Finding, Remembering, Accompanying, Colombia

7/27/2019 Finding, Remembering, Accompanying, Colombia.

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Finding,

Remembering,

Accompanying,

Colombia.

A photo essay by a U.S. delegate to the CEDECOL Peace Commission.

M. R. Georgevich


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Essay Itinerary.

[Chapter descriptions. Hyperlinks below link to online version.*]

Preface: Who, what, where, why

andwhat next.

I.May 31: The delegation receives acrash course history and sociopolitical primer.

II.May 31: Learning about theCEDECOL Peace Commission, accompaniment, and

El Garzal at Justapaz and MENCOLDES.

III.June 1: The delegation travels through theMagdalena Mediotowards El Garzal,

and meets Pastor Salvador; human rights violations documented against him

and the village.

IV.June 1-2: We arrive inEl Garzal, worship with the Foursquare Churchand then must

accompany Pastor Salvador out with us. Explanation of the threat to

Colombian Protestant churches and leaders.

V:June 5: Soacha. We witness theaftermath of forced displacements, and

the response of CEDECOL Peace Commission affiliates.

VI:June 3, 7: Barrancabermeja; the U.S. Embassy. Where paramilitaries come from, U.S.

involvement, andthe call from Colombia.

VII: A personal reflection in three parts onaccompanying,remembering,

and(re)findingColombia; stories from the entire trip.

Epilogue: A Colombianlast word.

Copyright 2013 M. R. Georgevich All rights reserved.

*Adapted for print; all photos and live hyperlinks [green text] also available at:

accompanyingcolombia.wordpress.com

Contact: [email protected]
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CONTENTS

Preface: 1

I. 4

II. 9

III. 13

IV. 25

V. 40

VI. 60

VII.

Colombia calling

La paz no es solo el silencio de los fusiles

Acompaar

The road to El Garzal

Tengo una bandera plantada en mi corazn

Voces Ocultas

Redeem your taxes

Acompaar, recordar, reencontrar

i. [Acompaar] 78

85

96

Epilogue:

ii. [Recordar]

iii. [Reencontrar]

Sin Palabras 101


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From May 30 to June 9, 2013, a delegation of clergy and lay leaders from the Central Atlantic and Connecticut

Conferences of the United Church of Christtraveled through Colombia, accompanied by Global Ministries

missionary Michael Joseph. The Connecticutand Central Atlantic Conferences participate in a Partnership

with Colombia that also includes the Disciples of Christ(in collaboration with the UCC via Global Ministries),

the Mennonite organization of Justapaz in Colombia (as well as others), and the Peace Commission of the

Evangelical Council of Colombia (CEDECOL). The 2013 delegation was organized in the U.S. by Charlie Pillsburywith Michael Joseph in Colombia.

Christians often speak of the power of Christ to disturb. As well as inspired, our delegation was left disturbed

and so stirred into action.

The United Church of Christ historically participates with other denominations in the annual Days of Prayer and

Action for Peace in Colombia, which includes lobbying for responsible policy and resource allocation there:

Colombia is one of the U.S.s top aid recipients year after year. Our delegations experiences in Colombia powerfully

illustrate the societal realities and individual lives behind the policy planks of the 2013 petition addressed

to the U.S. government.

Materials prepared by the UCC and the Mennonite Central Committee for the Days of Prayer and Action are

the best starting point for comprehensive background on Colombia and the oficial advocacy positions of those

institutions.

Unless otherwise noted, the words and captioned images on this blog are exclusively the personal

relections of just one (non-clergy) member of the 2013 delegation. They are not meant to represent the

views of any of the institutions referencedhere or abroadnor serve as an official account of the 2013 trip or

speak for any of the other delegation members, either individually or as a group. Our experience of witness was

too richand complicatedto be completely reflected in the solo series of personal essays that follow.

Crossing into South America over the Colombian coastline at sunset, May 30, 2013. The languageis painfully clich, but Colombia really is a jewel from above: vast tracts of undeveloped emerald

green bordered by an azure Caribbean coastline.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Church_of_Christhttp://globalministries.org/about-us/http://globalministries.org/mission/missionaries/Michael-Joseph.htmlhttp://www.ctconfucc.org/http://www.cacucc.org/pages/detail/2525http://www.ctconfucc.org/partnerships/colombia/http://www.ctconfucc.org/partnerships/colombia/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Church_(Disciples_of_Christ)http://www.disciples.org/GeneralMinistries/GeneralMinistryDirectory/DivisionofOverseasMinistriesGlobalMinistries/tabid/96/Default.aspxhttp://www.mcc.org/stories/news/us-congregations-invited-work-hand-hand-peace-colombiahttp://www.mcc.org/stories/news/us-congregations-invited-work-hand-hand-peace-colombiahttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/pdfs/DOPA-2013-Organizer-Packet.pdfhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/pdfs/DOPA-2013-Worship-Packet.pdfhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/pdfs/DOPA-2013-Worship-Packet.pdfhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/pdfs/DOPA-2013-Organizer-Packet.pdfhttp://www.mcc.org/stories/news/us-congregations-invited-work-hand-hand-peace-colombiahttp://www.mcc.org/stories/news/us-congregations-invited-work-hand-hand-peace-colombiahttp://www.disciples.org/GeneralMinistries/GeneralMinistryDirectory/DivisionofOverseasMinistriesGlobalMinistries/tabid/96/Default.aspxhttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Christian_Church_(Disciples_of_Christ)http://www.ctconfucc.org/partnerships/colombia/http://www.ctconfucc.org/partnerships/colombia/http://www.cacucc.org/pages/detail/2525http://www.ctconfucc.org/http://globalministries.org/mission/missionaries/Michael-Joseph.htmlhttp://globalministries.org/about-us/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_Church_of_Christ


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Its easy for the North American church to fall into the habit of listening for cries for help from abroad. What

the UCC is actually hearing from Colombia is a steadfast call for accompaniment, and, accountability. (Even Global

Ministries missionary Michael Josephs blog is titled, Colombia Calling.)

This call for accompaniment is directed towards a denomination that speaks of partnership; that pays taxes to

a federal government with massive presence on their ground; that is their mirrored counterpart in faith, stated

values, and the spirit of many congregations under one banner.

This is ourcall.

And here the word accompanimentthe term preferred in Colombia in lieu of help of aid in social services

parlancematters. Accompanying Colombia means not just meeting face to face, but walking side by side with

powerful, organized local leaders who made it clear to our delegation time and time again that they are prepared to

lead on strategy, and only ask of us what we feel is realistically in our capacity to deliver.

The delegations wider mission was to begin a collective re-imagination of what a Partnership with Colombia

might look like.

In Colombia I witnessed two powerful forms of accompaniment: relational, and institutional.

Relational accompaniment can mean personality-driven, leader to leader connection. This is the compelling origin

story of the Partnership of Colombia: two UCC Conference ministers cultivated a strong relationship with CEDECOL

Peace Commission co-founder Ricardo Esquivia, and have continued to advocate with and for him into retirement.

June 6, 2013. A passing rain shower over Bogot, seen from Cerro de Monserrate.


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Relational accompaniment also includes sister congregation programs, and the camaraderie and pastoral support

of in-person delegations like our own. These speciic relationships and programs are vitally importantin

establishing connection across all kinds of borders.

Institution to institution accompaniment is power; it concretizes the relationship and grows sustainability and

wider inclusion. (And words like institutionalization, concretize, and sustainability dont have to be red lags

for ofice, staff, or the dread obligatory monthly committee meetingwe can surely organize more creatively

than that.)

Stateside, mass UCC participation in the annual Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia is institutional

accompanimentand this October, the body of the UCC stood with CEDECOL when 84 leaders at the Connecticut

Conference fall assembly signed a letter to advocate for Peace Commission co-founder Ricardo Esquivia in his

latest struggle. In Colombia, when our American delegation gained access to meetings and information that was

not readily accessible by our Colombian partners, that was institutional accompaniment. And our presence in

accompanying a tiny village under threat of forced displacement was a tacit commitment by the United Church

of Christespecially after the events that unfolded as a consequence of our visit.

In areas of Colombia beyond the reach of the state, both illegal armed actors and churches committed to

peace have stepped forward to ill the vacuum. The CEDECOL Peace Commission has found and claimed its rightful

place in ground war for peace. To accompany in earnest our sister churches in their radical works and hopeto

keep any promises madewe will need to roust and assess ourselves as a denominational partner: what is ourcapacity?
https://secure3.convio.net/ucc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1199https://secure3.convio.net/ucc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1199https://secure3.convio.net/ucc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1199https://secure3.convio.net/ucc/site/Advocacy?cmd=display&page=UserAction&id=1199


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W U.S. :

T C , w. This should support

peace accord implementation, address the needs of victims of violence, and feature

aid for safe, sustainable return of land and other durable solutions for internally displaced

persons and refugees.

[Days of Prayer and Action for Colombia petition, 2013]

The delegations irst full day in Colombia was spent in a marathon crash course on the nations civic, economic,

social, and military history1 in recent years. We spent the day in Bogot shuttling between conference rooms at

three Peace Commission afiliated organizations: CEPALC, Justapaz, and MENCOLDES.

It was like trying to drink from a ire hose.

Justapaz, our delegations institutional home base in Colombia.

Driving back and forth through Bogot, May 31, 2013.
http://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.cepalc.org/http://www.insightonconflict.org/conflicts/colombia/peacebuilding-organisations/justapaz/http://fundacionmencoldes.org/index.php/alianzas/65-socios-mencoldeshttp://fundacionmencoldes.org/index.php/alianzas/65-socios-mencoldeshttp://www.insightonconflict.org/conflicts/colombia/peacebuilding-organisations/justapaz/http://www.cepalc.org/http://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.html


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CEPALC (Centro Popular Para America Latina de Comunicacin) is an ecumenical institute founded in1978 by Amparo Beltrn Acosta to work with poor communities, women, and children, especially around

communication issues. Her husband and co-director, Flix A. Posada Roja, started off our sobering primer on

the last 30 years of Colombian history.

Posada argues that in Colombia,

the motor of violence is not poverty, but inequality.

He gave us estimates that 10% of the wealthiest make 50% of the wealth; the bottom 10% make just 0.6%. In

1986, 2.5% of all landowners owned 36% of the land; that number has since increased to 53%. The poverty

level in rural areas reaches 85%. Gang, guerrilla, and paramilitary2 recruitment are fueled by massive

unemployment and the social and economic fallout of mass displacements.

On site at CEPALC.

Amparo Beltrn Acosta and Flix A. Posada Roja of CEPALC. MichaelJoseph translates.


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U.S. policy initiatives have had a particularly wide footprint.

In 2012, Colombia and the U.S. entered into a free trade agreement; Posada explained that the only

winners so far have been large agro-industriesoften internationally held, and/or the same ones suspected

ofcontracting paramilitary to force peasant farmers off their land when they wont be bought out. (Their

own employees arent much safer: from 2000 to 2010, over half of all trade unionist murders in the world

happened in Colombia, even though less than 5% of the national workforce is unionized.)

With the market opened and U.S. imports arriving duty-free and subsidized back home, Colombian farmers

are priced out in their own market and on the losing side here: a year since the agreement began, Colombian

exports to the U.S. are up 3%; U.S. exports to Colombia are up 22%.

Under Plan Colombia, farmers ofcoca (and others, inadvertently) have had their crops fumigated from

above, but havent always been the recipient of the resources necessary to re-purpose their land towards crop

substitution as originally promised. Drug producers are just moving in deeper to plant their crop, some into

protected forest areas, and someforciblyinto land already home to small family farms.

Groups ofcampesinos (from the Spanish campoield; a campesino is one who farms) have begun their

own growing collectives to support the production and marketing of non-coca crop. The pastor we would meet

in El GarzalSalvador Alcntarais also the vice president of one such group in the Magdalena Medio region,

the Association of Alternative Producers of Simit (ASPROAS). Over the years, he has assisted family farmers

in his community in switching from the cultivation of plantains to cocao, which turns two to three times as

much proit.

This is a high-risk venturePastor Salvador has faced death threats from illegal armed actors invested in the

drug trade and palm oil industry for nearly ten years now.

A family farm on contested land in Bolvar Department, Magdalena Medio region.
http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB340/http://colombiareports.com/colombia-most-dangerous-place-in-the-world-to-be-a-union-representative/http://colombiareports.com/colombia-most-dangerous-place-in-the-world-to-be-a-union-representative/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradicationhttp://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/campesinohttp://www.cpt.org/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=25943http://www.pazdesdelabase.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=35http://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/sociedad/Un_campesino_sin_tierra_es_como_un_pez_fuera_del_agua.html?cid=31058248http://www.swissinfo.ch/spa/sociedad/Un_campesino_sin_tierra_es_como_un_pez_fuera_del_agua.html?cid=31058248http://www.pazdesdelabase.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=35http://www.cpt.org/index.php?q=gallery&g2_itemId=25943http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/campesinohttp://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coca_eradicationhttp://colombiareports.com/colombia-most-dangerous-place-in-the-world-to-be-a-union-representative/http://colombiareports.com/colombia-most-dangerous-place-in-the-world-to-be-a-union-representative/http://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB340/


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When Plan Colombia was approved by Congress in 2000, it was hailed as an attempt to simultaneously

shore up a government under siege and target the supply side of the U.S. war against drugs. The original PlanColombia proposed by the Colombian government emphasized economic development and social priorities.

What was inally approved skewed massively towards military aidwhich is well-documented to have trickled

its way down to paramilitary groups operating illegally on behalf of the Colombian military.

In fact, a study published in 2011 tookan empirical look at the blowback effect of U.S. military aid on

paramilitary violence. In the period 1988-2005, military aid increased by an average of 92% each year. Each

increase of 92% was associated with 138% more paramilitary attacks in military base regions, relative

to non-base regionsas well as decreased voter participation during election years in these areas.

As former ambassador Ambassador Robert White described it:

If you read the original Plan Colombia, not the one that was written in Washington butthe original Plan Colombia, theres no mention of military drives against the FARC rebels.Quite the contrary. (President Pastrana) says the FARC is part of the history of Colombia and

a historical phenomenon, he says, and they must be treated as Colombians.. . [Colombians]

come and ask for bread and you (America) give them stones.

Rincn del Lago neighborhood, Ciudadela Sucre, Soacha. Soacha is home to more displaced persons than any other cityin Colombia.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombiahttp://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB166/http://ideas.repec.org/p/cgd/wpaper/197.htmlhttp://ideas.repec.org/p/cgd/wpaper/197.htmlhttp://ideas.repec.org/p/cgd/wpaper/197.htmlhttp://ideas.repec.org/p/cgd/wpaper/197.htmlhttp://www.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB166/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Plan_Colombia


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Whatever the net merits of U.S. military support have been in helping to stabilize government control in a time

of civil war, it is clear that, moving forward, it is not suficient to win the war for peace.

This war will continue to be fought on the ground by civil society and must begin anew with urgencynot

taper offafter any outcome of the current negotiations with FARC in Havana, or possible future talks with

ELN.

Colombia is a critical laboratory for the theory that peace cannot result from military force alonein

fact, justice may be its only hope. President Juan Manuel Santos acknowledged as much in his remarks to thelegislature on July 20 of this yearColombia's Independence Day:

La paz no es solo el silencio de los fusiles.Peace is not solely the silence of the guns.

1The U.S. State Department has abasic survey similar to what we received available online; the Library of Congress has aconsiderably more extensive one (well-indexed for reference purposes).

2 The terms guerrilla, and paramilitary refer to speciic categories of illegal armed actors in Colombia (they are

distinguished by the Colombian government from criminal gangs by their claims of ideology-driven leadership.) For

a broader crash course on players in Colombias violent modern history (including US interventions), starthere.

Children in El Garzal, a community under threat of displacement by illegal armed actors.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23338862http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23338862http://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/colombia/199006.htmhttp://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/colombia/199006.htmhttp://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cotoc.htmlhttp://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cotoc.htmlhttp://www.cfr.org/colombia/farc-eln-colombias-left-wing-guerrillas/p9272http://www.cfr.org/colombia/colombias-right-wing-paramilitaries-splinter-groups/p15239http://colombiajournal.org/fiftyyearsofviolencehttp://colombiajournal.org/fiftyyearsofviolencehttp://www.cfr.org/colombia/colombias-right-wing-paramilitaries-splinter-groups/p15239http://www.cfr.org/colombia/farc-eln-colombias-left-wing-guerrillas/p9272http://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cotoc.htmlhttp://lcweb2.loc.gov/frd/cs/cotoc.htmlhttp://www.state.gov/outofdate/bgn/colombia/199006.htmhttp://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23338862http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-latin-america-23338862


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W U.S. :

T .Peace must be built from the ground up as well as negotiated from the top down. The engagement of every sector of societyincluding victims associations, displaced communities,

civil society organizations, religious communities, and labor unionsis necessary to constructa just and sustainable peace.


According to our organizer and leader Charlie Pillsbury, the 2013 delegations stated mission was:

to gain insight into and irst-hand experience of the work of the Peace Commission of theEvangelical Council of Colombia, the main partner of the United Church of Christ and theChristian Church (Disciples of Christ) through Global Ministries in Colombia.

The Evangelical1 Council of Colombia (CEDECOL) represents approximately 70% of Colombias Evangelical,

Protestant and Anabaptist Christian population.2

The CEDECOL Peace Commission was founded to provide relief and hope to the victims of violence and forced

displacement in Colombia, and to work proactively with educational programs designed to help churches and

communities make themselves over into peace sanctuaries.

Courtyard between Justapaz and MENCOLDES.
http://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.html


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The founding of the peace commission 23 years ago was driven by grim necessity, not theology; the

commission also documents political violence against Colombian Protestant churches. Its yearly reportsA

Prophetic Callare used as a resource by the U.S. government in preparingits own regular audit of

religious freedom in Colombia.

Peace Commission members believe there is a critical role for churches in Colombias recovery, and work in

concrete terms to increase the capacity of churches to work for peace.

Circled and underlined at the top of my notes from our meetings that irst day is the word acompaar

to accompany. In our group reflection later that day on the informational sessions, I raised what a remarkable

deviation this is from the American social services lexicon: where American providers use the words help,

assistance, or aid, in Colombia, they use the noun accompaniment.

One does not provide, give, or even serve, but accompanies. Counseling is psycho-social accompaniment.

Legal aid is legal accompaniment. And the CEDECOL Peace Commission provides very literal accompaniment

to selected communities under threat of violence and forced displacement. The community of El Garzal

in Colombias Magdalena Medio region is one of these sitesand one which we had been asked to accompany

ourselves, as a delegation of witness to their struggle and to the work of the Peace Commission.

Jenny Neme, Director of Justapaz and Peace Commissioner; Michael Joseph, Global Ministries missionary to the PeaceCommission; Pablo Moreno, Rector of the Baptist University and Seminary in Cali and National Coordinator of the

Peace Commission. Meeting hosted by MENCOLDES. On the whiteboard are notes on the Commissions BiblicalBasis of Peace School, an ecumenical adult ed program to educate potential peace leaders on church-state relations,

economic systems, and political advocacy.

1
http://apropheticcall.org/http://apropheticcall.org/http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://globalministries.org/news/lac/colombia-action-request.htmlhttp://globalministries.org/news/lac/colombia-action-request.htmlhttp://globalministries.org/news/lac/colombia-action-request.htmlhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://apropheticcall.org/http://apropheticcall.org/


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Accompaniment is walking side by side; it is also a powerful weapon for peace. The sign we would later

view at the town green at El Garzal reads, in translation,

Welcome to the community of El Garzal, a Peace Territory. We are 100 families. Theorganizations that accompany us3 are: SWISSAID, PDPMM, ADAM, FUPAD, ECAP,PEACEWATCH, ASPROAS, APROCASUR, AGROMISBOL.

It serves as introduction, and as documentation of highly sophisticated, wide-reaching community leadership.

It also serves as a warning: We are recognized, we are organized, we are here, and the world is watching.

Twenty four hours after I had started underlining acompaarin my notes, we landed in the tiny town of ElGarzal.

BIENVENIDOS A CORREGIMIENTO EL GARZALTERRITORIODE PAZ

Pablo Moreno addresses the Foursquare Church of El Garzal.

1
http://www.swissaid.ch/en/colombiahttp://www.c-r.org/accord-article/regional-peace-experience-magdalena-medio-peace-and-development-programmehttp://www.tetratechintdev.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=150%3Acolombia-areas-for-municipal-level-alternative-development-program-adam&Itemid=60&lang=ushttp://www.fupad.org/http://www.cpt.org/work/colombiahttp://www.peacewatch.ch/http://www.pazdesdelabase.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=35http://www.computrabajo.com.co/bt-empd-aprocasur.htmhttp://www.cpt.org/content/organizationshttp://www.cpt.org/content/organizationshttp://www.cpt.org/content/organizationshttp://www.computrabajo.com.co/bt-empd-aprocasur.htmhttp://www.pazdesdelabase.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=92&Itemid=35http://www.peacewatch.ch/http://www.cpt.org/work/colombiahttp://www.fupad.org/http://www.tetratechintdev.com/index.php?option=com_k2&view=item&id=150%3Acolombia-areas-for-municipal-level-alternative-development-program-adam&Itemid=60&lang=ushttp://www.c-r.org/accord-article/regional-peace-experience-magdalena-medio-peace-and-development-programmehttp://www.swissaid.ch/en/colombia


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1 Evangelical used as a label in South America does not always have the same connotations as it does in the U.S.; it can also

be used as an umbrella term for all Protestants in general, including mainline denominations. (Indeed, it was the term

preferred by Martin Lutherto describe his original Protestant reform movement.)

2 The Catholic Church still dominates Colombia, as it does South America. The Roman Catholic Bishops Conferenceestimates that 90 percent of the population is Catholic, while the Colombian Evangelical Council (CEDECOL) states

that approximately 15 percent of the population is Protestant. Catholicism was the oficial state religion from colonialtimes until the constitution was revised in 1991, which recognized and granted other faiths equal protection and status as

well.

3 SWISSAID Swiss AidPDPMM Magdalena Medio Peace and Development Program

ADAM Areas for Municipal-Level Alternative Development Program

FUPAD Pan American Development Foundation

ECAP Christian Peacemaker Teams

PEACEWATCH Peace Watch Switzerland

ASPROAS Association of Alternative Producers of Simit

APROCASUR Association of Producers of Cacao

AGROMISBOL Southern Bolvar Agricultural-Mining Federation

1
http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdf


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To accompanyand bear witness ofEl Garzal,you must descend into the heat of the rural Magdalena

Medio region where no U.S. government employee is permitted to go. From Bogot we lew into its port

anchor, Barrancabermeja, and from the airport we went straight down to the River Magdalena.

El Garzal is in the municipality of Simit in Bolvar Department, in a region where campesinos are under

threat byparamilitaries, and large agro-industrial oil palm plantationsa lucrative export business.

According to Pierre Shantz ofChristian Peacemaker Teams, Colombia, Several municipalities have over 75%

of the land planted in palm.

As described by the World Bank,

Magdalena Medio is one of the poorest and most violent areas of Colombia and a microcosmof the actors and issues underlying Colombias armed conlict with guerrillas, right-wingparamilitaries, with the army battling for control while the civilian population struggles to

survive. The region contains great natural and productive wealth with unequal access.

Arable land is so valuable in Colombia that even just farming a small family plot can be as hazardous

as sitting on a goldmine, if youve got the wrong kind of neighbors. And there are a lot of the wrong kind of

neighbors in the Magdalena Medio. Guerillas, paramilitaries, and corporations have all forcibly displaced entire

communities.

The delegation traveled though the Magdalena Medio region via river from Barrancabermeja (south) to our naldestination of El Garzal in the municipality of Simiti (north).

1
http://www.crisisgroupblogs.org/crimeandpolitics/2012/02/21/the-reform-reality-gap-in-colombia-a-view-from-magdalena-medio-region/http://www.crisisgroupblogs.org/crimeandpolitics/2012/02/21/the-reform-reality-gap-in-colombia-a-view-from-magdalena-medio-region/http://www.thenation.com/article/dark-side-plan-colombiahttp://www.thenation.com/article/dark-side-plan-colombiahttp://www.cpt.org/about/historyhttp://www.cpt.org/about/historyhttp://cptcolombia.wordpress.com/author/cptcolombia/https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/10406https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/10406https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/10406https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/10406https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/10406https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/10406https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/10406https://openknowledge.worldbank.org/handle/10986/10406http://cptcolombia.wordpress.com/author/cptcolombia/http://www.cpt.org/about/historyhttp://www.thenation.com/article/dark-side-plan-colombiahttp://www.crisisgroupblogs.org/crimeandpolitics/2012/02/21/the-reform-reality-gap-in-colombia-a-view-from-magdalena-medio-region/http://www.crisisgroupblogs.org/crimeandpolitics/2012/02/21/the-reform-reality-gap-in-colombia-a-view-from-magdalena-medio-region/


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Chalupa drivers wait for their fares. Chalupas are speedy, at bottomed boats used to connect the smallcommunities along the Rio Magdalena. We would travel two hours by chalupa to the tiny town of Vijagual,where we would meet up with Pastor Salvador of El Garzals Foursquare Church. After an interview at a

Christian radio station there, we would then take a motored long boat across the river and through the swamps toland as close as we could to the road to El Garzal.

Sheltered waiting area, Cormagdalena port, Barrancabermeja.

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AMBULANCIA - HOSPITAL LOCAL SAN PABLO. Theclosest medical care to El Garzal, and over an hour away by river.

The windshield of a chalupa doubles as an entrance and exit. Recent heavyrains had swelled the river with oating debris that drivers must weave

through artfully, or risk jamming the propeller.

Vast undeveloped stretches of the river bracket the small settlements.

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Overlooking the docks at Vijagual.

Slipping into the dock at Vijagual, seen from the chalupa window. Young men shing next to our slip, whilea member of the Colombian state police looks on. There were also two Colombian military transport boats tiedup and soldiers on site when we arrived; they make periodic security stops at towns along the river. The young

children who ran down to the dock (while we sat and waited for the police to nish interviewing our missionaryabout our itinerary) announced our presence to their friends by calling out, rico! rico!rich, rich.

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Entering Vijagual.

The DJ who interviewed our delegation at Christian radio station Bendicin Stereo. He is smiling because we laughedwhen we heard him address his listeners: So, what are these gringos doing here in Vijagual?

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Sound engineer, Bendicin Stereo.

One of the owners of Bendicin Stereo.

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Midday trafc, Vijagual.

Produce market, Vijagual.

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El hijo con el mico. I had self-studied Spanish for only a month by the time we arrived, andnone of the rural Colombians we met spoke English. On the way out of Vijagual, a man

watching our delegation pass by noticed I had fallen behind photographing dogs, horses, and

birds. He called out: Do you want to photograph my son (hijo)?

I came over, but only saw a young daughter (hija) on his porch. I photographed her furrowingher brow at me. He emphatically tried to convince me to come into the house, waving me into

a dark entryway as the rest of the delegation continued back to the dock. His eyes were soft

and expressed excitement about what he was offering, but I was reluctant to separate myself

further from the group to enter a private home.

Pastor Salvador had met us in Vijagual before the radio interview, and he noticed I was

rapidly getting left behind while I haltingly explained to my would-be host: Im sorry, I cant

go in the house, my friends are going to our boat, can your son come here? He walked backto us to confer with the man and then asked me, Do you want to go in the house?

We ducked in and through to a back porchwhere I irst learned the Spanish word for

monkey (mico), which I had mistaken for the word for son (hijo). The rest of the delegationspilled in to join in the delight.

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The family across the street heard all the commotion the Americans were making over the monkey, so they brought outtheir monkey for us too.

La hija on the porch beforehand. Unimpressed by my Spanish comprehension skills.

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Loading up to depart Vijagual via canoe. This canoe would t our delegation of 13 Americans andColombians (and all of our luggage), as well as Pastor Salvador, our boat driver, and the sound engineer and a

young boy from the radio station, who came along just for the ride to drop us off.

Moments later, the daughter from the rst family ran over and plunkeddown a giant tortoise for us to photograph as well.

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The story of El Garzalis at once frustrating, heartbreaking,inspiring. It is a site where, in the words of a

social worker from Justapaz who accompanied us in, the church has made a real difference, via the head of its

Foursquare Church, Pastor Salvador, in cooperation with other powerful community leaders:

He serves the whole community, not just his church.

The human rights violations documented against Salvador and his familyare a case study in crisis escalation

and a compelling narrative arc of what it means for a community to defy forced displacement by reaching out

beyond its borders in a powerful show of strength. Here, the incidents as reported by the CEDECOL Peace

Commission:

Case 76: Death Threat. April 15, 2000. Pastor Salvador Alcntara confronted some men who were part of paramilitary

groups when he saw them taking a young man down the street. He asked them why they were taking them, and their response

was to verbally abuse and threaten him. The young man was later executed. This happened when the paramilitaries were just

beginning their activity in Simit, Bolvar.

Case 77: Death Threat. October 27, 2003. Pastor Salvador Alcntara sought outManuel Barreto, a large landowner

and leader of paramilitary groups, near the hospital in Simit to talk with him. Manuel Barreto was in a car with some

paramilitaries when the passed by the pastor and his friend at his friends house. The pastor asked him about the

commentaries that were circulating that said that the paramilitaries were present there [in El Garzal] because the peoplehave to be displaced. The pastor asked him, is it true? Barreto afirmed the statement, saying, all this territory is mine. I

have 500 riles to regain this land. He proposed to the pastor that he could give him some land so the pastor could stop being

a bother. The pastor took offense and explained that he was not looking for personal favors, instead he sought to protect thecommunitys welfare [emphasis mine]. Manuel Barreto asked, Do you also want to ight? He said that in January he would visitthe community and he didnt want to see a single person or family in El Garzal. The Magdalena River takes everything that is

put in it. All the people in Garzal are guerillas.1

Case 78: Death Threat. January 15, 2004. Manuel Barreto, the large landowner in this area, found out that Pastor SalvadorAlcntara was working with international accompaniment and organizing the community to demand the residents rights to theland in Garzal. Pastor Salvador received a call from a known paramilitary. He was warned that his situation was critical andthatthere was an order out to kill him.

Case 83: Death Threat. September 1, 2007. The Army called Pastor Salvador Alcntara to ask him to identify twoparamilitaries that they had captured. The pastor explained, I didnt go. I understood that it was a set up to get me into

trouble with the paras. The Army is complicit. That afternoon the Army freed the two people it had captured. A few days

later, the pastor was at a community meeting in El Garzal and a group of people, some on horse and four on foot, passed by.

Then, the pastor saw that the Army showed up. He thought that maybe it was to provide accompaniment to the internationalorganizations that were accompanying the meeting, but then the Army proceeded to arrest two of the people walking in thegroup (who accompanied the men on horseback). Later they found out that the people were drug trafickers, accompanied by

paramilitary guards. At that time, there were rumors circulating that said the pastor was a rat [informant] for the army. The

pastor looked for the person that was spreading the rumor about his links to the army; the man was dressed as a civilian, but

he was a known paramilitary. The paramilitary said that he was spreading the rumor because the pastor wanted to take land

away from the person that threatened him, a landowner with large extensions of land with palm oil plantations.

Case 59: Death Threat. June 27, 2009, August 8, 2009. Pastor Salvador Jos Alcntara Rivera. Salvador has received death

threats from paramilitaries, and recently a death threat against Salvador was made public in the town of Vijagual, where a hitman had been paid to go and kill him. On August 8, 2009, a group of men armed with rifles, dressed in black and with longrange weapons, stationed themselves across from Salvadors house all night A member of the Alcntara family arrived home a

11pm that night, and was searched by the group. They registered his presence, and asked him where he came from, and where

Salvador was located. The group identiied themselves as guerrilla, however, their uniforms and their weapons made the

family think that they were a paramilitary group.Just that day, Salvador Alcntara happened to not be in Garzal. He and othercommunity leaders were leading the legal actions and political advocacy work aimed at the custody, protection, and vindicationof the right to land and territory and the right to the sustainable use of natural resources of the 300 farming families that live inGarzal. These rights, however, have been fundamentally violated by a company that grows palm oil, and by different stateagencies on the local and regional level.

2
http://apropheticcall.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/a-prophetic-call-67-summary-report/http://www.swissaid.ch/en/a-happy-ending-for-el-garzalhttp://apropheticcall.org/http://www.cpt.org/content/colombia-dispossessedhttp://www.cpt.org/es/content/quoti-thought-you-were-deadquothttp://www.cpt.org/es/content/quoti-thought-you-were-deadquothttp://www.cpt.org/content/colombia-dispossessedhttp://apropheticcall.org/http://www.swissaid.ch/en/a-happy-ending-for-el-garzalhttp://apropheticcall.wordpress.com/2013/02/04/a-prophetic-call-67-summary-report/


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Case 99: Death Threat, Forced Displacement. December 9, 2011. Salvador Jos Alcntara Rivera, 52, is married to Nidia

Alian and they have four daughters. Salvador is a pastor in the Foursquare Church in addition to being a leader of a rural

community, the president of the Community Council of the community of El Garzal and the vice-president of ASPROAS the

Association of Alternative Farmers of Simit. Salvador was allegedly threatened by members of the Los Urabeos neo-

paramilitary group and forced to leave Simit, Bolvar along with his family on December 9, 2011. Two days earlier, the pastor

received a phone call notifying him that men had been heard discussing plans to kill him. The caller also mentioned that

armed men wearing ski masks had been asking for him. As such, he left the Magdalena Medio region in the company of the

Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT).The events occurred the day after a national and international veriication commissionhad been held with representatives from churches, civil society, the diplomatic community and the government. During the

meeting, testimony was heard on the communitys situation, with a particular focus on land rights. Salvador had previouslyreceived threats from neo-paramilitary groups on several occasions.

On June 1, 2013, Pastor Salvador met us at Vijagual, and accompanied our delegation of United Church of

Christ representatives and CEDECOL Peace Commission associates across the Rio Magdalena and through theswamplands that lead into El Garzal.

For the previous few evenings, motorcyclists had sped up and down the tiny hamlets dirt road late at night,

upsetting the dogs and livestock. The identity of these individuals is not known.

1In modern-day Colombia, to label ones opponent a guerrilla is not merely the equivalent of accusing someone of being

a Communist sympathizer in 1950s America; it is also a slur that can mark someone for (presumed state-sanctioned)

assassination. Human rights leaders, academics, politicians, journalists, union leaders, and entire churches have been labeled

guerrilla sympathizers by everyone from paramiltaries to more conservative political foes; Flix Posada at CEPALC referred to

this practice as Satanizing the opposition.

Pastor Salvador Jos Alcntara Rivera leads our US-Colombiandelegation from Vijagual into El Garzal.

2
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Urabe%C3%B1oshttp://cptcolombia.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/garzals-president-reverend-salvador-alcantera-forced-to-flee-for-his-life-2/http://cptcolombia.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/garzals-president-reverend-salvador-alcantera-forced-to-flee-for-his-life-2/http://cptcolombia.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/garzals-president-reverend-salvador-alcantera-forced-to-flee-for-his-life-2/http://cptcolombia.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/garzals-president-reverend-salvador-alcantera-forced-to-flee-for-his-life-2/http://cptcolombia.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/garzals-president-reverend-salvador-alcantera-forced-to-flee-for-his-life-2/http://cptcolombia.wordpress.com/2011/12/20/garzals-president-reverend-salvador-alcantera-forced-to-flee-for-his-life-2/http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Urabe%C3%B1os


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W U.S. :

P so as to protect the civilian populations still caught in the crossire,especially the most vulnerableIndigenous and Afro-Colombian communities, women and

children, and farmers in rural areas.


The waters were still swollen high around the terrain from heavy rains, so after crossing the river we

crept through looded swamps in our long wooden canoe in order to land as close as possible to the road to El

Garzal. We enjoyed the sensation of a slight breeze in the open boat, scanning the trees and grasses for exotic

birds as we gently glided past partially-submerged fence posts.

El Garzal relative to Vijagual (lower right). Simiti is off to the west. Coca leaf (precursor to cocaine) cultivations arelocated west and southwest outside the communities of El Garzal and Nueva Esperanza; surrounding swamp areas are

used for the transport of arms and drugs.

One of El Garzals close neighbors is a property called Sucumbeza, home to an airstrip alleged to have been associatedwith an Escobar afliate until a 1989 government raid cleared it out; in 1999, the guerrilla group ELN then landed a

hijacked Avianca plane there. [Map courtesy of cpt.org.]

2
http://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.htmlhttp://www.ucc.org/justice/colombia/jpanet-dopa.html


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El Garzal means, The Heron, for the birds that gravitate there as a mating site. It is located in what are now

federally-protected wetlandsa recent legal distinction we would learn about at a meeting with Colombias

land title agency later that week. It is part of an elegant attempt at a government solution to their title battles

in civil court with the Barreto family.1

Halfway through the disorienting swampland, the driver sensed some concern about how long we had been

threading through the ersatz waterways and how much further we still had to go.

Im lost, he deadpanned through a translator.

We inally pulled up to a lip of solid shoreline, beginning to wilt in the close jungle air and already starting to

draw a cloud of the mosquitoes for which the village is infamous.

Welcome to Cartagena, he declared.

View of another canoe like ours during the river crossing towards the swamp area around El Garzal.

2
http://www.lonelyplanet.com/colombia/caribbean-coast/cartagenahttp://www.lonelyplanet.com/colombia/caribbean-coast/cartagena


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The beginning of the road into El Garzal.

Many of the family farms in El Garzal are adorned with bright owers.

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LA PROPIA.(Propia denotes something that is ones own.) The pastors latbed truck and thedelegations means of transportation through the extensive farmland. I wedged into the cab with the

driver along with a representative of Justapaz, and the other 11 members of the delegation sat and

stood in the back.

The road is really a built-up lood wall in many places that is traditionally traversed via motorcycle

or horses and burros. The truck leaves deep ruts in the mud, and is often not safe to use at all.(Conditions lookedand feltquite alarming from my seat, but I told myself our driver, the pastors

son-in-law, had probably been doing this his entire adult life and I shouldnt worry. We later learned

the truck had been obtained two months earlier.)

We only slid off into a ditch once, as we crept along through muddy potholes. It was an excellent

opportunity to practice constructing joking Spanish sentences such as, I am going to walk now, I

really like burros and I want that horse over there.

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Cafe tinto con pollo on the pastors porch. Colombian chickens are unusually welcoming.

Town green.

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After the delegation had settled in over coffee and lunch, we got back into the truck and were driven down to

a clearing which serves as soccer ield, grazing ground, and town green. A large turnout of men, women and

children of all ages was already assembling a circle of chairs. (With some apology, we were informed that

attendance would have been even greater if the recent rain had not rendered certain areas impassable.)

Pastor Salvador addressed the crowd on the purpose of the delegation:

They all bring different resources in accompaniment.He turned around to address the delegation:

Your presence has allowed us to be here and be alive.

In the irst half of 2013 alone, 37 human rights defenders have been murdered in Colombia, many of

whom were advocating on behalf of communities struggling for land rights.

In contested rural areas like El Garzal, clergy are de facto human rights leaderseven if initially

reluctant to step down from the pulpit, beyond their training, into that role.

As ones who minister to communities umprotected by the reach of the state, they are forced into the public

sphere to address the suffering of their parishioners.

June 1, 2013 meeting. Opening prayer.

3
http://justf.org/blog/2013/08/06/murders-human-rights-defenders-jump-sharply-colombiahttp://justf.org/blog/2013/08/06/murders-human-rights-defenders-jump-sharply-colombia


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June 1, 2013 meeting. Crowd at El Garzal.

June 1, 2013 meeting. Pastor Salvador runs the meeting.

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The meeting was also attended by a delegation of campesinos from the small farming community of El Guayabo,located northeast from El Garzal across the river (marked on map). A few months earlier they had sought out PastorSalvadors help in organizing themselves against their own land title threat. 24 families have tended their land there

since 1985 (a total of 60 families live off the land in the community). Two years ago, a young stranger suddenlyappeared and claimed he had just inherited the right to all of their property.

Not hermanas (sisters) but amigas.

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Getting ready to depart for the pastors house for the evening.

One of the pastors sons-in-law gave us a tour of his farm after the meeting. Pastor Salvador and his wife Nidia havefour daughters; he jokes, Im the father-in-law of the entire village.

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Community organizers in the U.S. speak of recognition; a casual reader of the New Testament will recall thatpower

is measured not by wealth or station or the size of your army, but by how seriously you are taken by your

enemies.

In Colombia, guerrillas and paramilitaries recognize religious leaders as powerful actors who pose a dangerous

threat to their authority and the status quo of the rule of force.

A 2012 report by one religious freedom watch group estimates that 20-30 church leaders are assassinated

each year, and 200 churches have been forcibly closed.

Besides the support ofland restitution,theU.S. State Departmentlists the following sins that have painted

targets on the backs of known victimized church leaders:

opposing the forced recruitment of minors, promoting human rights, assisting internallydisplaced persons, and discouraging coca cultivation.This religious persecution is not based on religion. In the opinion of the U.S. government,

crimes against religious group leaders [in 2012] were motivated not by religious beliefs but by adesire to disrupt human rights work, such as advocacy on behalf of the displaced population orother vulnerable groups, or helping vulnerable groups with land claims.

It has a chilling effect on the freedom of worship all the same.

What is it like to be a church under threat by armed actors, beyond the obvious fears for the life of the pastor?

Once again, documentation tells an unforgettable story. The Peace Commissions2008 report of human rights

violations against Protestant churches and leaders aggregated a brief summary of the so-called collective victim

incidents documented that year, which are typical:

Armed groups interrupted worship to read death threats. They offered money to rape the girlsin the church and threatened to rape them themselves. Illegal armed groups ordered churchesto close, silenced and displaced pastors, and planted landmines around a church.

In many corners of Colombia, to assemble openly for worship is a public act of courage. There are El Garzals

repeating across the country, rural and urban.

3
http://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=report&id=171http://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/25/colombia.victims.law/index.htmlhttp://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://apropheticcall.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/a-prophetic-call-report-4/http://apropheticcall.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/a-prophetic-call-report-4/http://apropheticcall.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/a-prophetic-call-report-4/http://apropheticcall.wordpress.com/2011/01/08/a-prophetic-call-report-4/http://www.state.gov/documents/organization/208678.pdfhttp://www.cnn.com/2011/WORLD/americas/05/25/colombia.victims.law/index.htmlhttp://dynamic.csw.org.uk/article.asp?t=report&id=171


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Music ministry. This duo sang with a erce urgency I had not witnessed before in a worship service.

Sunday, June 2, 2013. A leader of the Foursquare Church congregation who also represents the area at the level ofthe municipality of Simit. Jos led the service that morning, while the pastor sat in the back until it was time for

his sermon.

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A staffer from Bogot told me why the Foursquare Church of El Garzal was special to her: It reminds me of my ownchurch: small, but so many children. She also explained to our delegation the phenomena of dual accompaniment:

trips into El Garzal have buoyed her in her own work as well.

Another song, led by a cantor and sang by the entire congregation.

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Pastor Salvador sat up with the delegation late into the nightbefore Sundays service, describing the history of

land dispute and threat in El Garzal.

In his spiritual tradition, the place of the pastor is in the pulpit, not in the local, national, and international advocacy

he has been forced to seek out in order to protect the lives and livelihood of his congregation.

Throughout his personal narrative of how he was pushed and pulled into this unlikely service, he repeatedly told

us,

I kept saying no to God.But in the end, he kept capitulating. And he has confessed that even a reluctant servant becomes a lifelong one:

Defending human rights in Colombia is a way of life; it is a collective project thatone must take hold of with body and soul in order to bring about change. Onceyou start there is no going back because once you take that irst step you are no

longer responsible just for yourself, but rather for the entire community.

June 1, 2013. 10pm.

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To witness is to volunteer to be jarred awake, to forfeit the protective skin of harmless generalities and second-

hand accounts.

Narrative feels inadequate to describe the unexpected heartbreak of the departure from El Garzal.

Here, an abridged documentation of my own:

On Sunday morning we joined the Foursquare Church in joyful communion and song. Members of the delegation

shared with the congregation on the road to Emmaus. Pastor Salvador preached on the faithful remnant.2

Afterwards, a meeting was called for the community only, while the delegation was sat down to lunch. We were

informed that fortune had changed and credible news of an imminent threat had arrived just before the service.

Members of the Barreto family were witnessed hosting members of the Urabeos on their property thirty

minutes away by boat. This time, CPT was away from their home base in Barrancabermeja and not immediately

available to escort Pastor Salvador to safety. After lunch he packed a bag and we accompanied him out of El

Garzal.3 Our hearts burned within us.

We cannot help but speak of what we have seen and heard.

Sunday, June 2, 2013. Pastor Salvador sings a nal hymn alongside the congregation. [ Care Goodstal-Spinks]

3
http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24%3A13-35&version=NIVhttp://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Malachi%203:16-18&version=NIVhttp://uccchester.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=220:called-to-accompaniment-reflections-on-colombia&catid=40:sermons&Itemid=65http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2013/06/18/cpt-international-urgent-invitations-colombia-elsipogtog-and-owe-aku-can-you-help-http://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2013/06/18/colombia-when-victory-brings-disaster%E2%80%94las-pavas-and-garzalnueva-experanza-need-youhttp://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24%3A13-35&version=NIVhttp://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Acts-4-20/http://www.kingjamesbibleonline.org/Acts-4-20/http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24%3A13-35&version=NIVhttp://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2013/06/18/colombia-when-victory-brings-disaster%E2%80%94las-pavas-and-garzalnueva-experanza-need-youhttp://www.cpt.org/cptnet/2013/06/18/cpt-international-urgent-invitations-colombia-elsipogtog-and-owe-aku-can-you-help-http://uccchester.org/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=220:called-to-accompaniment-reflections-on-colombia&catid=40:sermons&Itemid=65http://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Malachi%203:16-18&version=NIVhttp://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke+24%3A13-35&version=NIV


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1At our meeting later that week at the Bogot headquarters of Colombias land title agency (INCODER), we learned that

the land El Garzal sits on will be legitimately reclassiied as federally-protected wetlands, which legally cannot be titled in

Colombia. INCODERs authority supersedes that of private individuals and civil court judges. By making the land a federal

property that cannot be privately owned by anyoneneither the farmers of El Garzal, nor the members of the Barreto clan

the dispute will no longer be bogged down in the red tape (and often, corruption) of the local courts.

The Colombian government reserves the rightto grant right of use of federally protected areas; this right of use can

be assigned to speciic individuals, and even passed down as an inheritance. (It cannot be sold or borrowed against.) A

committee with representatives from both the community and the state will be created to regulate and govern the responsible

use of the land by the campesinos. Right of use will not be extended to associates of illegal armed actors, regardless of prior

title claims.

2 You have spoken arrogantly against me, says the Lord.Yet you ask, What have we said against you? You have said, It isfutile to serve God. What do we gain by carrying out his requirements and going about like mourners before the Lord Almighty?But now we call the arrogant blessed. Certainly evildoers prosper, and even when they put God to the test, they get away with it .

Then those who feared the Lord talked with each other, and the Lord listened and heard. A scroll of remembrance waswritten in his presence concerning those who feared the Lord and honored his name.On the day when I act, says the Lord Almighty, they [the faithful remnant] will be my treasured possession. I will spare

them, just as a father has compassion and spares his son who serves him. And you will again see the distinction between therighteous and the wicked, between those who serve God and those who do not.

(Malachi 3:13-18)

3A decision was made that Nidia and other family members would remain behind in El Garzal until Tuesday, when

Christian Peacemaker Teams was able to arrive to accompany the community and evacuate her out along with one daughter

and a grandson. It was the assessment of Pastor Salvador and the Colombian partners that only Salvador himself was in

imminent danger, not his family; this is a common dynamic in threats againstand assassinations ofcivilian leaders.

June 2, 2013. The children of the Foursquare Church perform a song with the refrain, Tengo una bandera plantada enmi coraznthere is a ag planted in my heart.

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Three days later, back in Bogot and still heavy with our witness in the Magdalena Medio, the delgation

viewed sites where CEDECOL Peace Commission afiliates work with the multi-generational victims of forced

displacement.

Organized communities targeted by armed actorslike the farmers of El Garzalcommonly assert that they

would rather die on their own land than lee.

The fate that these campesinos deem worse than death is displacement to a place like Soacha.

Colombia has the highest number of internally displaced citizens in the world.1 They ring the major cities

in hellish shantytownslabeled invasiones by the traditionally housedwhere they struggle to survive, much

less maintain their sense of dignity and identity.

In addition to facing inhuman levels of poverty, social stigma, and identity death, forcibly displaced persons in

these settlements have merely traded one brand of violent threat for another.

The road from rst world neighborhoods of Bogot to third world neighborhoods of Soacha (rising up in the distance) isonly about two hours long in trafc. As in most developed nations, the employed urban poor work service jobs and have

some access to media and advertising; they know exactly how the rich live. The rich do not witness how the poor live.

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Soacha is ranked #1 in Colombia for the highest number of residents who came there after being

internally displaced; it is additionally ranked #4 in the number of its own residents itdisplaces due

to violence. Gangs and paramilitary control wide swaths of these encampments, illing the vacuum that

government has been unableor unwillingto occupy. They battle each other in the open over territory

and conduct drug deals in public. (Even the precarious geography of these settlements fuels violence: one aid

worker explained that when recent flooding created mudslides in Soacha, ighting intensiied as armed groups

contested the new parameters of a shifted landscape.)

We were informed that street combatants currently fall into four main categories: active paramilitaries;

demobilized paramilitaries who have disbanded from their units but have gone on to organize BACRIM(criminal bands); so-called neo-paramilitaries: members of former paramilitary groups that were

demobilized who have stayed together in similar structures with similar objectives rather than retire or

join BACRIM or common street gangs; and ordinary street gangswhich are becoming more organized, and

reaching out for alliances with paramilitary afiliates in a bid to conduct business more openly.2

These armed actors routinely target boys for coerced recruitment as early as 9 and 10 years old.

They are powerful enough to frame themselves as a quasi-government; the police in Soacha entrench

themselves in a literal bunker.

We met this forcibly displaced campesino in the Los Pinos neighborhood of Altos de Cazuc in Soacha. He stands here onthe path above his precarious housing; a narrow trickle of raw sewage ran down nearby. He did not ee his family farmuntil he had been shot in the leg and three of his daughters had been murdered as a direct result of his involvement a landdispute. He walks his grandchildren to a childrens soup kitchenLos Pinos Comedorevery afternoon. On some days theswelling in his bad leg is severe enough that he has difculty getting around the hilly terrain, even with his cane. These

residents have virtually no access to routine medical care.

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We arrived in Soacha during a social cleansing period; ive people had already been assassinated in

the previous seven days. These come in seasons, one of our Bogot partners explained in a low voice, briely

taking over for a local director after an exterior door was closed for privacy. A target list of social undesirables

(suspected homosexuals, addicts, prostitutes, petty criminals, the HIV positive, etc.) is posted beforehand

around town. An early curfew is publicized as well, enforceable by murder; it makes no difference if a victim

is returning from a job or schooling. In a city that churned through seven different mayors just from 2010 to

2012, these bloody purges are imagined by armed actors to legitimize their presence: they frame themselves as

powerful authorities protecting and serving the common good of a community abandoned by the government.

As in remote rural areas of Colombia, civil societynot the stateis the irst, and sometimes only, line

of defense against oblivion and death.

If Soacha is the city with highest population of displaced persons in Colombia, the true numbers are even

higher, since government agencies render them invisibleand deny them access to servicesby systematically

under-counting them. It has largely been left to non-governmental organizations to provide not just

relief, but recognition. On our day in Soacha, we visited two such professional service sites afiliated with the

CEDECOL Peace Commission.

The police station in Soacha. A former military encampment, until residents asked for them to withdraw since soldiersstationed there were worsening social ills by taking advantage of vulnerable youth.

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James Baldwin wrote, in a memoir on race and civil rights,

People who treat other people as less than human must not be surprised when the breadthey have cast on the waters comes loating back to them, poisoned.The level of material deprivation in Soacha is so appalling that any agency could be forgiven for focusing solely

on immediate physical needs. However, the Peace Commission afiliated programs we witnessed are clearly

informed by an understanding thatpeace at the societal level is built only on the possibility of dignity for

the whole individual.

In the U.S., community organizing programs with an interfaith, relational bent emphasize the goal of

establishing personal connection in the course of individual and public meetings.

From our irst day in Bogot,a striking number of advocates matter-of-factly disclosed to us that they came totheir work after a childhood spent hearing the stories of displacement from parents or grandparents. I began

trying to see, when I could, that we asked the people we met how they came to their vocation.3

AtLos Pinos Comedor, a childrens soup kitchen that frontsa multi-service agency in the Los Pinos

section of Soachas neighborhood of Altos de Cazuc, I asked the director:

Why do you travel two hours each way to Soacha, when there are so many poor people rightin the slums of Bogot who need help?

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Marias answer was not one of remembrance, but of being sought out, seeking, and inding. She had been

working in accompanying Mennonite church leaders across Colombia, and then one day anindigenous family

showed up in her ofice in Bogot with a simple plea:

Come to Soacha and see how we live.

It was a life-altering moment:

I witnessed their needs, saw families very alone, and others afraid to go to them. In Bogot,its easier to get people to go to serve those in need. In Soacha, the church runs projects thatserve those who feel abandoned by the state...we are here to plant the seeds of love, hope, and

solidarity.

The comedor serves malnourished children, a decision made though a community meetingwith neighborhood mothers who were consulted beforehand on their needs and ideas. Many

of their mothers are single heads of households and underemployed as cleaners, or go tomarkets to hunt for scraps or to beg. Approximately 60 children are fed lunch each day. For

many children, it is their only complete meal of the day.

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Mothers of the children who are served volunteer to take on most of the dailymeal preparation, and participate in other programs at the comedor as well.

The beginnings of a clothing bank on the second oor. It seemed to mostly be neckties at the time ofour visit.

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Beyond childhood hunger relief, the professionals at Los Pinos Comedor task themselves with addressing

three areas of assistance to the community, as outlined by the director:

Psychological recovery, rebuilding the social fabric, and emergency humanitarian aid.Tutoring is provided to the children, and trauma recovery groups for entire families are scheduled four times

per week. There is intentional focus on building peace from the ground up, from community-wide campaigns

like Pan y Paz (Bread and Peace) to working with parents on family violence, since, as it was put to us,

Peace is an urgent social program in Soacha.

Three armed groups currently war for control of the Los Pinos neighborhood.

Rooftop garden area at Los Pinos Comedor. The programs goal is for each participating family to have a garden at home,

and to also assist in tending the community rooftop garden, which is a source of food for the kitchen and seedlings.

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We asked the director about her own self-care in a stressful and dangerous work area. The Anabaptist networkruns training on self-care, and there is also a psycho- social organization that provides accompaniment to nonprotworkers. In addition, she meets with a group of aid providers at her home church once a week. We asked her when

she has time to go to church. She smiled at the question. I worship 6 days a week. (She works at the comedor everyday but Saturday.)

Children enrolled in the psycho-social accompaniment programs plant their own plants, labeled by name. They areasked to pray for peace when they tend to them, and if the plant dies, the director jokingly scolds them, You must

not have prayed hard enough for peace.

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Staff of the comedor are members of a Soacha Roundtable Working Group, a monthly conference of international,

local, and state organizations serving the area that was started in 2009. They conduct a political analysis of the

ever-changing power dynamics of the neighborhood, and make sure they are not duplicating each others efforts.

Maria clariied the mission of Los Pinos Comedor and associated programs like it in Soacha:

We dont want to replace the government. Our goal is to teach the community how toannounce, and denounce.

The mural at the rooftop garden. Painted by the children, and representing their hopes, dreams, and things they haveseen on television (there is a tall mast ship under the boards). The tree is central for a reason. The organization can

occasionally fund eld trips to rural areas for the children. Childrens rooftop gardening activities are an integral part ofthe professional psycho-social accompaniment programs at the comedor: They feel the plants and put their hands in the

dirt, and then they will start to talk about their trauma.

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We ended our day atCreciendo JuntosRising Togetherin the Rincn del Lago barrio of Soachas

community of Sucre. It is another Mennonite initiative affiliated with the CEDECOL Peace Commission to provide

professional services in education, community building, and psycho-social accompaniment at the neighborhood

level. They are currently open only half time due to a lack of resources, but have grown to serve 150 children

from ages 5 to 17 as well as their families. As with the mothers of Los Pinos Comedor, over the last twelve years

of operation the residents of the community it servesincluding ten local youthhave grown into assuming key

leadership roles.

Rincn del Lago.

Girls outside Creciendo Juntos, on site for training as camp counselors for younger children on anupcoming retreat out of Soacha.

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Given the wide age range served, programs at Creciendo Juntos range from play therapy for the youngest, to

workshops on sexual and reproductive rights for high schoolers, but

all offerings are designed with the agenda of teaching non-violence.

The play therapy room at Creciendo Juntos.ALEGRIA - VIDA - IGUALDAD PAZ joy, life, equality, peace.

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The tutoring library at Creciendo Juntos.

We were briely joined by ive high schoolers who arrived for an afterschool activity:

A. is 14 years old. She would like to be an obstetrician.

M. is 14. She has been attending the program since the age of 5. Her hobbies are listening to

music and dancing. She doesnt know what she wants to be yet.

D. is 15 and has been at the project for two months; her classmates asked her to join them,

and she usually did nothing on Saturdays. She would like a medical and legal career in

criminal justice. I want to be a forensic pathologist, she qualiied, but I also want to study

law.

G. is 14. She would like to study to be a pediatrician.

And B. is 15. She is in the 10th grade, and hopes to be a car mechanic.

It is virtually impossible to go from Soachas public schools to university: students cant

compete with the expensively-prepared middle class and wealthy applicants who ill the

slots at the nearby, sliding scale, state- funded schools. That leaves less competitive private

collegeswhich are impossibly expensive.

I asked the staff if they could recall anyone in their program going on to college; they recalled

a single student who was sponsored by a European visitor to their site.

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Programs for older children are especially designed to focus on personal developmentas well as peace. In

addition to computer science, sports, music, and dance offerings, Creciendo Juntos also boasts a small recording

studio. Some of the young adult programs are built from hip hop and urban culture, including break-dancing and

grafiti art;

arts and music are presented as alternatives to violence.Creciendo Juntos has worked with Justapaz to bring in a hip hop artist from Bogota to work with their youth, and

recently organized an evening peace concert that drew 300 participants and also included urban dance and grafiti

art demonstrations. Even though youth from different neighborhoods were in attendancea potential

tinderbox for conlictthe evening passed peacefully, and there was a reported dip in youth violence in

the area afterwards. They hope to secure funding for another event like it on September 21 of this year, the UN

International Day of Peace.

Like students everywhere, the children of Creciendo Juntos gravitate towards art and music; however, they

also possess a keen social and political consciousness urgently in search of an outlet. A workshop on

public policy was recently heldby special request of the youth leaders there. And even their chosen music

programming is more than it may seem at irst glance: in the impoverished south of Bogota, hip hop has had a

history as the protest music of the young since it was introduced from the U.S. in the 1980s.

A recording booth at Creciendo Juntos. The walls are insulated with egg cartons.

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One umbrella group for the hip hop artists of Soachaand the name of the recent hip hop concert for peaceis

Diplomcia PoticaPoetic Diplomacy.

We were informed that the artists that operate out of Creciendo Juntos call themselvesVoces OcultasHidden

Voices:

The youth here use hip hop in a positive way. It is a way for them to describe what they seearound them in their neighborhoods, and they use it to make proposals.They announce, and denounce.

This summer, Voces Ocultas released their irst oficial video on YouTube, XXI Siglo (21 Century). It

features hip hop and dance grounded in the landscape of the neighborhood. The young artists and spectators

featured are ebullientand powerful.

On June 29, Voces Ocultas departed from the margins of Soacha into the heart of Bogot for a CD release party in

the historic Candelaria district.

Soacha is a city of youth. The percentage of people we saw out on the streets under the age of thirty was startlingly high.

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Soachas schools are so overcrowded that children are split into two shifts. The streets ll with uniformed students in bothdirections at the midday change of shift.

Schools are no refuge from the hardship and violence of the city outside. The school across the street from Los PinosComedor was recently invaded by an armed group that demanded all of the snacks set aside for the childrenmany of

whom dont have adequate daily food available at home.

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At Creciendo Juntos, a member of our delegation struggled to understand the factors behind

Soachas blistering level of violence:

Lets say Im a teenage boy in Soacha. What am I thinking? What am I feeling? Am I angry? Am

I depressed?

The director looked nonplussed. No, theyre just regular children.

But in Soacha, around ages 11 and 12, boys families begin receiving terrifying invitations

along with promises of food and other basicsfrom rival armed groups. (We drove past a

large and modernand visibly gang-controlledgrocery store on the way out; photographing

it or making eye contact from the van was strongly discouraged).

Creciendo Juntos can offer emergency relocation assistance in these cases, but few families canbear to be displaced from yet another community.

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Documents

Finding, Remembering, Accompanying, Colombia