Stories of displacement from my Witness for Peace delegation

A while ago I posted an entry about the context of the Witness for Peace delegation that I went on last month, but I am only now able to sit down and write about the delegation itself. There is so much to tell that I just haven't known where to start. So this piece is but a humble attempt to do justice to the people who shared harrowing stories with us and to help give you a picture of the realities in one corner of Colombia.

Over the course of four full days of travel in distant parts of the Curvaradó and Jiguamiendó river basins, our group visited five different communities. All but one were designated as "humanitarian zones," areas described well by an Inter Press Service article (see link below) as communities opposed to Colombia's ongoing war that "defend the distinction between civilians and combatants, as established by international humanitarian law." As one person in the Las Camelias humanitarian zone put it, the zone is "a way to protect our lives and our land in the midst of war." The zones all have the backing of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights.

The humanitarian zones are remote communities. To get to Pueblo Nuevo -- the first zone we visited -- we traveled by airplane, bus, 4x4, and boat (really a dugout canoe with a motor attached to it). The zones have no electricity or running water. Residents practice some subsistence farming and barely eke out a living. In two of the zones I saw school buildings (more like shacks, really), but it was unclear to me if or when teachers actually come through to offer classes. In Pueblo Nuevo, as I stood under the leaky school roof while a torrential tropical rainstorm raged, I was hit by the smells of wood smoke and raw sewage. It occurred to me that that combination is the smell of poverty.

The humanitarian zones were founded by peasant farmers who were forcibly displaced from their homes and their land by military and paramilitary operations in the mid- to late 1990s. They joined the ranks of Colombia's internally displaced population, which in 2009 (according to the Internal Displacement Monitoring cntre) numbered up to 4.9 million.

In Las Camelias, one woman (I'll call her Rosa) told a representative story of what displacement had entailed for her. Rosa is a rail-thin Afro-Colombian woman who smoked ragged cigarettes and hugged me like an old friend when she met me. She is the mother of eight, grandmother of 36, and great-grandmother of three. She has been accused of being a leader of the 57th Front of the guerrilla Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia. There is a reward on her head.

Her diplacement began in 1996, when she and some other people from her town fled into the jungle to escape armed attacks on their community. They lived there for six months. During that time, the men would sneak back to their land to get food. The group would scatter to another area whenever they heard gunshots. With help from a Spanish non-profit and an area church, Rosa and her companions eventually left the jungle for a town where they lived for a year -- all the while hearing gunshots and explosions as the paramilitaries occupied neighboring communities.

They then relocated to the town of Caño Seco where they could hear the destruction of the town from which they had just been displaced. While in Caño Seco, the community got together and decided that the elderly and people with young children should move to the town of Murindó. The rest of the group moved too, but to the town of Bartólo where they stayed for two years. This pattern continued for years. Rosa told us that, all totalled, the community endured 13 displacements before deciding to return to the land that had been theirs and establishing the humanitarian zone.

Heartrending stories like this one were repeated everywhere we went. It was hard to listen to over and over again. But it was impossible not to be intensely moved by the courage these people have shown and continue to show as they defend their right to live what in Spanish is called a "vida digna," a dignified life.

http://ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=43813

Stories of current struggles from my Witness for Peace delegation

Just as we heard many stories about forced displacement, we heard many accounts of current struggles in the humanitarian zones, all of whom are under violent pressure from the paramilitary-backed large land holders who took over the lands from which the communities were displaced.

The most extreme and most intense testimony we heard was in a tiny, recently-established humanitarian zone named for its leader who was assassinated in January of this year by two local known paramilitary agents who operate openly and with impunity. The wheels of justice turn excruciatingly slowly in Colombia, however, and the case has not moved forward. Now his brother who I'll call Javier, a soft-spoken man who spoke with downcast eyes, has received threats that he will end up like his brother if he does not stop his efforts to reclaim the community's land. He is afraid to leave the zone. His sister Elena wept as she talked about her fear for his safety, and person after person expressed the same concern.

The community has asked the police to patrol the perimeter of the zone to ensure its residents' safety, but this protection has yet to materialize. They do not want the army to be responsible for these patrols because they know that there are members of the paramilities working within that institution. After our meeting and lunch with the community, I chatted with a woman while she washed dishes. She illustrated why the community might need the protection of the police, she said she is afraid that the paramilitaries -- working in the service of neighboring land-holders -- will eventually just invade the zone some night while the community sleeps.

After describing their current fears, the community members spoke movingly about their life before their forced eviction by the army and paramilitaries. "We used to live well," said one woman. Elena told us that "Life was easier before. We had daily food . . . and were able to go to [the nearby town of] Mutatá to study. . . . But happiness doesn't last . . . I had to leave everything I loved." After hearing testimony like this, it was hard to leave this particular zone knowing that sometimes, an international presence can discourage paramilitary attacks.

But we had to get to a meeting with an official of the 17th brigade of the Colombian army, the military unit charged with providing security in the region we had visited (and the brigade that the communities had charged works hand-in-hand with paramilitary organizations). In a frigid, air-conditioned, and windowless meeting room, we spoke with a lieutenant who serves as the brigade's human rights officer. His answers to our carefully-constructed questions were at times telling and at times laughable. He explained that the primary factor that demonstrates improved security in the region is increased foreign and national investment. "The [civilian] population is not at risk today. This is proven by foreign investment," he said. Needless to say this comment belies the government's priority for the region and, in light of all we had heard in the humanitarian zones, begs the question "security for whom"? He went on: "The facts speak for themselves. There have been no violent deaths in the region and no attacks on civilians in this region." When asked about links between the army and paramilitary groups, he said that if they had existed, it was in the distant past. We left that meeting dismayed and more convinced than ever of the army's (and therefore the government's) total lack of concern for marginalized people like those who live in the humanitarian zones we had visited.

In light of all that we had seen an heard during our days in these rural parts of the Lower Atrato region I felt that there is little reason for optimism regarding the achievement of a real and sustainable peace in Colombia, the government's claims to the contrary notwithstanding. I had suspected as much even before my visit to the region. When I think back to my original reasons for going on this delegation, I can say that I accomplished what I had hoped to. I travelled far from the bubble of Bogotá. I saw the grinding poverty in which so many Colombians live. I got to be a witness to the realities of people affected by Colombia's enduring armed conflict. I was deeply moved and with a sense of responsibility to bear witness to these realities.

A little context about my delegation

Ten years after helping to start the Witness for Peace program in Colombia, I finally got to take part in a delegation here. It ended on Wednesday, and since then I have been struggling to figure out how to share what I learned in a way that isn’t too long, makes sense, and does justice to the people who entrusted their stories to us.

Our delegation focused on developments in the Urabá region of northwestern Colombia (near the border with Panamá). Rich in agricultural resources, biodiversity, and subsoil mineral wealth, the region is largely populated by Colombians of African descent. Most of the region is rural. Most importantly for our trip, Urabá has come to be seen as a microcosm of key problems facing Colombia. Here the issues of economic development, land ownership, internal displacement, paramilitary violence, and government inaction converge to devastating effect and in a pattern that is repeated all over the country.

But before I begin to tell the stories we heard during five days in the countryside, it is essential to give some context and background about Colombia today. So here are some things you should know.

· Since 2000, under an initiative called Plan Colombia, the United States has given about $7.3 billion in mostly military aid to Colombia. The main purpose of this aid is to fight the drug war, in which pretty much all of the armed actors in Colombia’s decades-long civil war are involved.
· Between 1999 and 2008, despite extensive aerial fumigation, the tonnage of cocaine produced in Colombia only dropped from 680 to 600. Coca is now cultivated in 20 of Colombia’s 32 departments.
· Since 2000, according to Witness for Peace, approximately 30,000 civilians have been killed, and 3 million have been displaced. The Colombian Ministry of Defense estimates that there have been 21,000 combat deaths since 2002.
· Using US assistance, outgoing Colombian president Alvaro Uribe implemented what he referred to as his “Democratic Security” policy. This involved a tripling of the military budget and nearly doubling the size of the security forces.
· During the time of Uribe’s Democratic Security policy, foreign investment (especially in extractive industries) has more than tripled, but rates of poverty and extreme poverty have barely budged.
· Between 2002 and 2008, Colombia was one of only three countries in Latin America where economic inequality increased.
· In the rural areas of Colombia, where approximately 25% of the country’s population lives, 0.4% of landholders control approximately 61.2% of the land.
· An estimated 80% of Colombia’s rural population lives in poverty.

So it was against this backdrop that my fellow delegates and I headed to Urabá to visit a number of "humanitarian zones," small communities where people displaced by violence that peaked in the 1990s have returned to or near the lands from which they were expelled. Now they are under tremendous pressure – and, at times, threat of death – from large landowners and cattle ranchers who, working hand in hand with paramilitaries and sometimes with the Colombian military, appropriated the abandoned lands to grow cash crops and raise cattle and who now claim to be the rightful owners of the land. It is an extremely complicated conflict and one that we worked hard to make sense out of. It was the people’s stories that helped us understand.

Year one of teaching abroad: check.

The school year is over. It is almost impossible to believe, and as trite as it may sound, the time flew. I taught four different courses and coordinated (or tried to) a department of 12 people. I am so tired!

A lot of people have asked me how my first year was, and my answer is always: challenging. I think that sounds a little unoriginal, but it is the truth. I think it suggests something that is really hard but good. I worked my butt off this year. I went to school early --arriving at 6:00 or 6:30 a.m. -- many, many days. I went to a zillion meetings, wrote a zillion e-mails, and went to some lengthy workshops all in Spanish. There were days the language thing wore me out. There were days the kids drove me insane. There were days the grown-ups drove me insane. But the reason I say the year was challenging is that at no point did I wish I hadn't come here to do this. I am exhausted but so glad I made this move.

I think over the next month -- in the rare quiet moments I will have -- I will keep reflecting on the year. (I've kind of already started to do that as the year wound down). Not surprisingly, there are hundreds of things I want to do differently and other things that I hope I have really learned how to do. Next year will bring new challenges, like two new teachers in my department. But I am hopeful that I will generally have a better handle on things.

So now I am taking a few days to wind down, which is an extra nice thing to do in my new apartment, before my summer activities begin. First my Witness for Peace delegation, then flying around to Ohio and Boston, and finally off to California for an AP World History seminar at Stanford. Does that schedule mean I love a challenge?

Semana Santa

You know that great feeling when you step off a plane in a warm place and the sun is shining and the air is soft? That was how it felt to arrive in Popayán when I traveled there a couple of weeks ago to see the town’s famous Holy Week celebrations.

I was with my dear, dear friends Fiona and Sam who were visiting from London. Fiona, it bears mentioning, is kind of my only childhood friend. Growing up overseas means that even if you actually stay put in a country for a while, other people inevitably come and go. Fortunately for us, both Fiona’s and my families stayed in Rome for a long time – hence our friendship that dates back to when I was eight and she was ten. I think my at-home manicurist-pedicurist Sandra (who got us all fixed up before we headed to where the weather was sandal-worthy) put it best: she said we are “super amigas.” All of that to say, it was very special to have Fi and her husband Sam here and so great to get to travel with them.

The reason we chose Popayán as our destination is that it is famous all over Colombia for its Holy Week celebrations, specifically the nightly processions featuring huge float-like things called pasos that are topped with statues of Jesus (many of them pretty gory), Mary, various saints, and other Biblical characters. These things weigh hundreds of kilos and are carried on the shoulders of the faithful, specifically men and boys for whom this privilege has been passed down through generations.

Probably the most interesting thing about witnessing these observances was that we got to see them several nights in a row, with each night having its own tone and mood. On the night of Holy Thursday, the statues depicted various scenes from events leading up to the crucifixion of Jesus (like his sentencing before Pilate and his being crowned with thorns), and the mood was pretty somber. (Not that there weren’t peanut and cotton candy vendors doing a booming business). On the night of Good Friday, the mood was even darker as the pasos told the story of the crucifixion. The people carrying them were dressed in purple, which was the color of all the flowers too. But on Saturday night, in anticipation of the resurrection, things turned joyful. The paso bearers wore white, and people applauded when the paso with the statue of Jesus resurrected came out. Interesting note: the resurrected Jesus was totally jacked – in stark contrast to the emaciated crucified Jesuses we had seen on previous nights. But whatever the condition of the Jesus statues, it was really a spectacle, quite unlike anything I’ve seen before.

Of course, it wouldn’t be Colombia without a pretty martial element. The National Police band was front and center, complete with kids who were some kind of scouts but just looked like mini-me policemen. Even more striking was the presence of the military. They appeared a couple of times in the procession (one group of them heavily armed), and we just couldn’t quite figure out how they fit in with the rolling orchestras (a woman playing a piano on wheels being pushed down the street – awesome) and altar boys. Nonetheless, it was cool to see the devotion and pageantry, even just as curious onlookers.

Election days

I know I am up too early when I hear the Colombian national anthem on my way to school. They play it on the radio at 6:00 every morning. I have come to associate it with sunrise. I think it's interesting to see how the national anthem is used or viewed in different countries. I feel like you don't hear it as much in the States, but I remember it being played before the start of the film in movie theatres in Thailand, complete with a gigantic image of the king projected on the screen.

I guess I am thinking about this public patriotism partly because of the elections that took place here on Sunday. [Disclaimer: I was a less than casual observer to them. I really barely followed them at all, so anything I write is based on the most general of impressions.] The elections were to choose members of the senate, and it seemed like there were a whole lot of parties to choose from. Walls were absolutely plastered with posters, and people in party T-shirts tried to give me literature about a hundred times in the past few weeks. Somehow one was more aware that something was going on than you might be in the U.S. First of all, during elections here the government imposes a ley seca or dry law. You couldn't by alcohol starting at 6 p.m. on Friday and until 6 a.m. on Monday. (I couldn't help but wonder who were the people lined up outside a liquor store at 6:01 Monday morning).

Second of all, starting on Thursday or Friday, security was beefed up everywhere. For instance, there is always a security guard at my supermarket around the corner, but on Thursday night he was carrying a massive shotgun. By Friday, the military and police were out in force, standing guard everywhere it seemed. The security guard at my building also told me that all the army and police were acuartelados for the whole weekend, meaning that no leaves were granted, and they had to be on call at all times. By Sunday, there were helicopters flying over my building what seemed like every few minutes. Frankly, I found it all a little intimidating, which I feel like would not be a good feeling to have as you go to vote. Or maybe in a country of so much conflict, it makes people feel safe. I wonder.

On election day itself things were buzzing. I happened to be at two different shopping centers that were being used as polling stations, and they were mobbed. And the police were out in force managing the crowds. Traffic was as bad as a week night rush hour, and the party faithful had fanned out everywhere. One supermarket was even running an election day lunch special. It was all pretty interesting to just observe, to see what was different from election days in the States. Now my question is: what is it going to be like when the presidential elections roll around in August?

Remembering where I am

In the months that I've been here in Colombia, I have been a little frustrated by how insular I feel like my existence has been. The reality is that I spend most of my time at school and work a LOT at home. Many of my friends live on the northern side of Bogotá, where I do. We mostly go out to places on this side of town. So, getting out of my convenient comfort zone means making a deliberate point to take the time to get out and explore different parts of the city.

A couple of my friends and I did that last weekend. Even though it may sound funny since we actually live here, we went on an organized bike tour of Bogotá. It was great. It was the most perfect, sunny day, and we started down in La Candelaria, the lovely old colonial center of town. We wound our way through the colonial and government buildings, in and around a number of parks (at least one of which was made way for by razing a crime-ridden neighborhood, of course) and through bustling neighborhoods I had never been to or heard of. We made a stop at the central market, called Paloquemao, where I had one of the best arepas I've ever eaten and where we snacked on tropical fruits ranging from mangosteens (my favorite), to pitaya, to passion fruit. It made me so envious of my friend Moira, who gets to do her fruit and vegetable shopping there. From the market we continued on to the Central Cemetary, which is just as segregated by social class as any other one I have ever visited in Latin America. Next door was a series of crypts that had been emptied in preparation for demolition, but not before they were painted with silhouettes of bodies being carried on stretchers -- representing the dead of Colombia's armed conflict. We wound down our trip with a stop at the National Park before heading down the Ciclovía (the route of streets that are closed on Sundays to make way for bikers and pedestrians) back to La Candelaria. It was a perfect way and a perfect day to see other parts of the city. Turns out that it was also the perfect day to get the kind of sunburn you can only get by forgetting to wear sunscreen at 8500 feet.

My tour around Bogotá got me thinking about my insulation on a bigger scale. I think it was partly a question of timing. In the couple of days following that bike ride, I read about a new Human Rights Watch report about the successor groups of the paramilitaries here who continue to commit atrocities, got an update from a friend attending the trial of 10 army officers for complicity with paramilitaries in a massacre in a peace community a few years ago, and met three members of the U'wa indigenous group who are engaged in a struggle with the oil company Ecopetrol to prevent oil drilling on their native land. This is the country where I live, and I have been woefully uninformed about events here.

So I've made a belated New Year's resolution to commit myself to learning more about Colombia's history and to staying much better informed about what is going on here today. It's fine that I got a book on Colombian history recommeded to me by the woman in my department who teaches that class at school, but I know better than anyone the best way to get a first-hand crash course in the reality of any country in Latin America: go on a Witness for Peace delegation. I am so incredibly excited since I have decided to join (OK, I have to apply, but I am hoping that as a former staffer I will be accepted) a group in July that will travel to the Urabá region to learn about the situation facing people living in so-called humanitarian zones. According to the description on the Witness for Peace web site, "A humanitarian zone is a living area of a few acres surrounded by a barbed wire fence. The community puts signs on the fence proclaiming that this is a civilian zone, and nobody with a weapon is allowed inside. Because threats [from paramilitaries and the army trying to take over their land] continue, these communities rely on international attention for their survival."

I know I have a lot to learn, but I feel good for having committed myself to taking active steps to really remember where I am.

(To see some of the testimonials from the Human Rights Watch report, you can follow this link: http://www.hrw.org/en/feature/colombia-deadly_threat)

Bogotá birthday

So I am 35 now. As my friend Michael (who also just turned 35) pointed out, I am now halfway to 70. Thanks, Michael.

My shock at my old age notwithstanding, I was excited to mark my birthday, to mark a year of big changes and fresh starts, in the city I now call home. I figured that I would just do something small with a few Bogotá friends, new and old. What I couldn't have expected, what was the best surprise, was that I would be visited by the ghost of birthday past.


Many, many years ago, my family moved from Rome ("The Eternal City") to Findlay, Ohio ("Flag City, U.S.A."). I think most of you reading this have heard the story, so I'm not going to go into all the heinous details. What you may not have heard in the telling, however, is that there were people I met in Findlay who were a breath of fresh air during that dark period of my late adolesence. One of them was a guy named Andrew Evans. I met Andrew at the beginning of my senior year because he had spent our junior year as an exchange student in France. It's fair to say that we were kindred get-me-the-hell-out-of-this-town spirits from the start. That being the case, it is perfect that we would see each other for the first time in 17 years here, in Bogotá, on my 35th birthday.

[Insert plug for how cool Andrew is here: Andrew was in Bogotá because he is working on a project for National Geographic, namely traveling the length of the Americas by bus (and boat where necessary) in order to catch a boat to Antarctica in February and blogging/tweeting as he goes. His blog is insightful and funny, and I highly recommend it anyone who can only afford a vicarious trip to the South Pole. http://blogs.nationalgeographic.com/blogs/intelligenttravel/bus2antarctica/]

Intrepid traveler that he is, Andrew found his way to Andrés Carne de Res, Bogotá's world-famous, one and only freak show/steak house. This place really does defy description. The décor can best be described as Latin American religious kitsch-meets-Frida Kahlo's nightmare. There is weird stuff on the walls. The art work and logos are trippy, and sometimes the waiters and waitresses dress up in costumes. And afterwards there's a dance party. It should be pretty clear why I wanted to celebrate here.

Though things did get a little silly when one of the waiters in some kind of get-up brought me a plastic cake and made me dance (see attached video), the night was actually pretty tame. Andrew dispensed travel advice to my friend who's planning a trip to southern Africa; my friends dispensed travel advice to Andrew who is traveling by bus through a country that is at war. I drank too many too strong mojitos, reveled in the good company, and just felt lucky to have great friends, no matter how old I am.