A friend becomes a killer

Dear friends,

My friend Jaime Carrillo killed his spouse, Carmen Gutierrez, on February 26. Jaime had dedicated his life to defending human rights but he acted just as brutally as the paramilitary death squads that had threatened him. It appears that the calm and soft-spoken man I had known went into a frenzy of jealousy and rage.

Jaime was the human rights coordinator of the Arauca Teachers Union and president of the United Labor Federation in Arauca. I met him in June 2004 when he was living in the union office in Arauca City. The paramilitaries had threatened to kill him and it was too dangerous for him to stay in his home.

I visited Jaime again two years later. He gave me a list of 28 teachers that had been killed in Arauca and told me, “I knew most of those people.” The union office had an armored door, bulletproof windows, and video surveillance camera; and Jaime moved around Arauca City with two armed bodyguards. Jaime said, “I sense that I could be the victim of a bombing and I worry about my spouse.” Carmen had also been mentioned in the threats against him.

According to media reports, Jaime and Carmen separated a month ago. Carmen was a nurse at the Arauca City public hospital and Jaime was waiting for her after she finished her shift on February 26. He stabbed her ten times and then cut his own neck. He didn’t succeed in killing himself and is now in prison for murder. Carmen and Jaime had three children who are nine, seventeen and twenty years old.

I called Sonia (president of the Joel Sierra Human Rights Foundation) to talk with her about Carmen’s death. She told me that our friend Salinas said he was “very perplexed” and that describes how most of our friends feel.

I’m used to denouncing the actions of corporations, governments, and armies. Denouncing the murderous action of a friend is more difficult and confusing. In addition to the crucial question about the root causes of this violence against women, it also raises personal questions for me. What am I doing here and is there any value in this?

In response, I find myself reflecting on the ideal of being consistent in our words and actions. It seems easy to focus on the abuses committed by others while ignoring the abuses that we commit within our own organizations and relations. I’m also realizing my need to have a firm foundation from which to act. For me, that’s my sense of spirituality which is a bit shaky at the moment. Finally, I’m aware of the need to maintain balance in my life in order to avoid falling into burn-out – to be able to recognize and experience the love and beauty that continue to exist on this earth.

None of these reflections will change the agonizing death of Carmen or the suffering of her children. However, in the midst of this confusion and fatigue, hopefully they will enable me to continue forward doing what I can in our collective efforts to end all forms of violence.

In love and solidarity,
CJ

Photo of Jaime in the union office in July 2006, showing some of the threats that he received (including a booklet about the alleged dangers of communism):

Prayer as a call for justice

Dear friends,

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) organized a public action in Bogotá on Ash Wednesday (February 17) to call on the government to provide land titles to the communities of Las Pavas and Garzal. Fifty people gathered together in front of the Colombian Institute for Rural Development (INCODER) and used song, readings, theater, liturgy and prayer in a powerful and moving cry for justice.

The ash that we received on our foreheads was from trees that had been chopped down and burned by the Daabon company in the Las Pavas farm. Daabon had 123 families evicted from the farm in July 2009 and is destroying the cropland, wetlands and forest in order to create an oil palm plantation. That eviction could be reversed if INCODER finally provides the land title to the people of Las Pavas. The ash was placed on us by Mariela whose community of Garzal is also at risk of losing their land if they don’t receive titles from INCODER.

Alix, president of the Colombian Mennonite Church, faced INCODER as she read through the megaphone from Isaiah 58. God calls on her people in that passage “to loose the bonds of injustice, to undo the thongs of the yoke, to let the oppressed go free, and to break every yoke.”

Adriana and Gerardo shared the reading of the metaphor in 2 Samuel 12 in which a rich person kills the beloved animal of a poor person. Gerardo read the original verses while Adriana read verses that adapted the story to INCODER’s mistreatment of Las Pavas and Garzal.

Phil played guitar and led us in singing “No Basta Rezar” (It’s Not Enough to Pray). “No, no, it’s not enough to pray. A lot of things still need to be done in order to achieve peace.” He also wrote a song for the action called “Oiga!” (Listen up!) – “Listen up! We’re not going to accept this injustice. Listen up! We’re moving forward. We’ll always work for peace.”

Representatives of Las Pavas, Garzal and CPT then went to the entrance of INCODER and delivered a letter that began, “We’re writing to you on this day of Ash Wednesday; a day to reflect on our actions and attitudes, and to seek the path of repentance and forgiveness. We respectfully invite you to seek this path and to recognize that you have failed the communities of Las Pavas and Garzal. These communities have been waiting years to receive their titles.”

According to Colombian law, people can occupy vacant or abandoned land and then receive title to that land after they’ve been there for five years. Members of the Buenos Aires Small Farmers Association (ASOCAB) moved onto the abandoned Las Pavas farm in 1997. An INCODER commission visited the farm in 2006 and verified that the families met the requirements to receive the title. Emilio Escobar, the former owner, returned to Las Pavas later that year with a group of armed men. He threatened the families who then abandoned the farm. The Daabon company signed a purchase agreement with Escobar the following year. The 123 families of ASOCAB moved back to Las Pavas in January of last year and Daabon had them evicted in July.

The letter to INCODER ended, “In this season of Lent, INCODER has the possibility of giving new life to these communities by providing those titles.” Alix concluded her reading of Isaiah with these verses, “If you remove the yoke from among you, the pointing of the finger, the speaking of evil, if you offer your food to the hungry, and satisfy the needs of the afflicted, then your light shall rise in the darkness…you shall be like a watered garden, like a spring of water, whose waters never fail.”

In love and solidarity,
CJ

Photos of Mariela placing ash on Stewart, a CPTer dressed as an INCODER representative; and Alix facing INCODER as she reads from Isaiah.

Love, community and perseverance

Dear friends,

I recently returned to the state of Arauca for a visit and I received a wonderful gift of love, community and perseverance. I’ve been reflecting on that gift during this season of solstice, Chanukah and Christmas.

I was able to be with my godchild, Kuss Bryan, for the celebration of his fourth birthday in Fortul on December 1 (see attached photo). His mother, Alba, was severely wounded in her left shoulder during the bombing of Santo Domingo on December 13, 1998. The Colombian air force dropped two U.S.-manufactured cluster bombs on the community – killing 17 people and wounding 25. Employees of Airscan, a U.S. corporation providing security for Occidental Petroleum’s oilfield and pipeline in Arauca, provided the coordinates for the bombing. The survivors sued the Colombian government and the government was forced to pay reparations last year. Alba used the money she received to build a small house for herself and Kuss.

Alba’s father, Wilson Garcia, was the president of the Santo Domingo community council and he was killed by the guerrillas on March 24, 2006. Alba is six-months pregnant with her second child and is due to give birth in March. We talked about the new life that will be arriving in her home during the same month as the anniversary of her father’s death.

Father Luis invited me to lunch the day that I arrived in Arauquita. He’s very committed to the struggle for social justice and he has denounced the economic violence in Arauca – people living in poverty in a region rich with natural resources. “We’re here (on this earth) to love and be loved,” he said the last time that we shared lunch. At the end of evening mass he announced, “We’re glad to have with us again the human rights defender, Scott, who is now living in Barrancabermeja but has a special relation with our parish.”

I stayed with Maria Ruth and her six children while I was in Arauquita. Maria Ruth is a member of the Arauquita municipal council and has been threatened by both of the guerrilla groups that operate in Arauca. She’s told me, “You’re part of this family,” and they always manage to create space for me in their home.

That evening, I dined on a slice of fruit pizza prepared by Maria in her cart near the park. I’m a very loyal client whenever I’m in Arauquita. “We were just talking about you last night,” she said when I arrived and she gave me a hug.

In Saravena, I stayed with my friends Hugo and Rosa. Hugo is a surgeon at the public hospital and we share a love for classic rock music. He was listening to Jethro Tull when I first visited their home three years ago and he was pleasantly surprised that I recognized the band – the start of a wonderful friendship.

I became very sick while I was in their home with an intestinal infection that I apparently acquired during the last trip to the countryside here in the Middle Magdalena region. Hugo took me to the emergency room and I saw my friend Aide there. Her father, Alirio Martinez, was the president of the Arauca State Peasant Association. The army executed Alirio, along with two other community leaders, on August 5, 2004. Aide just completed seven years of medical school in Cuba and she is continuing her father’s legacy by serving the community as a doctor in the Saravena hospital.

The gift of love and community that I received from the people of Arauca fills me with joy and hope. Their strength and perseverance also inspires me to continue on this path of working together to create a better world.

In love and solidarity,
CJ

Photo of Kuss and Alba:

Indigenous Day dam protest

Dear friends,

More than 500 people occupied the Sogamoso River bridge on October 12 (“Columbus Day”) to protest construction of a hydroelectric dam on the river. The action was part of a national mobilization called the Minga of Communal and Social Resistance. Minga is an indigenous term for collective action, and it is the indigenous movement that is leading the way in the struggle for social and environmental justice here in Colombia.

The Sogamoso River is beautiful as it flows through a narrow canyon near the bridge. Sadly, heavy machinery is now scraping away at the side of the mountain in preparation to build a 600 foot-high dam which will flood 17,000 acres of land.

The blockage of the river will destroy the livelihood of approximately 200 people that provide for their families by fishing in the area directly below the dam site. The Sogamoso feeds into a vast network of swamps and wetlands that will also be affected by the dam – impacting the lives of many more fishers and their families.

Nearly 20 buses brought people from the cities of Barrancabermeja and Bucaramanga to the Sogamoso River on October 12. The people divided into five groups with each group discussing one of the five main issues of the Minga. Each group built a cooking fire and began preparing a large cauldron of stew for lunch. Community was created as people joined together in cooking and conversation around the fires.

“Land and Territory” was one of the issues of the Minga. Strong opposition was expressed to the recent military accord signed by the Colombia government and the administration of Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Barack Obama. The accord enables the U.S. military to use seven bases in Colombia as part of the “war on drugs and terrorism.” The concern is that this will escalate the war in Colombia and that the bases could also be used to intervene in the neighboring countries of Venezuela and Ecuador.

“Economic System” was another of the issues of the Minga, and strong opposition was also expressed to the “free trade” agreement between the U.S. and Colombia that was negotiated by the Bush administration. The agreement would be particularly harmful to small farmers in Colombia who can’t compete with subsidized industrial agriculture from the U.S.

When Barack Obama was campaigning, he declared his opposition to the agreement due to the repression of union activists in Colombia and his stance generated a lot of press coverage here. However, in April he spoke about promoting Congressional approval of the agreement. Obama’s Commerce Secretary, Gary Locke, and Trade Representative, Ron Kirk, are both strong proponents of corporate free trade.

After lunch was shared alongside the Sogamoso River, the people then occupied the bridge to protest construction of the dam. The bridge lies along the Barrancabermeja-Bucaramanga highway and traffic was shut down for more than an hour.

Honorio Llorente, president of the Sogamoso Bridge community council, participated actively in the Minga. His opposition to the dam apparently angered some powerful forces in the region. Five days later, on October 17, Honorio was shot and killed.

In love and solidarity,

CJ

Photos of the protest at the Sogamoso River bridge and the view of the river from the bridge:

Palm Oil Pandemic

Dear friends,

The Daabon company had 123 families (more than 500 people) evicted from the Las Pavas farm in the state of Bolivar on July 14. The company is cutting down trees and planting palm where the peasant farmers had been growing food for their families. I participated in a Christian Peacemaker Team delegation that visited the community from September 26 to 29 and witnessed the destruction caused by Daabon.

Daabon claims to be a socially and environmentally responsible leader in organic agriculture. The company sells The Body Shop ninety percent of the palm oil used in the production of their soaps. The Body Shop portrays itself as protecting the planet and defending human rights.

Leaders of the Las Pavas women’s association told us how they were evicted from their land. Approximately 200 children and 300 adults were at the Las Pavas farm on July 14. The police arrived around 8 A.M. They were accompanied by several armed men, dressed in civilian clothes and with cameras. The riot police arrived two hours later. The police encircled the farm and began closing in on the community members, with the riot police beating their clubs against their shields. They stopped just a few feet away from the people of Las Pavas.

Police overturned the community’s containers of drinking water and pots of cooked food. Various people told us that it appeared the police were trying to provoke a reaction that would then be filmed by the men with cameras. Around 4 P.M., the police threatened the community – if the people didn’t leave peacefully, they would be forcibly removed. In the face of that overwhelming force, the community decided to abandon their farm.

The people were not allowed to return to their fields and their 150 acres of food crops (squash, yuca, and corn) have been destroyed. Fourteen houses that were used to shelter farmers and their harvests were knocked down, carried away, and set on fire. Large trees have been chopped down, cut apart, and used to fill in wetlands.

The members of the Buenos Aires Peasant Association began working communally on the Las Pavas farm in 1997. The farm is located two miles from the community of Buenos Aires and had been abandoned by the previous owner, Emilio Escobar. Colombian law enables people to take possession and use abandoned land, and to then receive legal title to that land. The Colombian Institute for Rural Development (the government agency responsible for that process) visited Las Pavas in June 2006 and verified that the land had been occupied and farmed by the peasants.

After that visit, Escobar came to the farm with a group of armed men and threatened the peasants. A paramilitary group also went to the farm in late 2006 and issued a threat – if the people didn’t leave, their family members could be killed. The peasants abandoned the farm and two Daabon subsidiaries (C.I. Tequendama and Aportes San Isidro) signed a contract with Escobar a few months later. On January 15 of this year, the people returned to Las Pavas to begin planting their food crops. Daabon sought a court order to have them evicted and the police carried out that eviction on July 14.

Seventy percent of the arable land in El Penon county (where Las Pavas is located) is now planted in palm – primarily to produce fuel. The community asked us to film the destruction caused by the palm companies in the area. The companies have acquired large amounts of land and are draining the swamps and wetlands to plant palm.

We traveled along a raised roadway to a point where we could see a beautiful body of water on one side of the road – the Elubero swamp. Another body of water, the Escondida swamp, used to exist on the other side of the road. A channel had been dug from the swamp to the road, two large pipes placed under the roadway, and another channel dug from the road to the Solera river branch - draining the entire swamp. There are now rows of palm plants growing on that land.

The plantation on that side of the road represents the Colombian government’s vision for this region. There are already 190,000 acres of palm plantations in the Middle Magdalena river valley, and the government plans to have 1.7 million acres of palm here by 2018. The swamp and wetlands on the other side of the road represent the Buenos Aires Peasant Association’s vision for the region – preserving what remains of the natural environment and using agricultural land to produce food for the people.

In love and solidarity,

CJ

P.S. Photos of some of the Las Pavas families and the destruction caused by Daabon:

Memories of Arauca

Dear friends,

After living for three years in the state of Arauca, I joined the Christian Peacemaker Team here in the city of Barrancabermeja on September 16. I’ll be returning to Arauca occasionally to visit friends and I’d like to share with you now a few of my favorite memories of that very beautiful and afflicted region.

Martin Sandoval and 13 other people were arrested for “rebellion” in the town of Arauquita on November 4, 2008. Martin is the president of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights in Arauca. The Committee organized a public hearing of the Congressional Human Rights Commission in Arauquita on July 31, 2008. More than 500 people attended that hearing during which Martin and other community leaders denounced the abuses committed by the army and police. Leaders of the Committee felt that Martin’s imprisonment was in retaliation for organizing the hearing.

I visited Martin twice in the Arauca City prison. “As a human rights defender in Colombia, the least that you can expect is to be imprisoned” he said. “This is a beautiful experience. We share everything with each other here.” He and the 13 others remained united, worked with a lawyer that provided a joint defense for all of them, and were finally released on May 14. I called Martin the following evening when he was at the welcome home celebration in Arauquita. He expressed his appreciation for my support and said, “You’re part of this family.”

When I returned to Arauquita in March (after being in the U.S. for two months), I received a wonderful welcome from many people there. Some of those friends were the man who repairs shoes in front of the church (we joke that he’s performing surgery); Maria who bakes pizza in a cart by the park, along with the group that congregates with her in the evening (Colorado who sells lottery tickets, and Jaime who has a repair shop but is also a painter and philosopher); and the man at the produce store who always calls my name and gives me the thumbs-up when I walk by. At the start of mass that evening, Father Fernando announced “We’re very glad to have with us again the best human rights defender around here.”

Alejandra was two years old when I moved to the town of Saravena in 2006. She lived a block away, and she would wave and call out “Gringo!” whenever I walked by. One evening when she was three, she ran down to the corner to meet me and was so excited that she started skipping back to her house. That seemed like an excellent idea to me and I began skipping alongside her in the street. This turned into our evening ritual and we would skip together along the entire block.

Unfortunately, after Alejandra turned four she became too self-conscious to continue skipping (I hope she grows out of that by the time she reaches my age). After several skip-less months, a young girl who lives across the street from Alejandra called out to me one evening and started skipping. She had seen our previous ritual and wanted to join in the fun. I crossed the street and we skipped together to the corner. She and a younger friend became my new skipping buddies and the evening ritual was revived.

On that same block, there’s a taxi driver that works the Saravena-Arauquita route and I’ve traveled with him various times. I saw him in front of his home one afternoon and he asked, with a smile, “Are you still skipping?”

In love and solidarity,

CJ

Photo of Martin during a visit to the Arauca City prison that was organized by the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights on October 10, 2008 – one month prior to his arrest:

Gunshots, explosions and fear

Dear friends,

We heard gunshots as we were having dinner in the community of Filipinas (Arauca) on June 25. FARC guerrillas were attacking the soldiers that had arrived in town that morning. I looked at my watch and noted that it was 5:12 P.M. – something concrete to focus on in order to avoid the fear that I was feeling.

The bursts of gunfire were becoming longer and the direction of the sound was changing. It seemed as though the shots were coming closer. There was a particularly long, and ugly, burst of automatic rifle fire. At one point, shots were fired in the plantain grove – 100 yards away.

We also heard explosions which could have been army mortars or guerrilla cylinder bombs. The guerrillas sometimes launch propane cylinders filled with shrapnel – deadly devices that often veer off course and miss their intended target.

A group of soldiers had set up camp in the neighboring house – 50 feet away. I was afraid that the explosions could have been cylinder bombs and that the guerrillas would attempt to hit the army encampment. I counted the explosions (something else to focus on) and noted 16.

“My God! My God!” cried the woman who had invited us for dinner. “Why don’t they just leave?” she said in relation to the soldiers. She was also afraid that their presence would draw bullets or bombs.

I motioned a few times to my friend Nidia and mouthed, “Let’s get on the ground!” but she and the others didn’t seem to think that was necessary. We heard some more shots and I finally said to everyone, “You can stay seated, but I’m going to get down on the ground.” I then laid down on the dirt underneath the table. The family puppy joined me and I nicknamed the two of us, “The Brave Ones.” The sight of the gringo and the puppy provided some comic relief and, at that point, the gunfire and explosions ended.

I dusted myself off and we walked to the center of the community. Gunfire sounded again while I was inside a small store. This time I didn’t hesitate – I immediately laid down on the floor. I looked at my watch and noted that it was 6:03 P.M.

A helicopter came and circled overhead five minutes later. A roar of machinegun fire came from the helicopter – the ugliest sound I’ve heard in my life. I looked behind me and saw Nidia crouched underneath a table with her son Brandon, who was crying. One of the bullet cases tore through the metal roof of a house fifty yards away and landed on the ground a few feet from a mother and child (see attached photos).

The following morning we learned that four soldiers had been seriously wounded in the attack. The troop commander came to talk with us and we expressed our sorrow for those soldiers. We stated our concern that the ongoing presence of soldiers in the community, and encamped in people’s homes, was putting the civilian population at risk. The guerrillas were also endangering civilians by attacking the soldiers inside the community.

We had traveled to Filipinas for a human rights workshop organized by the Arauca Peasant Association (ACA). The workshop was suspended because of the danger posed by the presence of the soldiers and guerrillas. The troop commander told Nidia, the workshop facilitator and me that we would have to leave the area. Before leaving, we went to the home of the ACA president – at least ten soldiers were encamped around the house.

Gunshots rang out again about half an hour after we left Filipinas. The ACA president’s horse was struck by one of the bullets and killed.

I’ve been experiencing a growing commitment to the non-violent struggle for justice. The actions of both the guerrillas and the soldiers put the children and adults in Filipinas at grave risk. Seeing their fear, and experiencing my own fear, has deepened my opposition to the blind hatred embodied in the barrel of a gun.

In love and solidarity,

CJ

Photos of metal roof and bullet case (approximately four inches long):