Yesterday, September 29, we were supposed to meet with a young man who was demobilized from one of the armed guerrilla groups here in Colombia called the FARC. He had turned in his weapons, left his life of violence, and committed himself to re-enter civil society. He moved to a small farm outside of Bogota with his wife and child where they felt relatively safe. But some members of the paramilitaries, who had infiltrated part of the government and obtained information about demobilized persons, identified him as an ex-FARC member and said that if he wanted to stay on the farm, he would have to work for them. So he and his wife fled the farm one night to come back to Bogota, leaving their 13 yr old son behind with an old neighbor couple as they did not have enough money to bring them with him. This was two weeks ago. Now it is hard to say where the young man is. He has been missing for 4 days. One week ago, our contact spoke with him and his wife and they said they were very concerned for their safety. And now their fears have come true. He is gone and it is hard to say, or even guess, as to his whereabouts. Yesterday our contact went to where the wife was staying to bring her some food, and she did not show up either. The paramilitary mentality is often that once a guerrilla, always a guerrilla, even after demobilization. So, demobilized persons are targeted and terrorized, even though they are trying to turn to lives of nonviolence. All we and our contact can do is wait to hear some news, some bit of information. Wait and hope.
In the process of looking for peace here in Colombia, the government has given the option for those bearing arms to lay them down and reincorporate them into civil society. But, laws concerning demobilization unfairly favor rightist paramilitary groups, often ignoring those in leftist guerrilla groups who lay down their weapons. Paramilitaries who demobilize are promised housing, health benefits, food, education, and technical training to prepare them for a civilian job. Sometimes, the land that is given is land that those paramilitaries had stolen or received through forced displacement of campesinos. And the biggest thing is that they receive immunity and can only get a jail sentence of up to 8 years no matter how grievous their past crimes have been! Yet at times their demobilization is just a front and they go on terrorizing and killing. Plus, some leaders of the paramilitaries are drug lords who have bought their position in the paramilitary forces to gain the benefits of demobilization, especially immunity. The drug lords have been involved in grave crimes that may have involved many death sentences had they been prosecuted and often they would have been extradited to the U.S. But with the immunity, they go unpunished.
Needless to say, it was quite a heavy morning.
And then, we flew to Barrancabermeja, where the CPT team is based. It is one of the most militarized cities per capita but continues to be one of the most heavily controlled by illegal armed groups, at times by the paramilitary, at other times by the guerrilla. It has the highest budget per capita, but no government funded hospitals and the public schools are poorly funded. There is widespread poverty here, with little indication that the government cares at all. But what they do care about is allowing transnational corporations to come in and profit off of the huge oil reserve located in the city. Plus, illegal armed groups, both paramilitaries and guerrillas, siphon off this oil and use it to process coca into cocaine in order to fund their war, which is basically directed at campesinos to gain more land and more resources.
Hence, it is no surprise that human rights are often violated in this region. The love of money will make humans do absolutely horrendous things. And when those things are at risk of being exposed, the next task is to shut up those who are bringing to light what you are doing.
When we arrived in Barranca, we received news that ACVC, the Farmer´s Association of Cimitarra River Valley, was being raided. Not by paramilitaries, not by guerrillas, but by the government. This group works to defend the rights of farmers against all armed groups, illegal and legal. Since the government sometimes works in conjunction with the paramilitaries to gain land to encourage transnational investment, it was only natural that they would target a group that was standing in its way. The main concern last night was that people would not only be arrested, but disappeared. So we waited and hoped again. This time, our waiting ended and our hopes, at least partially, fulfilled when we received a call that a number of people were arrested but all were accounted for. At least no one had been disappeared.
At the end of the day, the heaviness still weighed. It’s hard to know what to think or say when confronted so intimately with the realities of violence and war and greed. Still, our delegation is energized. Seeing the empowerment of communities and organizations in this region has in turn empowered us. While we are coming to understand more about the tragedies and violations of human rights in Colombia, we are also being taken by the hope that surrounds us. It is contagious. May everyone who reads and hears of the stories of the Colombian people, both their plight and their struggle against injustice, be empowered as well, catching the infectious spirit of hope.
