We're not in Kansas anymore...

Here I am in Bogotá, ahead of schedule. And how did this early exit from my home in the campo occur? Well, the very same night after the initiation of the community soccer games, the fantastically horrible and largely absent immune system of old Amanda Jack gave out once again, a seeming fare-well-round of nasty that left me so weak and dehydrated that the community sent me down in a hammock. This was an experience unto itself. Not wanting to be remembered as the second FOR volunteer to be taken down the mountain by strong campesino men carrying a tied hammock to a tree trunk, I insisted on riding a horse down and with that proclamation, got to my feet and promptly face planted on the floor. The hammock it was. (Even my friend the baby can keep herself up on a horse)

When we reached San Josecito, my teammates consulted on the best plan of action while community members placed cut potatoes and cold compresses on my head to try and get my fever down. Then I was flown to Bogotá after we decided that because the Apartadó clinic had only days ago assured me that nothing was wrong with me it might be a good idea to get a second opinion. My teammate Camila had been down in San Josecito the night the gross hit so I was by my self up in La Unión being looked after by friends and neighbors. The way in which the community rallied together to take care of me - from packing my bag, to answering the phone, to ignoring my stubborn disposition and thus carrying me down the mountain in the mid-day sun to offering to send someone with me on the plane so I wouldn’t be alone, was completely overwhelming. Granted, I had an incredibly high fever, but tears kept spilling down my cheeks as I recognized the absolute concern and, yeah, love that was surrounding me. I guess 11 months in a place will do that. And even though I felt worse than I maybe ever had, I also felt incredibly grateful to experience this demonstration of love and care. Reflecting on that sense of true community during these last couple of weeks in Bogotá, I am beginning to realize how difficult it will be to finally say goodbye to this community, this big, extended family.

So I spent a few days in the hospital on oxygen and IVs and amazingly bland hospital food. But, as if that wasn’t enough, my first day out of the hospital I went online and was greeted with the mug of Hollywood darling Al Gore, alongside a headline proclaiming that he had been awarded the Nobel Peace Prize! This is outrageous to me. As I’ve mentioned in this blog, the Peace Community was also nominated for the 2007 Nobel Peace Prize and I just can’t comprehend a process that would decide Al Gore is more deserving of such an honor. Don’t get me wrong, I definitely dig all he is doing to raise environmental awareness, but the Peace Community is caught in the middle of a war that has taken more than 180 leaders and family and friends and children from them and yet they continue to actively create peace amidst violence. What does Al Gore have on that? I mean, COME ON! He already won an Oscar, isn’t that a more fitting award for the work he is doing? But the Nobel PEACE prize? I get that it would be quite challenging to work for peace in a world that had no ozone layer or polar ice caps, but shouldn’t he instead by awarded the Nobel Prize for Best Use of Celebrity Status to Push an Issue that Scientists Have Been Pushing for Years??? Anyway, fine by me. The Comunidad de Paz doesn’t need no stinking international prize, they ARE international peace.

Other than unmitigated feelings of anger towards Al Gore and the Nobel committee, I’ve been taking it easy and enjoying the comforts Colombia’s largest city and capital has to offer. Refrigerators, movie theaters, high speed internet (meaning Skype and ESPN) at my fingertips, all Very Good Things. And not to be outdone, the capital city has its share of violent political turmoil. That same first day out of the hospital I was rather surprised to see students at the National University engaged in a full-on protest that was met by the police force and their urban tanks. The University campus is literally across the street from our apartment so my Bogotá teammates often share stories of protests filled with tear gas and homemade non-lethal explosives and police hosing and tear-gassing and all around student anarchy. So while Mayra and Janice were largely unsurprised and unaffected, I wondered at the reality of it all as tear-gas-sponsored tears streamed down my face. We are that close that the tear gas filled our apartment for a chunk of the afternoon. And what were the students organizing around? Well, a few things. This was one more in a string of daily protests in memory of the murder of Ernesto “Che” Guevara, killed 40 years ago in Bolivia. Down here, he is not just that dude on the red tshirt – his revolutionary spirit is still inspiring people to lash out against the establishment.

On this particular day, a couple days after the anniversary of Che’s assassination students were organized in remembrance of the assassination of Unión Patriotica (UP) 1986 presidential candidate and charismatic leader, Jaime Pardo Leal, killed on October 11, 1987. He was killed by a 14 year old boy, an example of the sicarios used by paramilitary leaders. In this case, Pardo Leal's murder was arranged by José Gonzalo Rodríguez Gacha alias “El Mexicano” (now imprisoned and one of the many paramilitary leaders giving testimony of former atrocities as part of the Justice and Peace Law). Pardo Leal’s murder in 1987 was a major blow to a political party that by 1988 had suffered over 500 assassinations of its political leaders and elected officials. The systematic killing off of this alternative political party is largely considered political genocide. In 2004, lawyers representing the victims of the UP presented a case for political genocide aided by the complicity of the Colombian government to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, this included an official death toll of over 1100. A vast majority of these assassinations, as in the case of Pardo Leal, were directly attributed to paramilitary groups, which had both obvious and more hidden ties to the Colombian government itself. (Even though I’ve repeated myself a bit, one of my first posts goes into the UP with a tiny bit more context, if you are interested) This case is still pending in front of the Inter-American Court but the memory of the UP is still fresh in the minds and hearts of Colombians organizing for political alternatives. The present day “alternative” party is the Polo Democratico Alternativo, created in 2005 and the most recent incarnation of Colombia’s political left rolled into one party. The Polo has been enjoying success and recent fame for the strong opposition to “Uribismo” provided by outspoken Senators like Gustavo Petro (now a frequent visitor to the halls of US Congress) Antonio Navarro and Party President Carlos Gaviria. It looks like they will enjoy success in the upcoming elections, too as Polo candidate Samuel Moreno Rojas seems positioned to win the mayoral race in Bogotá.

Point being, even though the tear gas employed by the National Police in efforts to disperse the angry and politicized students was not the delectable carnival-for-the-senses that one might expect, it did make me very aware that student movements here in Colombia have not forgotten past revolutionaries and their protests are regularly met with force and those big metal scary looking street tanks. And while I am currently a long way from the campo and the daily realities of the war as it unfolds in rural areas, things here in Oz are just as instantly volatile and I am still in a country that is far from being at peace.

Invierno, Cacao and Living with Violence

It is hard to imagine that it has only been two weeks since I arrived in the community. Time is at once creeping and speeding by. My teammate Mireille continues to recover from malaria, keeping us from traipsing off on too many adventures. The “invierno” or heavy rains continue almost every day. The heat builds here as the sun rises higher in the sky; clothes put on the line at 1:00 are dry by 1:15. The rain seems to come around 3:00 everyday and leaves a cool, fresh breeze in its wake. We have been completing my training in this last week, going over security protocols, evacuation procedures, important events in the community’s history, our agreements with the Internal Council. I have also kept busy with the everyday tasks that seem to take just a little bit longer here. Washing clothes by hand, cooking every meal, washing every dish, gathering food from our garden or trekking down to town and its markets. All of this while kids clamor to have then new FOR volunteer take them to the swimming hole, or carry them on her back, or sing them a song, and as adults come past for a visit and a chance to share their stories. It seems the main task of this job is to build relationships with the people here as the more you are trusted as an accompanier, the more information you are privy to, the better your analysis of the security situation, the more effective your accompaniment.

It seems every day I am struck anew with the realization that the violence of this war has woven itself directly into the fabric of everyday life here. Yesterday I was going over a list of the massacres and killings that have happened since 1977 and an older man walks in, tired from a days work in his fields, and begins to recount his own history. His life story brings to life these atrocities, as each massacre, displacement or threat affected him, was something he survived or something a loved one did not survive. A couple hours later I sat down with the same list of events and a middle-aged woman came over and matter-of-factly recounted loosing two of her brothers in the 2000 massacre that happened in the center of this settlement, La Unión. Paramilitary troops marched into town and took people from their homes, gathering them together at the kiosk in the center of the village. The paras demanded that the leaders identify themselves. After realizing that the community would not give up its leaders, it picked them out on their own, having identified them beforehand, and told everyone else to leave by going further up the mountain into the work fields behind the village. As the men, women and children made it up to the cacao fields they heard the shots begin as each leader was executed. When they were sure the paramilitary had left, they gathered their things and displaced to the main village of San José. They remained displaced for months returning eventually only to suffer through more killings and more displacements. And yet they continue to return and their commitment to the process of this Peace Community holds strong, a remarkable testament to non-violent resistance maintained in the most violent of circumstances.


Last week I sucked on my first cacao bean. The chocolate bean grows in these orange/yellow pods, you break it upon and inside our purple beans covered in a citrus-like membrane. Folks here suck on the bean until the citrus flavor disappears and then throw it out. When harvesting the cacao, the beans are pulled out and dried out, on rooftops here, for about a week, and then the beans are roasted and eventually ground into a paste of pure chocolate. I got to try some of the paste in my first days here as Paul and Mireille prepared some to send home to their families for the holidays. We ground the beans then mixed it with panela and nuts then formed them into delicious chocolate bars. The globalization lesson for today is this: the community sells this rich chocolate and then buys Nestle “ quick choco” to drink and eat.

A brief historical perspective on the Colombian armed conflict

The origins of the current armed conflict in Colombia are incredibly complex and rooted in the period known as "La Violencia". In 1948, the assassination of popular Liberal Party Presidential candidate , Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, inflamed ongoing tensions between the Liberal and Conservative ruling parties resulting in close to 200,000 deaths and the internal displacement of about 2 million Colombians.

In 1957, the ruling parties reached a power-sharing agreement known as the "National Front" in which all other political views were pushed to the margins. This set the stage for the formation of various insurgent groups in the '60s and '70s. Guerrilla groups such as the ELN, FARC and M-19 formed while the Colombian government alternated between Liberal and Conservative administrations every four years. "La Violencia" ended in 1964 and the modern war began.

The Colombian military grew during this period, receiving training and financial backing from the United States. In the '60s, the army began training civilians as part of the autodefensas (also known as paramilitaries), formed to further combat the insurgency. This escalating violence continued through the end of the National Front in 1970 as insurgent groups continued to battle the government and use kidnappings and extortion to fund their guerrilla operations. In 1980 the first modern day paramilitary group formed, "MAS", its Colombian acronym standing for "Death to Kidnappers" and its formations a response to the kidnapping of the family members of Colombian drug traffickers.

In 1984 the largest guerrilla group, FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the M-19 guerrilla group agreed to a cease-fire with the government. In 1985 the Unión Patriotica (Patriotic Union) emerged as a democratic alternative to the two main Colombian political parties and focused on realizing solutions to the problems of the poor and marginalized. While the FARC did play a main role in the founding of the party many Colombians from the left and independent social sectors were active as supporters and candidates. The UP enjoyed very small successes in the national government as members were subjected to kidnappings and killings by paramilitary groups.

By 1998 the UP reported that more than 500 of its leaders had been killed. That same year a report by Amnesty International charged that members of the Colombian military and government were involved in carrying out what was called a "deliberate policy of political murder". This period also saw violence directed towards mainstream political leaders and candidates leading to an overall total of between 3000 and 5000 politically related deaths during the mid-eighties.The late 80s also saw some of the smaller guerrilla groups incorporated into the peace process, including the M-19 guerrilla group. Conversely, the FARC's ceasefire ended, following breakdown in negotiations in 1987 and the government's unwillingness to continue contact with the rebel leaders. The ceasefire years actually proved to be a time of rebuilding for the FARC who added 14 fronts, more than doubling in size, between 1984 and 1988.

In 1987, the charasmatic UP presidential candidate, Jaime Pardo Leal, who had garned over 300,000 votes in the '86 national election was assasinated. In 1990 the UP's presidential candidate, Bernardo Jamarillo, was murdered and while the party continued to contribute candidates through 1994, it had effectively disintegrated. Braulio Hererra, a very popular UP leader who was elected as a Congressional Stand-In in the 1986 elections said during his time in Congress, "What's characterized this conflict is that no one has been able to defeat anyone."

The 1993 assassination of infamous Medellín drug cartel leader, Pablo Escobar resulted in the break up of the larger drug cartels into smaller narcotrafficking groups as well as a renewed paramilitarism. In 1994 Carlos Castano assumed leadership of a centralized paramilitary and formed the AUC, or the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia. As combat continued, mostly in the Colombian countryside as the FARC and ELN fought both the military and AUC forces, civilians caught in the midst of the armed conflict continued to suffer. Colombian civilians were killed, massacred and displaced from their homes and forced to relocate to the poor shanty towns of the major cities.

Colombian President Andres Pastrana was elected in 1998 under a commitment to bring about a peaceful resolution to the decades' old conflict. He quickly began peace talks with the FARC and ELN. These met with many complications and eventually fell apart. Pastrana sought help for the civilians harmed in the conflict from Washington DC. However, what was intended as a development package akin to the Marshall Plan for the areas of the country and civilians most affected by the conflict materialized in 2000 under the Clinton administration as "Plan Colombia". This formalized aid package to Colombia authorized 1.3 billion dollars, 70% of which would be directed to military and security measures designed to combat the "drug war". This was a far cry from the original social aid package that addressed the human rights needs of a civilian population long suffering from the deadly conflict.

The election of President Alvaro Uribe, whose own father was killed by guerrillas, in 2002 signaled a shift away from peace negotiations and back to increased militarism. The rhetoric of the armed conflict also shifted after the events of September 11, 200.1 The remaining guerrilla groups (FARC and ELN) are now referred to as terrorists as the Bush administration continues to provide funding under Plan Colombia, now earmarked as funding in the war against global terror. The Uribe administration began the demobilization process of paramilitary forces and the intensification of military efforts aimed at wiping out guerrilla forces in the countryside. This process has met with objections as the impunity of the demobilization process is hard to ignore.

Today in Colombia there are between 2 and 3 million internally displaced people, according to the UN and 49% of the population lives in extreme poverty. The armed conflict continues to displace people from the countryside and paramilitarism continues to play out in the cities. The US continues to fund "counter-terrorism" efforts through Plan Colombia (renamed the Andean Counterdrug Initiative) scheduled to deliver over $734 million in 2006, 81% of which is earmarked for military assistance.

-this info was compiled from various speakers and meetings I've been lucky to attend, books I am glad to have read (including the incredibly concise " Colombia and the United States: War, Unrest and Destabilization" by Mario Murillo) and some recent stats from the very helpful www.ciponline.org