 April 2004
American Friends Service Committee Peacework Magazine Sara Burke, Managing Editor Sam Diener, Editor Pat Farren, Founding Editor 2161 Massachusetts Ave. Telephone number: Fax number:
pwork@igc.org Peacework has been published monthly since 1972, intended to serve as a source of dependable information to those who strive for peace and justice and are committed to furthering the nonviolent social change necessary to achieve them. Rooted in Quaker values and informed by AFSC experience and initiatives, Peacework offers a forum for organizers, fostering coalition-building and teaching the methods and strategies that work in the global and local community. Peacework seeks to serve as an incubator for social transformation, introducing a younger generation to a deeper analysis of problems and issues, reminding and re-inspiring long-term activists, encouraging the generations to listen to each other, and creating space for the voices of the disenfranchised. Views expressed are those of the authors, not necessarily of the AFSC. |
Sunday in Colombia: Trying to Heal in the Midst of Killing Curt Wands is a Quaker, a Physician Assistant, and a nonviolent activist working to train village health workers and midwives in the Urabá region of northwest Colombia through Concern-America and in collaboration with the Social/Pastoral office of the Catholic Church. He can be contacted at Pastoral Social; Calle 105, 95-20; Colonia La Chinita Apartadó, Antioquia; Colombia, or atcwands@igc.org
Excerpt from The Peace of Wild Things
"I come into the peace of wild things As if the world were a contrast of black and white, I stumble my way through this day. The dramatic hope of those who struggle to bring about profound societal change here contrasts moments later with the human wreckage, the "collateral damage" of this 40-year war. It was still early this Sunday morning when Cabo wept for the first time since I have known him. Cabo is a large, rough-looking man with a wrinkled face, consistently unshaven with two or more days of stubble. He looks like the man of the river and coast that he is. His accent is thick from this region, the letters "S" and "R" often forgotten as something as unnecessary as the extra parts in the back of the boats he pilots. He sobs as he relates the pain of losing his son to one of the army's paramilitary units here. On December 29, his 23-year-old son was hit by a guerrilla fragmentation grenade. He lived until January 10, but Cabo didn't find out until a week later than that. "If only I had made more money so that he didn't have to join," was his frequent refrain. There was little more to do than listen as he attempted to, in his words, "desahogarse" (to un-drown). After being with Cabo, I left the Catholic parish building, where I was temporarily installed, just as the "Youth, Builders of Peace" group was organizing a day of events. "Alicia1," whom I worked with a year ago, organized the day of games and events, designed to sustain youth projects they hope will give alternatives to the war. With over 11,000 child-soldiers (defined as under 15 years old) in this country2, this is a crucial, though Sisyphean, task. Most of the youth attending today are among this city's inhabitants who have been displaced from their lowland river villages.3 When I walked out in the 80 degree haze of this lowland Colombian city this morning, I passed over 100 soldiers in various parts of town. Within two hours they had detained over 30 youths, male and female. Some perhaps had documents that didn't quite fit; some walked out of their shacks or homes without remembering to bring their Identification card, forgetting that early Sunday morning strolls are no excuse. What I saw this morning was a small portion of the average of 334 governmental detentions per day. It provides just a glimpse of the lie that human rights here are at an acceptable level. As incredible as it may seem, US Secretary of State Colin Powell certified the human rights situation in Colombia to be acceptable in January, 2004, allowing tens of millions of US dollars to flow to the Colombian government. I then took a short bus trip to meet with my old friend, Jose, who is working at a Catholic church that has been abandoned for the past two decades. The priest has been here for only one month. He showed me around the grounds of the church courtyard, bringing me to a 10 foot by 6 foot hole dug in order to create a garbage dump. He whispered to me that the men digging the hole discovered over 20 skeletons, evidence of part of a mass grave from the killings that occurred almost 20 years ago. "I can't go public or to the prosecutor's office," he added matter-of-factly. The inability of the judicial system to do anything, combined with the paramilitary domination of the local political offices, would make this a suicidal step. He now plans on planting a meditation garden on this site. In Robin Kirk's book, More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs, and America's War in Colombia, the hopelessness of the title is turned inside out by the explanation inside. Author Josué Giraldo Cardona stated, "To give up on hope for change in Colombia is more terrible than death." Though he was later killed by the paramilitary with local government collaboration, his life was full of hope and support for victims of the violence here. So why, many have asked, would I be here at this point? It is definitely due to a calling. The hope that Josué expressed, that Martin Luther King, Jr. lived, that Mahatma Gandhi professed, and that we must live out, is the potential for nonviolent action to foster profound social change. It gives tremendous hope to those who suffer from US policies to see that we, as people from the US, promote a different option and are willing to take risks with them. Moreover, as a person of faith, I believe that the precepts of defense of the poor, the oppressed, the widow, and the orphan, are as necessary today as ever. In this, we have much to celebrate and live together with the vast majority of our Colombian sisters and brothers. The health promoters, youth leaders, human rights workers, teachers, organizers, and constructors of a new Colombia take risks on a daily basis to build instead of destroy, to heal instead of kill. I compare that to the medications we have for the zone I work in. Most of the health promoters are volunteers and work without charge. In a country where the average income is barely $5 a day, and in this region only about a third of that, the ability to pay for medications, or to fund a "sustainable" health project, is negligible. There is no money visible from the US government for health care in this region. Within the next few days I will return up the Atrato River to face difficult news about the "Puerto Lleras" community. I had accompanied them in their flight from their homes last Eastertime. The community has again fled, for a fifth time, and is fractured, with their people living in three different villages along the river. I wonder whether I will be able to find the young boy with seizures whose medicine is about to run out, or the insulin-dependent diabetic, or the elderly man with high blood pressure. As with all the communities in this area, the work to combat these chronic illnesses as well as the endemic malaria and parasites, and the attempt to make water drinkable, are difficult enough in a time of peace. This task is made almost impossible by the overwhelming military presence and economic blockade of this dense jungle region. But we must try. One must ask, "If this were my family, what would I want done to support them?" And of course they are our family. So it is still Sunday, still a day of rest for most people in this country, except for men like the soldier standing 50 feet from my window from where I write. His finger rests easily on the trigger of his folding metal stock M-16 rifle. I can hardly believe I have come to learn the weaponry of war as much as I have. I have come to know the wounds provoked by crescendo holes of expanding bullets, the internal damage and brokenness produced by the tumbling bullets. My most recently reviewed medical text, "Save Lives, Save Limbs," details the varied ways to teach village health workers to treat amputations or chest wounds from a fragmentation mine vs. a blast mine. The over 100,000 mines found in all but two departments of this country lead to the death of a child every three days.4 It is impressive what over $2,000,000 a day from US tax dollars can purchase in armament. But, back to Sunday evening. I have yet to talk with one of the French accompaniers about what we will do tomorrow with the news that three young women (all under age 17) have been diagnosed with HIV while working as sex workers. From some source, the news has become public. If something isn't done they will probably not be alive soon, the French accompanier has informed me. Not from AIDS, but rather because the paramilitary provides "social cleansing" of street children and those suspected of crimes, or in this case of expendable young women known to have HIV. How can I prepare for tomorrow? Suggested ways to provide support:
Notes 1 I continue to use pseudonyms for people whose lives would be endangered by my reports. 2 Currently there are at least 11,000 child soldiers (under 15 years old) in Colombia. You'll Learn Not to Cry: Child Combatants in Colombia. www.hrw.org/reports/2003/colombia0903/. 3 Two and a half million people are internally displaced within the country, of which 48%-55% are under age 18. There are 175,000-200,000 refugees who have fled the borders, mostly to Ecuador and Venezuela.
4 More than 100,000 mines have been placed. Key developments
since May 2002: The use of mines by guerrilla and paramilitary
forces has increased considerably. The government reported 638
incidents of mine use in 2002. The number of reported casualties
from mines and un-exploded ordnance more than doubled from 216
in 2001 to 530 in 2002. Another 151 new casualties were recorded
between January and April 15, 2003.: Land Mine Monitor Report,
International Committee to Ban Landmines, www.icbl.org/lm/2003/.
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