South America Log #13

Dear Friends and Family,

"Colombia: the only risk is wanting to stay." A billboard with these words greeted us at the Bogotá airport on a recent flight back from a vacation that ended in Quito, Ecuador. After two years in Colombia accompanying human rights workers and community organizers whose lives are very much at risk, we recognized that for many Colombians this slogan is hollow propaganda. At the same time, as we returned from a fantastic vacation that included visiting waterfalls, rivers and mountains of southern Colombia, we could partially identify with the message. Colombia is a beautiful country, and it will be hard for us to leave.

We are writing to you just 3 weeks before we move back to Minneapolis. You can imagine that our hearts and minds are full as we consider all we have learned and experienced in the past two years and we anticipate sad good-byes here and warm reunions in the United States. To sum up our experience, and pass time at the airport, we came up with the following lists:

What we will not miss about Colombia:

Military check points, common on roads and river ways. Usually all the men in the bus or boat are asked to leave the vehicle, show their ID cards, and get patted down.

Death threats to social organizations, including the 4 new threats received in August by organizations here in Barranca, all signed by the paramilitaries. Although we plan to continue to draw attention to these issues from the U.S.

The heat, although it did dip down below 80 degrees in our bedroom once, and we had a heavy breeze last week that everyone is still talking about.

The smell of the oil refinery that sends us to check for the hundredth time whether something in the house is actually on fire.

Meat- and starch-heavy meals.

Knee-deep mud.

Mosquitoes, chiggers, ticks, and all kinds of other biting insects we've encountered in the rural areas. The relatively innocuous dengue- and malaria-free mosquitoes of Minnesota will be a welcome change!

Dengue fever, fondly known as "break bone" fever by those who have experienced it.

Staying in touch with friends and family via email.

What we will miss about Colombia:

Tropical fruits; we are eating big bowls of fresh pineapple, papaya and mango each day just to store up for the long, apple-filled winter in Minnesota.

Travel by river, the best way to commute to meetings that we can think of!

Cooling nightly downpours during the rainy season.

Opportunities to experience and learn from another culture, although we still cannot figure out how to navigate the traffic. We have learned that the lights go from red to yellow to green, and that yellow can most easily be defined as "start your engines" and is not at all related to the "time to slow down" in the U.S.

Opportunities to learn Spanish, although we will not miss having to worry if a slightly mispronounced word might easily become a swear word, like the other day when Michele attempted to say the word for "bald" and a gracious listener kindly corrected the pronunciation and advised against the ill-spoken word. By the color in her friend's cheeks, Michele knew never to try to say "bald" again.

Things we will take with us:

The courage and commitment of our many partners, including the women's organization that boldly states, "It is better to live in fear than to stop living because of fear."

Living in a community that does not emphasize material possessions, capitalism or individual capital gain. Like the young barefoot boy that helped Michele with her backpack at a river port and then refused the offer of a few pesos, Michele thinking that he must be one of the many people at the port making their living by transporting goods.

A more profound understanding of our global connectedness and our impact on the lives and economies and communities of people living thousands of miles from us. We have seen how our choices in the U.S. can lead to deforestation, violence and displacement, or to sustainable development, secure communities and fairer employment.

The anticipation we feel thinking about our return home is mixed with the angst of job searching. Your job leads and job search hints are still welcome.

For photos of our recent vacation to southern Colombia and Ecuador see our photo album.

We've also particpated in a short video interview about the accompaniment work we've been doing. The video was created for the website of New Tactics in Human Rights, a web community of human rights workers created by The Center for Victims of Torture in Minneapolis.

To read more about CPT or make a donation in our name, go to www.cpt.org.

In Gratitude,

Michele and Nils

P.S. More stories about daily life in Colombia.

It was brought to our attention (thanks, Tony) that we omitted Flora and Fauna in our last update so here it is, along with a few other odds and ends.

Flora and Fauna: - With temperatures in the 80's to 100's all year around you can imagine that we enjoy beautiful flowering trees and plants all year as well, including the bougainvillea on our patio, and an amazing variety of heliconias. Colombia also has the most diversity of orchids in the world, with thousands of varieties. For the most spectacular tree we have seen, check out our Garzal photos from Christmas.

Our best fauna stories are already included in our Food section of the last email but we have met some animals we have not, yet, had the opportunity to eat. A favorite memory is when a falling monkey almost hit Nils. Nils was standing almost directly below a family of monkeys who were traveling in trees 70 feet tall. One particularly clumsy monkey hesitated and then leapt for a branch and missed, falling right towards Nils. Nils scrambled to get out of the way, but fortunately the monkey caught itself in a 15-foot tall cacao tree that was growing beneath the taller trees, and it quickly clambered back up to a higher perch. We're not sure who was more frightened, the monkey or Nils.

Other animals we have enjoyed are the mules that have transported us long distances to meetings. Sometimes this travel becomes quite treacherous due to roads covered in several feet of mud. One time Michele was on a two-hour mule trip with a teammate and the mule driver. Michele watched in surprise as the mule driver jumped off of his mule just as the mule lost its balance when one leg sunk into belly-deep mud. Thankfully, this lessened the surprise for Michele when her mule toppled over a few minutes later. Luckily, the soft mud that had caused the fall also created a nice pillow for Michele's leg that was now trapped under the mule. The mule driver reached Michele in record time, and with a few quick pushes the mule was back on its feet and Michele and her muddy pants got back up on the mule.

On our river trips we see hundreds of birds including egrets, herons, cormorants, ducks, and kingfishers, as well as a lot of birds we can't identify. When a birdwatcher, armed with her bird book joined our team she was thrilled to see dozens of birds she had never seen before, on her first trip on the river! Insects (the biting kind) were mentioned earlier in this letter, but Colombia also has an amazing variety of butterflies, and some really cool beetles.

We have also seen small crocodiles, iguanas as big as cats and twice as long, small lizards that can run across the surface of the water, and several small rodents that seem to not have names in English. When one teammate asked a farmer for the difference between a 'tiger', a 'lion' and a 'puma' (small wild cats that live in the region and are not the cats we know by this name), he responded, "A tiger is a tiger, and a lion is a lion, and a puma is a puma." We felt this summed it up pretty well.

Nils has added to his list of "strange foods" recently when he insisted on eating a guinea pig (cuy) for his birthday. It was so big that he was able to split it with a friend. Nils got the head since it was his birthday, and our friend got the butt. Michele took the tiniest bite possible that would still qualify for "I ate guinea pig".

"Mud" could have its own section. Like the time the roads were too muddy for a truck to provide transport and motorcycles were sent, in the rain, to collect Michele and a teammate. With a shrug and a "what can you do?" they put on their raincoats and each got on the back of a motorcycle. A short time later one of the motorcycles broke down and the trip ended with Michele, the teammate, the driver and a large back pack all on one motorcycle, in the pouring rain, arriving in town covered in mud and unrecognizable to people that knew us. Luckily, our driver shared our "what can you do?" attitude and when the rain picked up he chimed in saying, "Oh, nothing like a downpour to make everything fresher."

South America Log # 12

Dear Family and Friends and Assorted Peacemakers,

It took us a few months to notice the trend. Last September, the military arrested four leaders from a farmer's organization, and issued arrest warrants for 18 more of the organization's leaders. The leaders went into hiding, leaving the organization essentially dismantled. In January, armed men broke into the apartment of the director of a women's organization and threatened her life. She left Barrancabermeja for her own safety. In March the director of a local human rights organization moved his family to Bogotá for their safety. When we returned to Barranca in May, after 6 weeks of vacation in Minnesota, we learned that several development workers and priests from a rural area CPT accompanies had received written threats and had displaced from their communities.

As the media will report, and Colombian President Uribe and President Bush will boast, violence is down in Colombia. But, any human rights or development worker will tell you the threats continue, one by one, one by one. And, soon, numerous human rights workers are gone or threatened and the news media and global community hardly even noticed.

Sometimes the threat comes from the Colombian government itself. The government will arrest community leaders for "rebellion". Often the evidence is flimsy and the courts eventually release the person, but during their detention, the government has kept this person from organizing. Four of the leaders of the small farmers organization mentioned above were released after almost 6 months in prison when the government could not produce evidence against them. The leader of the small gold miners' organization was held for rebellion for over a week and then released for lack of evidence. An advocate for political prisoners was himself held for 18 months and then released before his trial date, again for lack of evidence.

When CPT first arrived in Barrancabermeja 7 years ago the physical violence of the conflict was evident. Our teammates attended funerals of people they had accompanied, they were present moments after people were killed, and they encountered dead bodies floating in the rivers where we frequently travel. Thankfully, it's been over a year since the physical violence of the conflict has touched our team that closely. The type of violence experienced by our partners has changed but the effects on human rights are not any less damaging.

So, the need for accompaniment continues in Barrancabermeja. This week Nils spent a day accompanying local elections in a nearby town where there are concerns that paramilitaries will intimidate people from voting. Michele spent 3 days with development workers who were leading a workshop on cooperative projects including buffalo and coffee.

Thank you to everyone who reads our writings, checks out our blog, takes action on an issue impacting Colombia, sends us an email, or donates to CPT in our name!

In hope,

Michele and Nils

You can read more about the tactics used against human rights workers in the Amnesty International report, Colombia: Fear and Intimidation: The dangers of human rights work.

To read about one aspect of economic oppression facing rural Colombians, Nils recently wrote a short essay on the likely impacts of the U.S. Free Trade Agreement with Colombia. Go to our blog (http://nilsandmichele.blogspot.com/) for a link to the article and to see photos of Barrancabermeja.

If you have read this far, you might be one of our friends who has asked to hear some more of the personal details of our life in Colombia. Here they are:

Spanish – Nils came to Colombia with a decent level of Spanish having spent one year of high school in Venezuela. I had taken lots of evening Spanish classes but felt stuck at the intermediate level. When I came to Colombia I had high hopes of becoming fluent. In our 18 months in Colombia, the work of CPT has taken precedence over Spanish learning and at times it has been more important to get the work done than to do the work in Spanish. Our co-workers are from Canada, the U.S. and Colombia and the Colombians want to practice English as much as I want to practice Spanish. So, some days meetings are in Spanish, some days in English. When we go out to visit communities, I almost always travel with a teammate with stronger Spanish than me.

With less than 4 months left here I have decided to spend some more focused time on Spanish learning. I will go to Medellín (about 8 hours away) in July for 3 weeks of language classes in the morning, volunteering at a school in the afternoon and living with a family. I hope the time of traveling on my own and relying on my Spanish will do a lot for my Spanish skills and my confidence in my Spanish.

Friends – It has been difficult to make friends here for several reasons. The culture in Barranca is very much centered on family, so time outside of work and on holidays is usually spent with family. People have said so many hellos and good-byes to CPTers that they often do not want to take the risk again to get close to one of us. We often feel the same way, having made friends again and again with other international accompaniers only to learn on our second or third meeting that they will be leaving Barranca. I (Michele) did make a friend about a year ago on an accompaniment. Gladis is a grade school teacher who has to learn English because her school is going bilingual. Gladis and I get together almost every week. I enjoy the time spent talking with her family, sharing a meal and practicing Spanish. When she pulls out her English textbooks I also get to review my irregular verbs and the difference between a past and present participle.

Free time – Barranca is an industrial, working class city of about 300,000 people that offers few cultural activities. We ride bikes, swim at a hotel pool, do laps at an Olympic sized pool, rent movies, go out for pizza, walk downtown for ice cream or a beer, play board games and go dancing if we can stay awake until 11pm when people start going out. Only once have we ventured out for a game of minitejo. It's similar to horseshoes except you throw a small metal disk or tejo across the court and if it lands in the center it will explode a small packet of gunpowder. When our group of foreigners finished playing, the court owner got a real laugh when he discovered we had only managed to finish one game in the 3 hours we were there.

Food – tropical fruits would best define the cuisine here, along with cassava, plantain, rice, meat or fish, and arepas (round, flat bread made from corn flour). The only tortillas are imported from the U.S. and food is never spicy. Fresh fruit juice of every variety is commonplace – we will miss the passion fruit juice the most! We were told once that you could eat a different fruit every day for a year in Colombia. We began to believe this when our 28-year-old Colombia housemate was asked the name of a fruit and he said he had never seen it before.

Strange foods – although we still both prefer to eat vegetarian food we quickly realized that would not be realistic here, especially when we travel in rural areas and much of the food is brought in from a long distance. We eat what is served to us. We have eaten turtle (not recommended), every internal organ of a cow (especially not recommended, intestines – they might look like pasta but do not be fooled!) and several large rodents (Nils thinks the ponche is good with coconut milk). We hope to travel to southern Colombia and Ecuador before we leave, which might mean trying guinea pig.

In turn, Colombians tell us that our strange (and detestable) foods include peanut butter, olives, pickles and cranberry juice.

Now, if you have read this far, you owe us an email, even a short one, to tell us what you are up to!!

South America Log - No. 11

March 8, 2008

Greetings friends and family,

Happy International Women's Day! After receiving numerous worried emails about the crisis between Colombia and its bordering countries we decided to write about that situation. Our team in Barrancabermeja is a long ways from all of Colombia's borders, so there has never been direct danger related to these tensions to CPTers or to our partners here.

As of yesterday, March 7, we are thankful to report that tensions between Colombia and Venezuela and Ecuador have eased due to diplomatic conversations at the 10^th annual Rio Summit of leaders of Latin American countries. The Rio Summit was scheduled prior to the events that sparked tensions between Colombia and its border nations. The agenda of the Rio Summit was quickly changed to focus on the crisis between these countries.

Here is a summary of events over the past week for those who have been trying to get a handle on the situation here:

On February 27, through negotiations facilitated by the government of Venezuela, there was another step forward in a peaceful end to the armed conflict when the guerrilla group the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) released four more of the approximately 700 hostages they have kidnapped and held for years. Three days later on March 1, Colombian governmental forces crossed into Ecuador and, through aerial bombardment and an on-ground military raid, killed a key FARC leader, 'Raúl Reyes', as well as twenty others identified in the press as FARC members. Some reports suggest this attack on a FARC base inside of Ecuador was aided by U.S. intelligence. According to Ecuadorian President Rafael Correa, at the time of his death Reyes was in negotiations with the Ecuadorian government regarding a further release of hostages.

On March 2 Ecuador and Venezuela withdrew their ambassadors from Colombia and both countries moved troops and tanks to their borders with Colombia. On March 6 Nicaragua also withdrew its ambassadors from Colombia. On March 7 at the Rio Summit the four countries reached a diplomatic agreement to this conflict.

We recommend Adam Isaacson's blog at the Center for International Policy www.cipcol.org for ongoing concise analysis of events in Colombia, and links to recommended news sources.

*******

In celebration of International Women's Day, the Women's Popular Organization (OFP) hung posters throughout Barrancabermeja opposing the armed conflict. They asked CPT if we would spend time at each of their community centers, as they were concerned about reprisals for the hanging of the posters. Yesterday we went out in pairs to eat lunch at the soup kitchens operated at each of the OFP's community centers. As Nils and I enjoyed our lunch of soup, rice and beans, salad, plantains and fresh lemonade, everyone in the dining room sat silently watching the television news. The media was announcing that the Colombian Army had killed 'Iván Ríos', another member of the FARC's seven-person secretariat or leadership council. The murder the week before of 'Raúl Reyes' was the first death of a FARC secretariat member in their almost 50-year existence.

As I listened to the news of 'Iván Ríos' death, I felt sad to realize that many people will hear the news of the death of two FARC leaders as proof that a military solution to the armed conflict is working. Thankfully, there are also many people who believe non-violent responses and a negotiated solution to the armed conflict is not only possible but necessary. Near our lunch table at the soup kitchen was one of the posters created in celebration of International Women's Day with the slogan, "We do not want a peace that oppresses or a war that kills." The killing of the FARC leaders by the Colombian Army is certainly, "the peace that oppresses." The hanging of these posters is just one of the many courageous acts of resistance to this war that we witness every day.

International Women's Day will be a more somber one for the OFP this year as it will be the first celebration they have held in 30 years without their President, Yolanda Becerra, in attendance. Ms. Becerra was assaulted in her home the night of November 4, 2007 and members of her family have been harassed and threatened. Ms. Becerra has left the city but the women of OFP are as determined as ever to work for women's rights.

In other news, Michele recently returned to Garzal, the community where we spent Christmas. We are organizing a delegation of 11 Colombians to visit Garzal next week to see first hand their struggle for land titles.

Nils recently spent 4 days with the mining community in meetings to hold the Colombian government accountable to agreements they made after the Army killed mining leader, Alejandro Uribe in September 2006.

We also enjoyed two weeks at the Caribbean Coast in February, where highlights included a visit to where the desert meets the ocean in the northernmost tip of Colombia and a morning spent scuba diving. You can see photos of our vacation below in this blog.

We will be back in Minnesota from March 26 to May 6. Then we will return to Colombia where we plan to stay until September 2008.

In Peace,

Michele and Nils

To learn more about the work of CPT or to make a donation in our names please visit www.cpt.org

CPT 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.

South America Log - No. 10

Dear Friends and Family,

We are back from our trip to Garzal where we enjoyed experiencing a rural Christmas. Click the picture below to see some of our photos from the trip:

Garzal

We were relieved that it was a quiet week given the communities concerns about increased violence during the holidays. Since we have only recently started working with this community, we spent much of our time visiting families to introduce ourselves and CPT, and to learn a little about their life and experiences.

We found many of the Christmas traditions to be familiar. Families were enjoying out of town guests. A common meal was prepared and shared by many families before going to Christmas Eve church services. Some families gave small gifts to their children. We enjoyed special foods that are usually only prepared at Christmas, including tamales and a spice cake baked over a wood fire. And, some in the community celebrated with drinking beer all through the night and into the next day.

A memorable part of our stay in Garzal was the Christmas Eve vigil at a small evangelical church in the community. (The pastor’s family was our main host for the week so our decision about whether to spend Christmas Eve with the church-goers or beer drinkers was clear.) The pastor, perhaps running short on music to keep the 4-hour vigil going until midnight asked us if we would sing a song. We agreed and sang ‘Joy to the World’ and ‘Silent Night’, explaining that in many churches in the US on Christmas Eve, the lights are extinguished and Silent Night is sung by candlelight. The pastor decided to end their vigil in the same way, so they passed out candles, turned off the generator, and we all sang ‘Noche de Paz’ at midnight. It made us both a little teary to enjoy a tradition from home and to think of many of you singing the same song that night.

We also enjoyed swimming in the Magdalena River, which is the color of chocolate milk, with our host’s family. And, on our last night with the family, we sat around joking and singing before going to bed. They asked us to sing for them and said they would sing for us in return. We sang Jingle Bells and then taught them the chorus. Several people caught on quite quickly while some of the grandchildren got the tune but used the typical “shwah, shwah” sounds to imitate the English words. I imagine we will still be hearing the grandchildren sing “Jingle shwah, Jingle shwah, Jingle shwah, shwah, shwah” to the tune of Jingle Bells when we return to their home.

While this Christmas was free from violence for the people of Garzal, our many conversations with families reminded us that the threats they are facing continue to be very real. Although many have farmed the land for 40 years, they are in the midst of a 6-year-long struggle to gain titles to their land, titles they have a right to under Colombian law. In the past few months the struggle has intensified with increased pressure from illegal armed groups for the families to abandon their farms. Fortunately, more human rights workers and a lawyer have joined with the community to work on their behalf. As we listened to the worry of so many farmers about the possibility of losing their land and their livelihood we were reminded of the words of a Colombian mother we met on our first visit to Colombia. She described peace as “going to bed at night with a roof over your head, food for your family, and freedom from fear”. We pray that 2008 will be the year the families of Garzal receive the titles to their land, and we all can rejoice with them in being just a little closer to Peace on Earth.

May you and your community have a roof over your head, food for your family and freedom from fear in 2008.

In Peace,

Michele and Nils

Bonus Christmas Song -

People who live in rural communities have access to an abundance of fresh food and are happy to share, but by the end of our time we were beginning to feel like we were in a food-themed ‘Twelve Days of Christmas’, which inspired the following:

Seven Days of Christmas in Garzal:

On the seventh day in Garzal, a neighbor gave to me

Seven cups of coffee

Six coconuts

Five kilos of oranges

Four cups of tamarind pulp

Three sour guavas

Two ripe bananas

And a chicken tamale wrapped in banana leaves!

CPT 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 or make a donation at www.cpt.org.

South America Log - No. 9

December 19, 2007

Dear Family and Friends:

The season of Advent is one of anticipation, as we look forward to celebrations together with family, and think about our hopes for the coming New Year. This year in Barrancabermeja we also wait in anticipation, or perhaps trepidation, for news from the community of Garzal. This pastoral farming community along the banks of the Magdalena River is named for the many herons and egrets (“garzas” in Spanish) that populate the riverbanks. There’s no electricity or running water in Garzal, but there’s a strong sense of community among the 136 families that live there; many of them have farmed this same land for 40 years.

The peaceful life of the families in Garzal is under threat. The community has been engaged in a decade-long bureaucratic process to register the titles to their land; they are legally entitled to the land under Colombian law due to their long residence. In recent years, members of the illegal paramilitaries have tried to take control of the land for drug trafficking or cattle-ranching. Most recently they have threatened to evict the community or make them sign over their land titles, by armed force if necessary. The community is particularly worried about the holiday season; they feel more alone over the Christmas and New Year's holiday when many government and human rights offices will be on vacation, allowing the illegal armed groups to move through their communities with few repercussions.

Michele and our teammate Rachel recently spent two days with the residents of Garzal as they met with Colombian government, United Nations and human rights organizations to develop a plan to fight for their land rights and to ask the government to fulfill their obligation to prevent displacement. As one leader of the community stated, “A farmer without land is like a fish without water.”

Displacement is not a new problem in Colombia or in the world. Displacement has been going on for decades in the area surrounding Barrancabermeja, and a recent report by the government Human Rights Defender's office indicates that displacement in the region has increased by 89% in the last year.

2000 years ago, after Jesus’ birth, instead of returning home, Mary and Joseph were forced to flee to Egypt with their newborn son:

When they had gone, an angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream. "Get up," he said, "take the child and his mother and escape to Egypt. Stay there until I tell you, for Herod is going to search for the child to kill him." So he got up, took the child and his mother during the night and left for Egypt. (Matthew 2: 13-14)

Joseph, Mary and Jesus knew what it was like to live as displaced people, fleeing violence and leaving behind their family, friends, jobs and possessions in order to start a new life in a strange place that, hopefully, would offer safety. This experience of being displaced by violence is one shared by more than three million Colombians. Our hope is that the families of Garzal can avoid this fate and continue to farm the land they have peacefully lived on for generations.

This Christmas the two of us will experience a glimpse of the rural lifestyle that the families of Garzal are fighting for. In a few days, we will load up our backpacks and travel three hours by boat to Garzal to spend a week with the community. Unfortunately, we won't be able to call or respond to e-mails in the days around Christmas, although we will be in daily cell phone contact with our teammates. However, we are always glad when we get the opportunity to work together, and by the warm reception we've received in the past in Garzal, we are confident that spending Christmas with the families there will be a rich experience.

This Advent season please keep the people of Garzal in your prayers as they attempt to hold on to their homes and livelihood. And, may we all find small ways to build peace in our homes, communities and the world in the coming year.

Love and Peace,

Nils and Michele

P.S. We’ve put some more photos up on our blog – dancing salsa with our teammates, as well as pictures from our vacation to San Gil in November. Check them out at http://nilsandmichele.blogspot.com/

South America Log - No. 8

Greetings Friends and Family,

After spending two months on vacation and giving presentations about Colombia in Minneapolis, we are writing once again from Barrancabermeja, Colombia. We returned to Barrancabermeja in September and we are excited to be spending another year here working with Christian Peacemaker Teams. (Your memory does serve you correctly if you thought we would only be here another 6 months – we made the decision over the summer to return for another year.)

We arrived to the news that the Colombian Army had begun a campaign of forced recruitment of young men to serve in the Army. Men are required to serve one year in the armed services unless they meet various conditions including being a student or caring for elderly parents. Legally, the Colombian Army can notify a young man that he is not in compliance with the law and order him to appear for his service. Instead, the Army has been driving around neighborhoods in a truck conducting sweeps, stopping every young man in sight and hauling him into the army base if he is not carrying a card verifying his military service.

One afternoon our teammate Pierre was walking when he saw two soldiers pointing at a young man on the sidewalk saying, "get that one there.". Coincidentally, Pierre knew the man, "Rafael", who is the 24-year-old leader of the local conscientious objector movement. Before being taken away, Rafael gave his cell phone number to Pierre and Pierre kept in contact with Rafael while he was detained. Rafael and the men detained with him were some of the lucky ones hauled off the street that day. As a conscientious objector, Rafael knows his rights regarding military service and he educated the other young men who were being detained with him. The Army realized they were worse off with Rafael in their detention area and they let him go the same day. But not before he had educated the other men that they had the right to refuse to sign any paperwork that day. The Army was unable to forcibly recruit anyone in Rafael's group.

A few days later Pierre and Michele met with the sergeant in charge of recruitment to express concerns about men being held, sometimes for days, without notification of their families and without the ability to fulfill work and family obligations. The sergeant admitted, "yes, it is irregular”, which is the official way to acknowledge that a practice violates their own standards without calling it “illegal” which would allow for action against them.

A recent CPT delegation from North America decided to design a public action to educate youth in Barranca about their rights regarding military service. The delegates constructed a large cardboard Army truck and painted it with the words, "NO to recruitment for the war, YES to recruitment for life."

The delegation and their Army truck walked through downtown Barranca passing out pamphlets notifying people of their rights under the recruitment laws. When they stopped in front of the Army battalion they enacted a scene of a person being forcibly recruited who then breaks away from the military to join a joyous celebration of life. Needless to say, this activity brought many soldiers out to the gate and the Commander watched for a few minutes before sending a soldier to get a video camera.

Rafael was with us that day and turned his head at first to avoid being filmed but then resumed his participation with his usual resolve to act on his convictions despite the potential consequences. For Rafael, who is an openly gay, conscientious objector in a city where paramilitaries regularly practice social cleansing by killing anyone they decide does not fit their ideal citizen, Rafael's every move is one of resolve. Instead of hiding in fear after the paramilitaries recently published a death list of young people involved in social movements, Rafael's participation in our recent public action conveys his unwavering determination.

When we gathered after the public action to share our thoughts and feelings about the day's activities Rafael was part of our circle. He tearfully talked about his need to continue to work for peace in honor of his many friends who have been killed in this 40 year old conflict. When we expressed concern that Rafael may be at greater risk now that the Army videotaped him, he told us not to worry and said, "when we do things from our heart then good things will come from them."

There is a saying here, "It is better to live in fear than to stop living because of fear." Every day Rafael and all Colombian peacemakers courageously choose to live and we are so honored to be able to continue for another year to share in peacemaking with them.

In Peace,

Michele and Nils

P.S. Four times per year delegations come to Colombia from North America to spend two weeks learning about the history and politics of Colombia, getting to know numerous human rights and peace organizations and visiting one of the rural areas where CPT works. To learn about future delegations go to www.cpt.org and click on “Delegations” on the left side of the page. We would love to host you and show you our work!

South America Log - No. 7

Dear friends and family,

We are just finishing up a 10 day trip visiting the Peace Sanctuary Churches we got to know when we first visited Colombia with a delegation in February 2006. The pastors of all 3 churches have also been guests in our home in Minneapolis so it's been a real blessing to get to connect again. Who could have guessed all the turns our life would take since that trip just 16 months ago.

We arrived in the first peace community after spending 13 hours traveling by bus from Barrancabermeja. Our hosts wanted us to visit one of their new development projects. We went by bicycle taxi to a small farm on the edge of town where several families are collectively raising chickens. We sat talking with a small group under a thatched roof porch as we waited for our lunch to finishing cooking over a small fire.

The talk made the usual twists and turns from weather and farming to politics, and specifically, US foreign policy in Colombia. Just two days earlier in the US House of Representatives, the foreign aid appropriations subcommittee had proposed a new approach to Bush's Plan Colombia by requesting a decrease in military aid to Colombia and an increase in development spending. The increased development aid will help the victims of the conflict, strengthen the judicial system, invest in rural development, and help farmers turn away from growing coca, the raw material for cocaine. We were surprised to discover that these small farmers in rural Colombia had already heard this news about a possible change in funding and they were feeling very encouraged.

This was the first of many similar conversations as we continued our trip. And, each time, the Colombians already knew of the proposed changes to Plan Colombia. Just maybe, we told each other, the advocacy we have been doing together is working.

These peace churches know the realities of the armed conflict in Colombia. One congregation was started by hundreds of families who were forced to flee their farms after the violence towards them became too great. Each church has members who have been disappeared or killed. The pastors themselves have been threatened. Just last year one of our hosts received a series of phone calls from an armed group demanding money and threatening him and his young family. His church responded with a round-the-clock vigil at his house until the threats subsided. In the midst of these realities these churches have resolutely proclaimed themselves peace sanctuaries and rejected any use of violence to end the conflict. Instead they have promoted economic development for their communities, alternatives to military service, and negotiated solutions in an effort to end the conflict.

After we said good-bye to one of our hosts we drove out of their town of 12,000 people in a taxi. Five army tanks and 15 soldiers lined the road. How, we wondered, will these tanks bring peace to this small farming community?

These conversations are a stark reminder of the direct impact that decisions made in Washington, DC are having on the people of Colombia, and the ongoing need to bring their stories back to the United States.

We are buoyed by the news from Washington that Plan Colombia may be facing significant changes. Still, there is much more work to do. A Free Trade Agreement with Colombia is still up for debate and all of our Colombian associates suggest that while this agreement will benefit the large landowners and big business of the US and Colombia, it will further worsen the economic crisis facing the majority of poor Colombians. This economic crisis fuels the conflict as young men join the illegal armed groups for lack of other economic opportunities, and farmers grow coca because the prices they receive for other crops won't support their families. Also, while positive changes to Plan Colombia have been proposed in the House, there is still a lot of work to do before the proposal becomes law. The full House is expected to vote on the foreign aid bill some time next week, so your calls to congress are needed. Visit http://www.lawg.org/countries/colombia/alert_06-07-07.htm for more information on how to call your congressperson and what to say.

Within our team in Barrancabermeja we still have much to learn and, we hope, more to contribute. For this, and so many reasons, we have decided to return to Colombia for another 6 months after spending the summer in Minneapolis. The most difficult part of this decision will be living far from friends and family for 6 more months, but it's the very support and encouragement we have received from so many of you that make it possible to return to Colombia.

We hope to see many of you this summer in Minneapolis. We also hope to arrange some presentations so please let us know if you have a group that is interested. After July 11 we can be reached at Michele's parents at 651-633-4451. The month of August we expect to be back at our house with our former phone number, 612-822-6653.

Finally, we have a house to rent! If you know anyone who needs a short-term (probably September through March), furnished rental in Minneapolis, please pass on our email addresses to them.

In Peace,
Michele and Nils

South America Log - No. 6

Greetings Friends and Family:

First, the good news: In our last newsletter we spoke about the disappearance of Katherine Gonzalez Torres. We rejoice that Katherine has been returned to her family, physically unhurt.

The other good news is that we leave in a few hours for a two-week vacation in Chile. Our friend and neighbor in Minneapolis, Lisa, has been on a sabbatical this past year with her partner's family in southern Chile. We are looking forward to seeing friends, exploring the ocean and mountains and drinking red wine.

Earlier this month we went together on an 11 day accompaniment to a small town called Mina Caribe in the Sur de Bolivar mining zone. To get to Mina Caribe, we took a bus for three hours, then a taxi, then traveled an hour by boat, then another taxi, then two hours by four-wheel-drive truck, and finally three more hours by mule. We accompanied a five-day leadership training school put on by the Sur de Bolivar Agro-Miners Federation, and then we stayed on in Mina Caribe for the Federation's General Assembly, which was attended by 100 miners and farmers representing 24 local associations. Participants were welcomed to the Assembly by a banner proclaiming, "Welcome Agro-mining Communities in Resistance." Unfortunately, just meeting for this lawful assembly became an act of resistance.

As the first miners began to gather for the assembly, 7 soldiers and their sergeant walked into town. The presence of the Army immediately increased the tension in the community. The Military has had an ongoing presence in the area for only the last year, so they know very little about the communities, and are suspicious of almost everyone. Detentions of community members are common and last September Alejandro Uribe, a mining federation leader, was killed by members of the Nueva Grenada battalion, the same battalion that was now occupying the town square. Community leaders fear that the army's harassment is part of a larger government strategy to remove them from their land so that foreign mining companies can take over the gold mining in the
region.

The Government Human Rights Ombudswoman had already arrived, anticipating interference by the military. The Ombudswoman and Michele and I introduced ourselves to the Sergeant and reminded him that military presence in civilian spaces is in direct violation to the Geneva Convention. The Sergeant defended his role there, saying his troops needed to protect the people. He repeatedly asked for the names of the event leadership. The Ombudswoman left to telephone the battalion's commanding officer to ask for the soldiers to be recalled.

One of the men with the Sergeant was a former resident of the town who was forced to move after being caught stealing. He is a civilian but he was dressed in an army uniform and carried a weapon that appeared to be a grenade launcher. He began to point out various members of the town, possibly to mark them as guerrilla supporters. Townspeople gathered around to denounce the use of the informant, calling him "the robber" and questioning his reliability.

Two hours after the soldiers arrived, several leaders assembled the community and asked us and other organizations accompanying the assembly to meet with the Sergeant and ask him to remove the informant from town. When the sergeant was called into the town square, he reported that in response to our phone calls his superiors had recalled his unit, and he angrily accused the residents of working behind his back. The Ombudswoman said she had requested his removal and that the Federation is a legally recognized organization holding legally sanctioned events. Several community members spoke up in protest of the use of the informant. Before the Sergeant left with his soldiers he took Michele and my names and identification numbers, as well as those of the other national and international accompaniers.

Shortly after the soldiers left, the miners began their Assembly, refusing to be deterred in their mission "For the right to a dignified life and permanence on the land."

Most of our time in Mina Caribe was quiet an uneventful, and I found myself feeling unnecessary. I found myself thinking "I wish I could be doing something more helpful." Then suddenly the military showed up, we were suddenly working at full-speed, and I found myself thinking, "I wish our help wasn't needed."

Given our experiences with human rights abuses by the Colombian military we were dismayed recently when Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice certified that Colombia had met the Human Rights criteria required for the release of $55 million in U.S. military aid. We were grateful when, a few days later, Senator Patrick Leahy, the chair of the Foreign Operations subcommittee of the Senate Appropriations Committee, put a hold on the aid until the Senate could conduct its own Human Rights investigation. As we witness intimidation of community leaders by the military we are aware that as U.S. citizens we bear the responsibility for some of this problem since our government continues to fund the Colombian military at an alarming rate. In total, U.S. aid to Colombia was more than $700 million this year, over 80% of which goes to Colombian security forces. We are hopeful that ongoing pressure by human rights organizations and the organizing being done by CPT and other groups will continue to lead to
positive change in U.S. foreign policy towards Colombia. As we have been told many times by our Colombian partners, "more war will not give us less war."

Our friends often apologize in their e-mails, saying their lives sound boring in comparison to our monthly logs, but when they do write, their messages always fill me with hope: life continues on, people struggle with large and petty things, they play with their kids, they're sad and they're happy, they are OK. If my faith is what helps me do this work, more than anything it's my faith that life continues on like this.

Peace and Be Well,
Nils and Michele


P.S. Most of this log comes from an article we wrote for CPTnet. You can view both articles we wrote about our trip to Mina Caribe on our blog http://nilsandmichele.blogspot.com and see photos. If you are interested in receiving short articles from the Colombia team (about 8 per month) you can sign up at cpt.org or send us an e-mail and we will add you to the Colombia team yahoo group.


CPT 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. 5

Greetings Friends and Family,

In the beginning of February we returned to Merida, Venezuela for a week of vacation with Nils host family from when he was a high school exchange student. In Merida, we enjoyed the cooler climate, hiking in the Andes with Nils host father, cooking with his host mother and playing with our Venezuelan nephews. Back in Barranca we are preparing to leave tomorrow for a 10-day accompaniment with small gold miners who are struggling to maintain their livelihood in the face of increasing multinational interest in their land.

We once heard Colombia described as holding a candle as the wax drips: beautiful and painful at the same moment. Living in Colombia these past 5 months it is easy to name many beautiful experiences: being welcomed into people’s homes, hiking to small villages in the mountains, swimming in an isolated and immense waterfall, traveling in an 80-person canoe through a jungle river, and working with Colombians who remain committed to the struggle for peace despite the violence around them. We also often feel the pain of those around us being burned by the candle’s wax.

Last week a boat driver got up in the morning to work on his small motorboat, ferrying people and goods across the Magdalena River. A few hours later the boat driver was killed in crossfire between the Colombian Army and an illegal paramilitary group.

Nils, another CPTer, and the Human Rights Ombudswoman were traveling on the river that morning to accompany a meeting of small farmers who are being forced from their land by the large palm tree plantations that are moving into the region. The Ombudswoman received a call to say that 4 people were dead in the nearby port town. Nils and his companions returned to the port town where they learned that an armed group of paramilitary members had come into town and forced two boat drivers to take them down the river in their boat. They let one of the drivers go, but the other one was forced to continue with them until they were intercepted by an Army patrol. A firefight broke out and the boat driver was killed, along with three paramilitary members. The civilian boat driver had little choice about transporting the armed paramilitaries, but he paid for their presence in his boat with his life.

In previous logs we have mentioned a powerful women’s organization that has been fighting for peace and justice in Barrancabermeja for 30 years. Members of the organization often receive death threats. Between 2002 and 2006 three staff members were assassinated. Now, the sister of one of the organization’s leaders has disappeared. On February 13, Katherine Gonzalez Torres, 20 years of age, left for work and she has not been heard from since. Her family joins the over 15,000 families in Colombia that have grieved a disappeared family member in the past 35 years. Only about 1,500 of the victims have reappeared alive.

With 4 of our teammates we joined hundreds of others at a vigil to call attention to Katherine’s disappearance. The street was blocked and people in cars, buses and motorcycles were forced to pause and consider the disappearance of Katherine.

"Today our womb hurts because we give life and today they are taking life away from us" was the phrase tirelessly repeated by leaders of the prayer vigil. "Today our womb hurts because one of our daughters is not here with us. The mother, who dedicated twenty years to raise this seed (her daughter) and make of her a woman, is missing her. Those that took her were also born from a woman's womb"

"We do not want the guerrillas or the paramilitaries, we are against the war. We don't give birth to or raise our sons and daughters for war", the leaders chanted loudly. A truck full of soldiers appeared from a side street and tried to drive through the demonstration. The solders were forced to turn around by women who stood firm in front of the truck.

As vigilers lit candles, Sister Marina prayed, "The light that we are lighting will not be extinguished. It's our job to keep it lit.”

Peace and light,

Michele and Nils

P.S. Most of the greetings we receive from home include a weather report. Here is ours. After a week of 102 degrees in the day and 82 degrees at night the forecast shows a break in the weather in a few days: 96 in the day and 78 at night! We seem to have traded a climate where the standard greeting begins, “It’s cold!” for one where conversations begin with, “It’s hot!”

P.P.S. We have convenient and fast e-mail access in the CPT office (it’s also the only air-conditioned room in the house) so please do not hesitate to write back. We love receiving news from home.

CPT 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. 4

Dear friends and family,

Seasons greetings from Nils and Michele!  We hope
that you have passed a peaceful and joy-filled
holiday season.  As many people celebrate the birth
of the Prince of Peace, we pray for peace in areas
where there is violence around the world, whether
it is Minneapolis, Palestine, the Congo, Iraq, or
here in Colombia.

December was a busy month for us.  Nils and a
teammate spent almost 4 weeks in Nariño province
learning more about the Awá indigenous people and
preparing for a CPT accompaniment there.  We
learned about the Awá history and culture, and
the threats facing their communities.  We visited
a traditional Awá village, which is accessible
by hiking for 8 hours on trails through a
mountainous rainforest.  We had fun getting to
know the kids of the community, who watched us
attentively for hours from the front door of the
house where we stayed.  Some of the children spoke
only Awapit, so we had to communicate through
smiles and gestures.

The Awá are facing serious threats from the
armed conflict, since it is one of the target
areas for Plan Patriota, the U.S. funded military
strategy aimed at rooting out Colombia's guerrilla
armies.  Living in Colombia, one becomes accustomed
to seeing police officers and soldiers carrying
M-16 rifles patrolling commercial districts,
traveling the city streets, and standing at
military control points alongside many roads.
Despite feeling accustomed to seeing the military,
in Nariño I couldn't help but feel overwhelmed by
their presence.  Tanks and armored personnel
carriers lined the sides of the highway in places,
or filled city streets.  The soldiers were rarely
seen far from their armored vehicles. Military
checkpoints in Nariño are a serious affair.
Traveling the main highway, you can be assured that
you will be stopped, probably more than once, to
show your ID, get patted down, and have your
vehicle searched. Combat between the army and the
guerillas has forced many Awá to flee their homes.

The other threat to the Awá way of life is big
development projects.  The Awá have organized
themselves into 37 reservations, many of which are
recognized by the government, but some of which are
still in the process of certification.  Recently
the Colombian administration refused to re-affirm
a UN treaty recognizing the rights of indigenous
people, and in other ways the government has
signaled that they will not grant another acre to
indigenous communities. Instead, the administration
would like to open indigenous land up for mineral
exploration, commercial oil-palm plantations, and
hydroelectric projects, all in the name of "free
trade".

Meanwhile, Michele traveled to the Sur de Bolivar
(the southern part of Bolivar province) where she
met with small farmers whose crops had been damaged
and their health put at risk by the U.S. funded
aerial fumigation of coca crops.  In many cases
the fumigations missed coca crops, and instead
killed food crops, drifted over people's homes, and
contaminated water supplies.  Some farmers in the
area do grow small plots of coca, which is one of
the only crops that pays for itself given the
transportation costs required to get crops to
distant markets over bad roads.  However, the
fumigation programs have not been effective in
reducing the coca production of Colombia, and they
are driving many people off their land as their
legitimate food crops are wiped out.

In the days before Christmas, Michele and a
teammate accompanied people who live in a river
community near Barrancabermeja. There was time
to visit with families we have come to know over
the last few months, play with the new babies,
and help with preparing the traditional Christmas
custard or 'natilla'.  On December 24th a family
invited Michele and Erin to share their Christmas
dinner.  Michele and Erin also had the opportunity
to talk to an army battalion that had coerced two
young men to ferry them across the river in their
boat, in violation of International Humanitarian
Law.  Michele and Erin talked to the soldiers about
their responsibilities under the law, and got them
to agree to let the young men go home.  Their
parents were very relieved to see them return
safely.

We spent Christmas in Barrancabermeja with a few of
our teammates.  The holidays in Colombia can be a
time of increased threat for communities at risk,
so it was important for us to be available in case
an emergency accompaniment request came in.
Fortunately, everything was quiet here.  We had
lunch with teammates and then practiced a few
Christmas Carols in Spanish and visited our
neighbors. Our singing was warmly received and
several people remarked that they had seen
Christmas caroling in movies but had never
experienced it.

Peace be with you,
Nils and Michele

CPT MISSION STATEMENT: Christian Peacemaker Teams
(CPT) Coloimbia 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. 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.