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.

Mining Zone Accompaniment

In March, Michele and I spent 11 days accompanying the Agro-miners Federation as they held their leadership school and annual assembly in Mina Caribe. Click on the picture below to see an album of photos from that trip.

Accompanying the miner's federation

We also wrote a two articles about our time accompanying the Mining Federation for the CPT e-mail list. To read these articles, click here for part 1 and here for part 2.

You can also visit our Yahoo Groups website to read more articles written by our CPT team, or to sign up to receive regular (about twice weekly) updates on our work.

Opon river accompaniments

The last month we have each made several trips to the Opon river, where we accompany several communities that were displaced by violence and have now returned. CPT has accompanied these communities since 2001. Our accompaniment, along with the organizing the communities themselves have done, gives them the security to remain on their land.

Click on the album to see a bunch of photos we took over various trips.

Opon trips - March & April

Mining Delegation

Michele recently helped to coordinate a delegation of North Americans who spent 12 days learning about the issues impacting small gold miners. Michele's mom was one of the delegates. The delegation travelled by boat, truck and foot to get to a remote mining area. After 5 days of listening to miners the delegates returned to Bogota where they planned a public witness to bring attention to the issues facing the miners.

Mining Delegation

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. 

Team photo

Here's the CPT Colombia team, as of February 20, 2007
Back row: Pierre, Noah, Jenny, Stuart, Michele, Sandra, and Julián
Front row: Suzanna, Nils and Joel

Our life here

Here are some photos of our everyday life here in Barrancabermeja:

Our life in Barrancabermeja