Conflict, Coincidence & Inspiration

Greetings all, and sorry for the delay in posting! As you will see, things have been hectic, and I am grateful to be back in Bogotá, where, with the visit of our Co-director Susana Pimiento, I am feeling a new sense of purpose and direction for the work here, and am excited to kick off new work with the amazing groups we accompany. I am sad that co-worker Gilbero departs today, but excited to welcome new volunteers Camila and Mayra!

Living in the midst of conflict
Well, here it is: the scary blog from Colombia detailing how I came close to conflict, survived, and accompanied those who were in danger. I ask disculpes, or pardons, if this seems sensationalist...but the truth is, this is all totally new to me.

So, it was a scary final week or so in the community for me. Things had been relatively quiet for the last five months or so, meaning very few armed actors (including military, guerrillas, and paramilitaries) had been seen in the “zone,” or the area near La Unión, one of the villages of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó. That started to change during the military retén, or checkpoint, that I talked about a couple blogs ago.

A couple days after this retén, AJ & I were enjoying a lovely day in town (Apartadó), eating ice cream, interneting, and having a long night talking with PBI volunteers who also accompany the leaders of the displacement community of San Josesito, which displaced in 2005 after the government set up a police post in their “home town,” about twenty minutes up the road from where they are now. In our lazy, hazy enjoyment of some dairy and air conditioning, our phone rang and the Co-director of our program, John Lindsay-Poland was calling to tell us there had been combat in the zone. We have strict security protocols which dictate that we don’t communicate sensitive information over the phone, since we are pretty sure they're tapped, especially when it could give away to one armed actor or another where the other is (thus, perhaps, provoking more conflict), so John couldn’t tell us where the combat was, who it involved, or how serious it was. AJ & I, of course, worried that it could be in La Unión. That our friends had been hurt. That if we had been there, instead of interneting and indulging, things maybe would have been different...

This guilty line of thinking was, in retrospect, clearly irrational: we had to go to town to get supplies, we had to pay the electric bills (and, while we were down there, the electric bills of most people in the community, who would have lost a day of work on the 6-hour journey to pay a $2 bill), and we needed to make the two-hour journey down the mountain to meet with PBI. But there really was guilt – we are supposed to be accompanying the community, and here we were, getting a call from John in San Francisco (who had gotten a call from Colombia) telling us to get back home to be with those that we are there to accompany in the time of conflict.

Since John’s only instructions were to get back home, we did the Colombian version of
high-tailing it back to the community...which meant getting to the chiva, or jeep stand, right after an earlier one had already left, and waiting for over two hours for the next one to fill up with the remaining 8 people. After a top-of-the-chiva ride (we got to sit on really comfy rice bags) we arrived in San Josesito at dusk, and learned that the combat had been about an hour’s walk outside the peace community, in what is called a humanitarian zone. In the humanitarian zones, small groups of residents are trying to band together and designate a safe, home base that civilians can go to in case of conflict, that has a phone, and whose neutrality armed actors would respect. In this case, the designated safe space was a school. As it happens, the combat was right near the school – but thankfully there were no students there at the time, and no civilian was injured. Obviously, the idea that this should be a safe space still has a ways to go.

That evening, we decided against walking up the mountain to La Unión when there had been combat nearby, for obvious reasons. Walking up the next morning, people seemed tranquilo. They have heard combat before, it has been closer, and it was time to work. Several days later, AJ & I tried to get some work done on the Women’s Report, and were chugging along until AJ’s well-trained ears heard a helicopter. At first, I couldn’t hear or see anything. But it came closer...and closer, until it seemed like it was hovering right over our house. It was close enough that I ducked inside, in case it started dropping...things (not sure that being inside would help...but that’s what seemed right at the time). Though we had binoculars, it was close enough that we didn’t need them. The helicopter then circled the community, and then departed south, in the direction on San Josesito and towards where the combat had been the day before.

(This next paragraph is stolen from AJ’s blog, www.limpingtowardsjustice.blogspot.com because it’s really good)
“This was most likely a US Black Hawk Helicopter. Of course, my only reference points for this are the previews for the movie “Black Hawk Down” and the fact that I know that the US sells these helicopters as part of the Plan Colombia aid package. I’ve heard that in past years more time has been spent in Congress arguing over the number of Black Hawks to be purchased as opposed to real debate on the validity of fueling this war. US involvement on the ground here is actually heavily infused with private contractors to do things like pilot said Black Hawk helicopters. According to the Center for International Policy’s Colombia Program: hundreds of civilians working for private US corporations work with Colombia’s security forces as spray-plane and helicopter pilots, search-and-rescue personnel, mechanics, logistics personnel, radar-site operators and instructors among other duties. Due to concerns over their proximity to the armed conflict, a provision in the 2000 “Plan Colombia” package restricted the number of US Contract Personnel on the ground to 300 while at the same time setting a cap of 500 military personnel. So, there is a good chance that the helicopter hovering over my head was piloted by a fellow US citizen – I might have shouted up to ask his opinion on bubble teams for the NCAA basketball tourney. But I didn’t.”

This same day, it was reported that 40 army soldiers were seen on the path right outside the community. That night, our neighbor was very sick, and eight men from the community put her in a hammock, which they attached to two sticks for a makeshift stretcher , and they decided to carry her the two hours down the mountain to San Josesito, where an ambulance met them, and then hike back up. We called the Army to let them know that there were civilians coming up and down the path where their soldiers were camping, and they said that no harm should come to them as long as they had flashlights. Sigh, not so comforting, but the men made it there and back fine, and the army departed from their path-side position the next morning. All of this army activity made us more cognizant of not leaving the community alone, and so I ended up staying in the community 4 days longer than scheduled so that we could do the health promoter accompaniment (see below) and not leave the community without a volunteer.
I have mixed reactions to these experiences: a gratefulness that we were there, not being as scared as I imagined I might be, having a feeling that despite the proximity of “danger” we were never really threatened, and an increased respect for and understanding of the daily threats that community members live with.

High Profile Coincidences
All of a sudden, San José de Apartadó, the community we work most closely with in Colombia, is front-page news. First, we received the wonderful news of the AFSC-sponsored Nobel Peace Prize nomination. (For more info: http://afsc.org/news/2007/2007-Nobel-Peace-Nomination.htm)

A week later, Brígida Gonzalez, a respected community leader who had stopped by the house in La Unión last week when I was in community, was accused in the most widely read and respected news magazine in the country of being a guerrilla collaborator. This article inevitably puts Brígida and the community at risk, and was untrue in its most important details. Brígida was not interviewed for the story, and the only source cited was two computers confiscated from the guerrilla by the army.You may remember Brígida as the lovely older woman from Hasta la Ultima Piedra who worked with community children to represent the conflict and process their grief through art. This picture of Brígida with her daughter was published in the magazine, where it was said this daughter was killed since she was a member of the FARC. In fact, this daughter was killed in her sleep, and was not a member of the FARC.

Later that same day, it was announced that the fiscalía, the rough equivalent of the Attorney General’s office, had accused 69 soldiers and military officers of the 2005 machete massacre of 8 peace community members, including community leader Luis Eduardo Guerra and 3 children. As the next article in this same magazine said, this is one of the most serious human rights accusations against the military in its history.

So why the first article? Why the coincidental timing and the deligitimizing perspective of the first article? Hmmmm....so this is what freedom of the press can look like in Colombia...

Health Promoters
In the midst of all this activity, I don’t want to lose sight of an amazingly inspiring experience I had last week, and which I will write more about in the future. Curt “Alan” Wands is an incredibly dedicated, long-time US activist, who would object to me beginning this section talking about him. He is a deeply humble man who has been on the ground doing solidarity work in Latin America for at least the past 25 years. He was in Nicaragua in the 1980s, and his best friend was folk hero Ben Linder, an American engineer who was killed by US-funded contra forces while trying to help the Sandinistas build sustainable water systems.

After working in different movements and in different capacities, he realized one desperate need in conflict areas especially was basic health care. In many conflict zones, any doctors have left, are too costly, or are targets. Curt saw this, and decided to get himself trained in basic medical knowledge, and then teach community members the specialized set of skills needed in Latin American conflict zones: basic wound care, malaria and pneumonia diagnosis, the treatment of parasites and worms. He also scared up funding from wherever he could, enabling him to equip the newly trained health promoters with desperately needed basic medicines. The people he trains have an average of a sixth-grade education. He only accepts people who are living in under-served isolated communities who plan to stay there, and he won’t treat or work with anyone who is armed. In this way, he has enabled thousands of people access to life-saving medical treatment in otherwise inaccessible communities, and given community members access to education and training otherwise completely out of reach. This model, of training community members to address their communities’ needs, stands in stark contrast to the work of well-funded and visible organizations like Doctors with Borders, whose work I had always idealized. Curt pointed out that coming into a community for a couple months and doing mass vaccinations, surgeries and treatments is not only unsustainable (Doctors without Border doesn’t guarantee that they will return to a region), but it in fact leaves a hole: after seeing the modern medical equipment brought in by highly professional foreigners, it is hard for people to believe that their neighbor’s modest advice to, for example, boil their very dirty water in order to help them get over chronic intestinal issues, is worth listening to.
**Curt is always accepting donations, and I, honestly, can’t think of many more worthy causes. Please go to my website, www.pedalingforpeace.org and donate with the note “Health Promoters” if you are interested.**

AJ and I accompanied two women from San José de Apartadó to this training. It was both of their first time on a boat, or visiting the nearby city of Turbo. After a two-hour motorboat ride up Rio Sucio (or Dirty River) we were met at the docks by Curt. The river lived up to its name, as Curt pointed out that the tiny houses we had seen lining the river were, in fact, latrines. There were shorter houses, which were actually pigpens with holes in the floor so that the filth fell into the river. we saw people washing clothes, their hair, and getting drinking water from right next to these little houses.

The women are now eligible for a four-year course, in which they will make the long trip to Rio Sucio once every two months or so for a week of intensive classes. They will take home aspirin and anti-diarrheal medication from their first week of training, and will need to start treating patients immediately.

Embarque: The process of preparing bananas for export
Last but not least, I had the opportunity to accompany a group of women in the community as they cut, carried, washed, sorted, bagged, boxed and transported baby bananas for export to the US. Seeing this process changed the way I think about food, and gave me an appreciation for the monotony and difficulty of working land. I was with a woman who was my mother’s age (Yeah mom! My amazing mother just entered into the sixth decade of life!) and was able to lift 4-5 banana branches, each weighing at least 15-20 pounds, at a time. After she asked how many children my mother had (she has nine, I think), she asked, of course, how fat she was.

A Try at Justice? Colombian Military finally charged with massacre of Nobel Prize-nominated Peace Community Members

So much to say...it is hard to know where to start. The news that I have translated below, however, takes precedence over all interesting Janice life vignettes for now. To me, it is the most step forward that has been taken in regard to the Peace Community in years, and is a reason to have hope that things can get better in Colombia. Although it is completely uncertain where this investigation and judicial process will lead, that the investigation of the Peace Community massacre has gone forward at all, and on top of that that the Fiscalia (Prosecutor's office) has put itself on the line by accusing the Army of this massacre is hugely significant. I'll keep talking about this case in the future, but wanted to give you the facts first. The stones pictured have the names of some of the 180 peace community members that have been killed since its inception ten years ago.

This article draws heavily from, and at times directly translates, an article from the well-known Colombian weekly news magazine, Semana. http://www.semana.com/wf_InfoArticulo.aspx?idArt=101167

A Try at Justice? Colombian Military finally charged with massacre of Nobel Prize-nominated Peace Community Members

It was announced today that 69 members of the Colombian Army are being formally accused of the February 2005 massacre of eight Peace Community of San José de Apartadó residents, including the community leader Luis Eduardo Guerra, 4 other adults and 3 children ages 1, 6 and 11. Among those being accused by the Fiscalía (roughly the equivalent of the US Attorney General) are two military high-ranking officials, nine sub-officials and 58 professional soldiers. The eight community members were killed with machetes, some were dismembered, and placed in two communal, unmarked graves.

This is one of the most serious accusations against the Army in its history, according to the well-known weekly news magazine, Semana. The accusations are made even more serious by the fact that the Colombian government had been ordered to provide special protection to the Peace Community by the Inter-American Court on Human Rights.

The government, from the Army to President Uribe, has denied responsibility for the massacre for the past two years. Despite being in the first stage of prosecution, the action taken by the Fiscal today clearly indicates that the version of events the Army gave at the time of the massacre, in which they accused the leftist FARC guerrillas of being responsible, is false.

President Alvaro Uribe appeared on television shortly after the massacre and rather than condemning the massacre, he focused on his assertion that the Peace Community was infiltrated by the guerrillas saying “In this community there are good people, but some of its leaders, supporters, and defenders are seriously accused of assisting the FARC and of using the [Peace] Community to protect this terrorist organization.” Now, with the measure taken by the Fiscalía, it appears that the reality is, in fact, quite different.

The Fiscalía clarified today that there are not 56 soldiers, as was initially reported, but 69 soldiers that are accused of the crimes of “homicide against a protected person” and “terrorism” for the massacre in San José de Apartadó. This news comes just one day after the two-year anniversary of this massacre, and a month before the ten-year anniversary of the peace community.

Soldiers are charged with the crimes of homicide against a protected person and terrorism, along with the February 21st, 2005 murders of Luis Eduardo Guerra, a representative of the peace community; his partner, Deyanyra Areiza Guzmán; 10-year-old Deiner Andrés Guerra; Alfonso Tuberquia Graciano; Sandra Muñoz Pozo, y her children one-year-old Santiago, six-year-old Natalia.

The Peace Community was nominated for the Nobel Prize earlier this month by the American Friends Service Committee, and has been recognized internationally for its efforts to forge a peaceful path amidst a war-torn region.

Cacophonous accompaniment

(see end of post for definitions of some italicized terms)
I have never really had an excuse to use the phrase “Cacophony of sound” before. The suburbs where I grew up were sometimes eerily silent. In Littleton there were gentle, distinguishable bird sounds and the occasional fire station horn, but generally it was pretty quiet. When I lived in Philadelphia there were definitely explosions of sounds and fights, but not an ongoing “cacophony.” It is now 5:30am, and there is vallenato (think polka music in Spanish) music blaring from the military radio station in my window, it sounds like there is a rooster on my head, and the cows are fighting? mating? outside my window. A couple minutes ago, donkeys were sad apparently, and so they were braying, which is what AJ tells me it is called when they make this amazingly loud, desperate crying sound. And this all exists over merry chirping sounds of little birds. Curiously, the music is punctuated by station reminders with messages from the army, professing their respect for human rights and duty to protect Colombia.

Amañada? (Settled in, comfortable and happy yet?)
Maybe after some time out here I would get over my joy of hearing and seeing animals everywhere all the time. Maybe I would stop loving that community members stop by unannounced and uninvited starting at about 7 am, to talk a bit about: crops, how we are feeling, whether we are settled in (amañadas), and how much better the climate is in La Unión than in San Josesito (which exists two hours down the hill and is hotter) or in Bogotá (which is way too cold). Maybe I would tire of our diet of quinua in peanut butter sauce with fresh vegetables and lots of maracuyá. And maybe I would even start to tire of having to walk two hours and then wait for the chiva for an hour to get groceries. But I’m not sure.

It is a toss-up of whether I would tire even more of or come to love the local custom of greeting you with an assessment of your weight. Here is the approximate transcript of my introduction to an elderly man, who we’ll call Mr. Gallo, in the community:
AJ: Do you recognize Janice? She was here in August, and is here while Mireille is on vacation.
Elderly Mr. Gallo: Ah, very fat.
Janice: So nice to meet you. And what is your name?
Elderly Mr. Gallo: Very beautiful...and very fat.
Janice: Hmmmm.
(Silence)
AJ: OK, Don Gallo. May you stay healthy. See you soon!

When AJ & Mireille were hanging out with Mrs. Gallo the other week and explaining they didn’t eat meet, she alternately, somewhat lovingly rubbed each of their tummies, ruminating out loud on how amazing it was that two people could be so fat without eating any meat. When I met her, I assured her I did eat some meat, and she nodded knowingly.

Accompaniment
About a week ago I had my first proper accompaniment in San José. The consejo, or governing counsel, asked us to accompany the community and its leaders. Where would we go to on this important first official trip? To the beach, of course, for a day of rest and relaxation. We left the community at 5:30 in the morning, and piled into the bus the consejo had rented with about 40 community members. The bus was a converted American school bus, with the important difference that the distance between the seats, now made of wood, had been halved, the logic being that Colombians are shorter than Americans, or that if they have knees, they don’t really need them. We rolled into a not-so-promising sandy parking lot, and walked the 5 minutes or so up the path, where a surprisingly beautiful beach emerged. As AJ and I scurried off to the shade to hide our pale skin, the community members hung out on the beach and played in the waves. AJ & I lounged in hammocks, and I enjoyed some amazing fried shrimp.

It was easy to forget we were accompanying a threatened community, and on the way home AJ & I reminisced about the Red Sox 2004 World Series victory (she, of course, is a fan too) and relished this beach day with the mostly younger members of the community. And then, we were stopped by a group of soldiers who seemed to come from nowhere, and who seemed to be waiting for the bus. All of the community members were told to get off the bus, and all had to show what was in their bags, the men were patted down, and everyone had their identifications checked, and some rechecked. The soldiers recognized AJ and greeted her by name, since she had ridden up on the chiva with them the week before, and they had asked for Mireille’s number. It was a surreal experience: one soldier was fairly aggressivley and suspiciously questioning community members about their identity and whether they knew a certain woman, who had repeated her identification number incorrectly when asked, while at the same time other soldiers, not any older than my former students, were smiling and chatting us up. For me, it was an intense experience: I was reeling a bit, since everything was happening so quickly, and all I could think about was how glad I was that we were there with community, since I think it diffused the situation and at the same time how humiliating it is, to some extent, that in order to feel safe with their own government officials, the community members have to have internationals with them. We were the only ones whose identification and bags weren’t checked.

On that same road a few days later, a San Josesito resident and community member was detained. Her name is Amanda, and she is a single mother of four, and she works in the fields and often cooks for us and other community members. She was charged with four criminal counts: homicide, rebellion, kidnapping, and being affiliated with the guerrilla. Her name and the charges against her were broadcast all over the municipality. After a visit from the Defensor del Pueblo at the police station, roughly the equivalent of a human rights ombudsman, she was released the next morning, and apparently, all charges were dropped.

Premio Nobel de La Paz: “Vale la pena luchar”
We received word this week that the community has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize by the American Friends Service Committee. This is an important recognition for the community, as anything that raises their profile makes them (and me) safer, and another reminder of how blessed I am to be living and working here. I was talking with a community member this week about life here, why he stays, and what he hopes for the future. He was born and raised in LU, and talked about the blissful times before the violence began, and then talked about all the work that needs to be done. He talked about how they want to have a high school which draws upon the knowledge that people here have about campo, or country, life, and which would teach young people skills they need to stay here – rather than teaching them things that will only be relevant if they leave. He talked about wanting to explore fair trade and organic certification for their crops and gaining access to new markets. And he talked about how when he was in Europe talking about the peace community, he had thought how boring it would be, because, well, everything is already done. The schools are built, the processes already developed to bring crops to market, and the society isn’t changing anymore. He said “vale la pena luchar” – it’s worth it to struggle, because of the possibility of what could exist here.

Random Definitions, as written by Janice, to be updated as she sees fit:
SJA=Peace Community of San José de Apartadó: A community of campesinos (see below) in northwestern Colombia near the Panamanian border that consists of several smaller veredas and whose residents have committed themselves to non-involvement with Colombia’s armed conflict. It has been nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize for 2007.

AJ: My FOR teammate & amazing woman, whose blog is www.limpingtowardsjustice.blogspot.com

Vereda: A small village or settlement

Vallenato: The polka-inspired Colombian folk music which is on permanent rotation here in La Unión. The popular vallenato dance is performed by hugging your partner very tight and walking together by taking small, rapid steps forward and back.

LU=La Unión: The vereda of San José de Apartadó where FOR has its house. There are about 125 people living in this vereda, which is a two hour hike uphill from San Josesito.

La Holandita, San Josesita: The largest vereda in SJA, it was formed in 2002 after the police set up a post in the town center of San José. At that time, the entire community “displaced,” or moved, about 20 minutes down the road and built a new community from scratch. It is at least twice the size of La Unión.

Campesino: Derived from the word campo, which means countryside or rural, a campesino is a rural farmer.

Bestia: Literally “beast,” it refers to the horses and mules that bring people and goods up and down the mountain paths in and around SJA, and which Janice is now (in)famous for in SJA because she fell off one during the August delegation when she decided to take the high road and mule decided to take the low road.

La Posa: The swimming hole formed by the river that passes close by LU

chiva: The jeep that meets us in San Josesito and takes us the 45 minutes or so to the “city” of Apartadó.

paradise. take 2.

It feels funny to be finishing the blog entry below about my vacation, which although only over 2 days ago, is literally a world away. I write to you from La Union, the community which is the focus of FOR’s work in Colombia, the community featured in the documentary “Hasta la Ultima Piedra.” AJ, my teammate picked me up yesterday from Apartadó, the small city located a two-hour mule ride and 45-minute chiva, or jeep, ride down the picturesque mountains in which I now sit. She left at 5 am, in the dark, in order to meet me at the plane on time, which was of course then delayed for two hours. After getting a bite to eat (lots of cheese! since without a refrigerator in the community, I won’t have access to this staple food) and uploading the photos below in the small city of Apartadó (which would take hours if I were in the community), we headed to the bus terminal to get the chiva. The chiva is literally an open-top, American-made Jeep Wrangler into which a minimum of 10 and maximum of 21 people can be squeezed for the ride 45-minute from Apartadó to San José. Chivas don’t leave at any regular time, but rather leave when full. We bought vegetables at another open-air market, got some amazing juice, which is served in a 4-cup measuring cup, and waited for the next chiva to fill up with about 17 people for about an hour. We got to La Holandita, the community farther down the mountain from La Unión, at around 4:30, and readied ourselves for the two-hour hike up to La Unión, most of which I would do on a mule.

Many of you reading this have seen part of the documentary mentioned above, which I showed at least 13 times before and during my bike ride to Washington, DC, and which I subsequently know much of by heart. It recounts the story of the peace community of San José de Apartadó, and features the land and people who I am now staying with. This documentary has supplemented my memory of my trip here in August, so the first things that struck me were of the slight changes in the community from the documentary: one of the leaders of the community that is featured in the documentary had cut his hair, one of the children was about 6 inches taller, and the stream where the stones were being taken from to commemorate the community members killed in the conflict was a little lower. We did about half of the two-hour hike/mule-ride up to La Unión in the dark, and at dusk, I started hearing the sound of the sapos, or frogs, and crickets that comprised the soundtrack of the documentary.

The hike was beautiful, and we arrived in La Unión with an almost-full moon to the sounds of faint radios and frequent barks, chirps and clucks. After unpacking the goodies I had brought to La Union (movies, nutella, tahini, a mosquito-netted hammock!) AJ took good care of me, as the day had tired me out, and we lay out in our hammocks and enjoyed watching “bend it like beckham” on our computer. Overall, I am feeling soooo excited to be here! I have learned already today: that there are distinct calls to turn away the aggressively hungry (but not malnourished) pigs, dogs and chickens that roam the streets here; that a folk-cure for clotting wounds is to pour gasoline on them (though they then still need our non-expert skills and supplies to bandage them); and that amongst our other duties in the community, we are a homework help center for the community children after 6 pm. I am happy to have awoken to the sounds of chickens and an unhappy cow outside, and looking forward to the next couple of weeks.
Jelacy, a dear child who lives in LU and smiles a lot
Update: we haven’t had internet access since I got here (and now that it is up, it is veeeerrrrrrrrrryyyyyyyy slow, so I apologize in advance for not returning emails over the next two weeks), so that is why the date I wrote this doesn’t match up to when it was posted! Since yesterday, we went to the posa, or swimming hole, with the children of the community, and then sat with the kids and ate guama, a cocoa like fruit – you suck the sweet casings off the seeds, and then, of course, throw the seeds at each other. I am inexplicably sleeping a huge amount, but am feeling well, and ready to continue meeting community members. As you might be able to tell, things are quiet here as of now...and we pray they continue to be.