I .e. adopt a policy of strict pacifism and neutrality. The hope is that if they don’t get involved with any side, no other side will have any reason to attack. To deepen their security peacefully, the community works very hard at creating and strengthening international ties. Here, the idea is that having a large number of citizens of politically powerful countries advocating on the Community´s behalf, any incursion on their rights will be too politically costly for any actor.

This is where we and our meetings are useful. While meeting with brusque military men and listening to same government discourse repeatedly is fun, there are more important reasons for these meetings. One is to remind them that we are here, watching and recording human rights violations and that we are passing them on to higher political authorities life foreign embassies and Colombian government departments. Another, we make sure they are aware of the situation in the zone. Many of the higher ranked officials are disconnected with reality on the ground, and, moreover, many people are jumping on President Santo´s bandwagon declaring that the conflict is coming to an end. We try to clarify that, it is way too early to begin declaring victory, especially when we are still seeing so many violations on a regular basis. Finally, we meet to keep communication lines open and get their personal contact information that we use in cases of emergency.

Now, the summaries. Given the fact that we come from an anti- military stance that is very skeptical of recent assertions that things in Colombia have changed for the better, meetings with military and police are frustrating to say the least. We say that paramilitaries still exist, they say that paramilitaries are groups like firemen and paramedics; we say that the community is threatened and given the history, doesn’t trust the government; they merely repeat that they should go to the government. In general, the meetings feel like little more than a tennis match, each of us volleying back and forth our official discourses, neither appearing to gain any ground.

Meetings with the military are simultaneously exciting, elucidating and frustrating. Exciting because it is one of the few opportunities we have as accompaniers to really exercise our political power. Elucidating because each time we go through the process of refining agendas and analyzing what topics to discuss and how to discuss them, we get a deeper understanding of the subtleties and complexities of the relationship between the government and the community. Despite the power trip and the clarity these meetings lend, one can’t help but walk away from them feeling like nothing was truly accomplished. One can only hope that behind the official discourse, something of what we said, or maybe the mere fact that we are there watching, did sink in and will have an effect.

still truckin

this is not going to be long as I cant seem to get my USB to work and thus cant transfer the entries I have been working on for a while. Plus, while this excuse is a bit cliche, I have been honestly really busy ans January and Feb have been packed with meetings and delegations

But never theless, I wanted to drop in a let you all know that I am a live and kicking.

Blog posts to come:

Report on the round of meetings with the Military in Cordoba and Antioquia.

Description of the trip Im currently waiting to start on. Includes the trimontly asamblea, commnunity elections, commenoration of the 2005 masacre and the next instalment of the Farmer Unversity. It is really going to be an awesome experience.

Anyway, I will get to this soon.