Hermanas y hermanos,
I hope all is well with each of you, wherever you are reading from in the world. I have not written in a while, so am excited to share with you again. I am grateful to be healthy again and full of energy. I will warn you now, this is going to be a long post. I tend to be long-winded anyway, but on top of that we received an incredible wealth of information during the Seed delegation, and so much of it is very worth sharing. Feel free to read it in chunks, leave and come back. I hope that this post gives you some idea of the Colombian context, but I also offer the disclaimer that I have only been here a short period of time and am no expert. Of course, this is by no means a complete history or reflection of the current context, so I encourage you to do more independent reading. I also wrote a paper last year offering a *brief* history of the conflict in Colombia, and am happy to send it to you via email; all you need do is ask. In this post, I will try to relay as accurately as I can what I have learned from people here who are living in this context.
First I want to introduce you to our wonderful host family (we do have pictures with them that we will post when we return to the U.S.). Jonathan was our host father, and he had two absolutely adorable 3-year-old twin sons. Jonathan was incredibly hospitable. He cooked us a delicious breakfast each morning, making things like eggs, french toast, and arepas with a different hot drink each morning: coffee, hot chocolate, cafe con leche, aguapanela (a sweet drink made with a kind of sugar cane and lemon juice). Jonathan spent time talking with us about his work protecting a nature reserve (complicated work. People who have been living in the mountains outside of Bogota have children and want to expand and build more houses for their families, but the nature reserve also needs to be protected and so no building is permitted), the reality of paramilitaries in the form of gangs in Bogota (playing an interesting role of both protecting and terrorizing the community), and Colombian food (after 6 weeks here there's still so much more to try!). His sons, Jacob and Nicolas, were two of the cutest kids I've ever seen. They entertained us with their funny faces, calling for their father (in unison, over and over until he would go to them and tickle them), and young-style Spanglish (Jonathan is bilingual and is raising them to know both Spanish and English). This family was truly a joy to live with for a week. We were honored to get to know them. (And for you Mennonites out there, he is the son of Peter Stuckey.)
Mencoldes (Fundacion Menonita Colombiana Para el Desarrollo) is a Colombian Mennonite Development Foundacion. I will share with you what they do as an organization, but first I want to share with you what they taught us about the Colombian context more generally. Much of the conflict in Colombia today and over the past 50 or 60 years is related to land ownership. To put it simply, very few people own the vast majority of the land. Many of the people who owned even a little bit of land had to leave their land because of the violence of armed groups (paramilitaries and guerillas) and "land grabs." They make up the approximately 4 or 5 million people who are internally displaced in Colombia, which is now the country with the largest internally displaced population in the world. Many leave food cultivation in the campo (rural areas) for poverty in the cities because of violence and threats from armed groups. Big companies who want the land for a variety of reasons (territory control, drug trafficking, mining, agriculture, etc) give legitimacy to the armed groups. A commonly known example is the Chiquita banana company, who started paying paramilitaries to protect its interests in the 60s and is still doing so today.
The guerilla groups (insurgencies) have been around since the 50s. Some of the larger and more powerful groups are FARC, M-19, and ELN. These groups started primarily out of a desire for more equal land distribution, but I have heard from Colombians that, while guerilla members probably used to have those goals when they were younger, guerillas no longer seem to be fighting for such just causes (different Colombians have different opinions on this, of course). The paramilitaries have been active since the 80s to get rid of the guerillas. They are often connected to the military and government, and funded by the rich land owners.
In 2005, the Uribe government passed the Law of Peace and Justice. This law stated that the paramilitaries must demobilize. The goal was for paramilitary members to integrate back into society peacefully and for victims to receive reparations. Shortly following the passing of this law, there was a wave of accusations and it became clear how much the government was involved with the paramilitaries. Approximately 35% of the Congress is believed to have been involved with paramilitaries. The passage of this law in 2005 is supposed to show that Colombia is in a post-conflict stage. This is not the case. Many parts of Colombia are still in active conflict (don't worry, parents and other loved ones, Josh and I have been traveling in areas that are not in active conflict. We have felt quite safe while here in Colombia). The paramilitaries never demobilized. They converted into what the government calls "criminal gangs." When these highly organized groups are viewed as simple criminal gangs (instead of the paramilitaries that they still are), they are not seen as part of the conflict that has been going on for over 50 years. This offers impunity to those in power who are connected to these armed groups. This adds layers of complexity to the current situation.
Last year, the Law of Victims and Restitution of Land was passed and supposed to fill the gaps of the law passed in 2005. However, it is difficult to try to work toward restitution when the country is still in active conflict. This law was another attempt to show that Colombia was in a post-conflict stage. The law is not helping, because post-conflict tools are not very effective in a situation of active conflict. No one has yet receieved reparations through this law. The law also makes no attempt at land reform, which is what is truly needed to work at the source of the conflict.
The current Colombian president, Juan Manuel Santos, has recently signed a free trade agreement with the U.S. (Tratados de Libre Comercio, TLC). The agreement was signed May of this year. The Colombians I talked with said that they have not necessarily noticed direct effects of this trade agreements, but are expecting disastrous effects on the country, particularly for the poor and middle class. I will not go into details here of how free trade agreements are great for the more powerful country and catastrophic for the less powerful country invovled.
60% of Colombians do not vote. It is common knowledge that whoever is elected is elected through arms. However, Colombians are resilient and creative. Many choose to work to influence politics through community organizing, and these groups (including groups of students and indigenous people) are gaining strength.
That is a very brief explanation with many holes, but hopefully it gives you a bit of context for the situation in Colombia.
Now for Mencoldes. As I mentioned above, Mencoldes is a Colombian Mennonite development foundation. MCC is it's primary funding source. It's guiding principles are dignity of life for all, non-violence, social justice, truth, and holistic peace. The organization began 35 years ago and has had 110 projects throughout that time. They work on issues such as rural development, forced internal displacement, humanitarian attention (responding to flooding, etc), housing, emergency assistance, community organizing, public education, economic development, and political advocacy. They provide direct support to victims in the legal process.
One of Mencoldes' programs is the Programa Bancos Solidarios (Program of Solidarity Banks). This program provides loans to small business owners who are not able to access other lines of credit. Participants work in groups. There must be 8-9 small business owners in each group, they must all live in the same community, and they must know each other. They are given a small loan and then pay it back over a period of 16 weeks with very low interest. The groups meet every week. During these meetings, a Mencoldes staff is present to provide some kind of educational piece or workshop. Each group has a board with it's own president and treasurer. The group treasurer is responsible for collecting the money (not a Mencoldes staff). Group accountability is an essential part of this program, because if a member defaults on the loan, the group has to take responsibility. The program includes training in accounting, conflict resolution, leadership, and job-training. In Colombia, it is difficult to access credit if you are not rich, so this program provides an alternative. Many of the participants are women are are the head of household, and some are also people who have been displaced.
CAID, Center for Holistic Attention for Displaced People, is another Mencoldes program. They work with people who have been displaced within less than a year and are in a stage of emergency. They provide assistance including legal attention, group accompaniment, and psychosocial attention.They provide emergency humanitarian aid including hygeine kits, school kits, mattresses, and blankets. These are things the state is not doing.
The last program I will talk about that Mencoldes runs is the Center for a Culture of Hope. It works with youth and children. There are four parts of the program: healthy life, with a focus on sexual and reproductive rights and health; culture and territory, including art, recognizing rights, theatre, dance, expressing vulnerabilities of that territory, and forming community leaders; productivity and self-managment, including income-generating projects in the community; and political advocacy, indlucing working with the local municipality.
Well, I believe that is enough information for one post. I will post again shortly about Justapaz, another peace-building organization in Colombia.
Blessings,
Krista
No comments:
Post a Comment