Articles

An important part of our work here with CPT is reporting on the conflict here in Colombia. The United States is expected to send 700 million dollars in aid to Colombia this year, most of it military aid. Therefore it's crucial that people in North America know what's going on and how our tax dollars are being used.

Below are links to some of the articles that Michele and I have written:

Aerial Fumigations-- "I Wish the Pilots Were More Intelligent"
by Michele - December 16, 2006

Miners Return Home
By Michele and Joel Klassen - November 9, 2006

The Power of Prayer - CPT holds witness against Fumigations
by Nils - November 1, 2006

We'll add more articles to this blog as we write them.

Accompaniment work

Here are some pictures from a community meeting Michele and I accompanied a few weeks ago. One unique thing about this trip was that that Michele and I got to work together, a first for us so far on the team.




Here's the canoe we rode in to get to the meeting (along with 80 or so other people).
Michele and I are on about halfway down on the right side of the canoe, wearing red CPT hats.




Here's Michele lining up for breakfast before the community meeting.




Here we are taking a break from the meeting with Ana Patti, another accompanier with Peace Briagades International. (And no, that's not beer we're drinking, we're at work.)

Pictures of us doing accompaniment

Here are some pictures of us doing accompaniment work, one of the biggest things we spend our time on here in Colombia.



Here's Michele with our teammate Pierre and our canoe driver, getting ready to leave in the team's canoe for a few days visiting river communities.





Here's a beautiful sunset on the river.





In addition to travelling by canoe, we also travel by bus, by truck, by riverboat, on foot, and by mule. Here's a picture Michele took on a recent trip. See if you can guess what type of transport she was using (hint: look for the ears).

Merry Christmas From Nils and Michele

Howdy!

I (Nils) said I wasn't going to do a blog, because I didn't want the responsibility of updating it regularly. Michele and I have been sending out an e-mail message about once a month, and that seems to be working pretty well. However, as I've started to think about photos we want to share, I've realized that this might be a better way to share them then attaching them to an e-mail message.

So, I can't promise you that we'll update this blog regularly, but at least you'll get to see some pictures of our life here.

Michele has had two Christmas dinners in the last few days. On the 24th, she and our teammate Erin were visiting families in a river community, in one of the areas we accompany. A family from the community invited Michele and Erin to stop and have Christmas dinner with them. Here's a picture of Erin sitting down to dinner with the family.
Here's the Christmas dinner Michele and I had togther here at our house in Barrancabermeja with our teammate Pierre and his family. Our dinner was on the 25th, although around here most people's celebration is the evening of the 24th.

Peace on Earth!

South America Log - No. 3

Greetings friends and family,

Recently we went out dancing with our co-worker for his birthday. We were a group of 15 Colombians, Canadians and US citizens dancing, talking and laughing together. I noticed one of the guests kept to himself and never joined in the dancing. He wasn't introduced. Then I learned the small shoulder bag he kept with him contained a gun and he is a government provided bodyguard for one of the guests at the party, the director of an organization for subsistence farmers.

The next week I attended a march for jobs and economic security. As we walked down the streets of Barranca with labor organizers and human rights activists I began to notice the presence of small shoulder bags on several of the men in the crowd. More body guards.

The Colombian government supplies these 24-hour armed guards, under a mandate from the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. The court reviews death threats against community leaders and requires the Colombian government to supply a bodyguard if the threats are determined to be legitimate.

As I continue down the street for the march, I can't take my eyes off the shoulder bag of the man next to me. He is always within a few feet of a very unassuming, middle-aged man who is the leader of a local union. Why is organizing for worker's rights, or women's rights or farmer's rights, an act that requires armed protection in Colombia? And, will the presence of these armed guards actually make anyone safer?

The almost 50 year-old war in Colombia has it's origins in political disagreements. Unfortunately, because of this, organizing for the rights of poor or oppressed people in Colombia continues to be seen by some as taking sides in the conflict, and people involved in these activities continue to receive death threats. For example, since January, 53 union activists have been assassinated in Colombia.

So what is Christian Peacemaker Teams doing to respond to this? While we respect the personal decisions of our Colombian partners to accept armed accompaniment from the government, CPT rejects the use of violence to solve the conflict and we partner with organizations that are using non-violent means to work for change in Colombia. Much of our time here in Colombia is spent providing unarmed accompaniment to communities and to social service, human rights and union organizations. We accompany these communities by offering our physical presence and witness. The eyes from outside that we offer can make the struggles that they are engaged in more visible, and can create a safe space where these groups can continue their work of improving the conditions of their country. We respond to phone calls asking us to spend the day traveling with someone to a meeting outside the city. Or, we might spend a week living in a community that has recently experienced violence. Currently, Nils is part of a team that will spend 8 weeks living with an indigenous community that has experienced massive displacements and a massacre of 5 people in August. Nils will help to publicize to Colombia and to North America the plight of this indigenous group.

Michele recently spent 5 days in a rural gold-mining area after a community leader was murdered by the Colombian military. The military accused the leader of being a left-wing fighter although his community insists he was unarmed and an upstanding father and husband. The community is suspicious of the motives behind his death because large multinational companies are currently planning how to get the rights to the enormous gold reserves that are in the earth under this community. The community believes they are being intimidated to move from their land to make way for multinational gold mining on their soil. After the murder of their community member, other leaders in the mining organization do not feel comfortable to travel alone. When they are alone they feel vulnerable to be kidnapped or murdered. When they have to travel outside of their home communities for meetings they contact CPT to travel with them. This travel is through arduous mountain trails where it can take two days of hiking to get to a meeting. We are currently having conversations with the mining community about living with the community on a regular basis. The president of the mining federation remarked, "Accompaniment gives us confidence."

*******

It's the end of another day and another meeting and the director of a well-respected women's organization offers me a ride home. Among other things the organization provides space and resources for women who want to start businesses or learn job skills. On the ride home I chat with the director about our day. She is a friendly, pleasant, professional woman who has devoted her life to the women of Colombia. We arrive at my door and I say good-bye as I leave the vehicle. As I shut the car door the heft and weight of it requires extra effort and I am reminded that I was driven home in a steel-reinforced bulletproof vehicle provided by the government. Another community leader whose life is at risk because she works for the empowerment of others.

MISSION STATEMENT: Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) Colombia is a community made up of trained volunteers from different cultures that forms part of the international, ecumenical organization, CPT. Our work is based in, though not limited to, the Middle Magdalena region of Colombia. We work together on grassroots initiatives to expose and transform structures of domination and oppression through active nonviolence in order to make possible a world grounded in respect, justice and love, even of enemies. Read more at www.cpt.org.

South America Log - No. 2

October 15, 2006

Greetings family and friends,

We left Venezuela on October 1 and we are now living in Barrancabermeja, Colombia where we will be volunteering with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) until spring 2007.

Highlights of our month in Venezuela include reconnecting with Nils' host family from when he lived in Venezuela as a high-school exchange student, volunteering at a soup kitchen, and hiking in the Venezuelan Andes. We spent many wonderful evenings with Nils' host family dancing salsa and merengue and eating delicious Venezuelan food. While Michele continued in language school, Nils volunteered full-time at the St. Martin of Porres soup kitchen for the last two weeks of our time in Venezuela. Michele also helped a few times at the soup kitchen and we both gave a presentation to the staff about social work in the United States. We were struck by the similarities in the reasons people rely on soup kitchens in the US and Venezuela, including alcoholism, physical disability, mental illness and aging. One major difference in Venezuela is the lack of government services for people who are poor, including limited services for elderly people, which means they serve many elderly people at the soup kitchen.

During our month in Venezuela we had hoped to get a better understanding of President Hugo Chavez. What we learned is that politics are complicated everywhere, and it's difficult to give a solid stamp of approval or disapproval to most politicians. We were mostly with middle class Venezuelans who tend to be anti-Chavez. People did not hesitate to tell us that life is worse for the middle class under Chavez. Despite this, everyone we heard from predicts that Chavez will win in the December election. The opposition party (Manuel Rosales) says Chavez will win because he will steal the vote, and Chavez's supporters say he will win the election fairly but the opposition will claim election fraud. We heard some concern that Rosales' party will try to overturn the election results by staging protests or strikes when Chavez wins.

As we crossed the border from Venezuela into Colombia we were immediately struck by the increase in security measures. All of the motorcyclists were wearing helmets and vests that displayed their license plate number. Passengers on motorcycles have been responsible for a lot of violence in the armed conflict so there is now a law that motorcyclists must clearly identify themselves to reduce the likelihood that they will commit a crime. We also saw more soldiers and police armed with AK-47s in our first hour in Colombia than we saw in 1 month in Venezuela.

We also recognized upon crossing the border that there are a lot more motorcycles and fewer large cars here in Colombia than there were in Venezuela. Gasoline prices here in Colombia are similar to those in the US, but in Venezuela gas only costs the equivalent of about 18 cents per gallon.

Our first two weeks in Colombia have been very busy. We are settling into our home with the other volunteers, several who have been here for years. The team is comprised of people from the US, Canada and Colombia. Our living situation is very comfortable, with a typical cement and tile home with an open patio. We have a stove, refrigerator and running water. We wash our clothes by hand. The weather is hot! The thermometer in our room has never gone below 80 degrees since we arrived, even at night. Luckily, we have plenty of floor fans and ceiling fans.

We spend our days attending meetings and going out into rural areas where people have been threatened with violence and feel more comfortable with an international presence. For example, we spent one night in a small river community. This is a community that was violently forced off of their land several years ago. CPT was invited to Colombia to assist this community in returning to their land. Currently, a team from CPT takes the two hour canoe ride to the community every week to spend time in the community. Most of the time is spent visiting at people’s homes, but we will also stop to talk to any armed groups in the area to let them know who we are, and to ask them to respect the rights of the local people.

A few months ago CPT was asked by a women’s organization to do a 5-minute presentation about non-violence on their weekly television show. Nils taped a segment this week. He talked (in Spanish!) about examples of non-violence in some of the tactics that have been used in a recent transit strike here in Barrancabermeja.

Overview of CPT: Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) arose from a call in 1984 for Christians to devote the same discipline and self-sacrifice to nonviolent peacemaking that armies devote to war. CPT places violence-reduction teams in crisis situations and militarized areas around the world at the invitation of local peace and human rights workers. CPT embraces the vision of unarmed intervention waged by committed peacemakers ready to risk injury and death in bold attempts to transform lethal conflict. Three years ago CPT helped a group of Muslims in Iraq to create Muslim Peacemaker Teams.

You can read more about CPT or make a donation in our name to support our work at www.cpt.org

Overview of the conflict in Colombia: Colombia's current war has been going on for at least 40 years, though many would say much longer. In the early 1960s in a climate of great social and economic inequality, two left-wing guerrilla groups, the FARC and the ELN, were formed, in part by poor farmers struggling for access to land rights. Then in the 1980s, paramilitary groups (privately funded armies) began to form. The paramilitaries oppose the guerrillas, and often work together with the Armed Forces, but they are not an official part of the government's institutions and therefore able to use much more aggressive – often horrifically cruel and violent – tactics in fighting the war. Drug traffickers and large landowners have joined with members of the Armed Forces to train, fund and strengthen the paramilitaries. These right-wing paramilitaries have been responsible for over 70% of human rights violations against civilians. Drug-trafficking has complicated the situation considerably, providing funds to both the paramilitaries and the guerrillas, but drugs did not cause the conflict, and the elimination of drug money is unlikely to end it. The FARC, the ELN, and the paramilitaries are all active in the area around Barrancabermeja.

All these different groups might seem a bit confusing, but in many ways the situation is quite simple, because the casualties in this war are not, primarily, members of any of these armed groups. Instead, most of the victims are civilians caught between them. The guerrillas accuse civilians of collaborating with the army and the paramilitaries, and the army and the paramilitaries accuse civilians of collaborating with the guerrillas. Each year, over 3,000 people die as a result of the conflict. In the last twenty years, over 3 million Colombians have been forcibly displaced - forced to flee their homes, farms, churches and communities – by violence or the threat of violence. The United Nations calls it the worst humanitarian catastrophe in our hemisphere.

As we get settled here in Colombia and learn more about the struggles facing the people we'll be working with, we'll keep updating you. We also look forward to your updates and news from home!

Peace,

Michele and Nils

South America Log - No. 1

We've sent e-mail updates on our travels about once a month. I'm going to repost them here on the blog so that folks can re-read them if they want.

Greetings from Merida, Venezuela!

We made the transition from Minneapolis to Merida via Bogota, Colombia and Caracas, Venezuela in about 48 hours. We wouldn´t recommend this route but our tickets are round trip through Bogota since we expect to finish our year in Colombia. Our first few days included a lot of waiting and learning the phrase, "no hay cupo" or there isn´t any space (in the bus, in the hostel) but finally we are settled in Merida in a small guest house where we will live for one month while Michele studies Spanish. Nils lived in Merida 20 years ago as a high school exchange student. The main change in those years is that Merida has grown from 80,000 to 300,000 people. Merida is a University town in a narrow valley in the Andes Mountains so it’s quite beautiful here.

We are looking forward to learning more about politics in Venezuela under President Hugo Chavez. When we left the airport in Caracas there were billboards along the highway saying (in Spanish), "Breaking the Bloc, Respect for Venezuela". The billboards showed President Chavez with the leaders of Malaysia, Syria and 6 or 7 other countries to show their support for his efforts to stand in opposition to the bloc of countries that support the U.S. and its imperialistic foreign policy. Our taxi driver said he expects Chavez to win again in December 2006 but to lose eventually because he will not be able to keep all the promises he has made to poor Venezuelans.

Some of you may be wondering what we have been up to since we left our jobs in mid-July. We have mostly been in Chicago at training for Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT). CPT has been intervening in conflicts of lethal violence in many parts of the world since the early 90´s. They currently have peacemaking teams in Palestine, Iraq, Western Ontario and on the Arizona border, as well as in Colombia. CPT only takes on projects where they have been invited by a local organization and where our U.S. government is playing a role in perpetuating the conflict. Although many of these situations are complicated, CPT always partners with groups who refuse to use violence to make peace in their communities.

Our training covered a lot of important material including human rights reporting, non-violent intervention in potentially violent situations, and undoing racism and undoing sexism. We left feeling more prepared to respond to situations of potential violence using the nonviolent tools of compassion and communication. Of course, this type of work or this philosophy is not new. From the Underground Railroad to Gandhi and the Civil Rights movement people have been using non-violent means to protect the vulnerable and oppose government-supported violence.

We are looking forward to our month in Merida to improve our language skills. We expect to be in Colombia in the beginning of October to begin our 7 months of volunteer work with CPT.

We are still enjoying some familiar treats - we are headed out for ice cream at Heladeria Coromoto which boasts the most ice cream flavors of any place in the world with 800 flavors. They aren´t all available everyday and who would want to eat shrimp or bacon ice cream anyway?

Peace to you from Nils and Michele

P.S. We still expect to send a monthly update. If you don't want to receive these messages, let us know.