CPTnet
February 22, 2001
COLOMBIA UPDATE: January 28-February 11, 2001

Sunday, January 28, 2001
Full-time Peacemaker Corps member Janet Shoemaker (Goshen IN) and Reservist
Duane Ediger (Dallas TX), arrived in Bogota. Their arrival marked the
beginning of a
three-month project CPT has begun in response to an invitation from the
Colombian Mennonite Church and its reconciliation and conflict
transformation program,
Justapaz.

President of Justapaz, Ricardo Esquivia ("e-SKI-vee-ah"), and JustaPaz
administrator Paul Stucky met Ediger and Shoemaker at the airport and drove
them to the home of Mary Hope Stucky. Mary Hope came to Colombia with her
husband, the late Gerald, in the 1940's. Together they laid the foundations
of the Colombian Mennonite Church.

Monday, January 29
Ediger and Shoemaker met for an initial orientation with Justapaz
and Mennonite Church leaders. They spent the day in the Justapaz office,
where they met informally with church workers, Mennonite pastors and
nonviolent activists from Bogota and elsewhere. The team had supper with
the three current Witness for Peace workers, who arrived in Colombia in
October 2000.

Wednesday, January 31
The team met for nearly two hours with Islandes Losada, pastor of a thriving
Bogota Mennonite Church. Losada has received threats for his work with young
men
who might be pressured or inclined to join, and others who wish to leave,
armed groups. (See Feb. 9 CPTnet release). A weekly noontime "Moments for
Peace" gathering at Central Mennonite Church offered an opportunity for
Shoemaker and Ediger to share about CPT's work with church members and
others, including some war-displaced people. After lunch the team observed
a meeting in which Justapaz staff evaluated a request from one of the
displaced people for relocation support.

Thursday, February 1
Discouraged by stories of the daunting paperwork necessary to rent through
an agency, in the afternoon the team turned to Mary Hope Stucky. She made a
call
that resulted in a temporary rental arrangement being worked out before
dusk. Christine Forand (Ontario) arrived in the evening to join the team.

Friday, February 2
The team met to review goals. Supper at Mary Hope's brought an
opportunity to listen to a worker from a non-governmental organization in
the southern region, a demilitarized zone under the control of FARC
guerrillas. This is also the region where the U.S. military initiative in
Colombia is having its
first "push."

Sunday, February 4
The team attended the service at Central Mennonite Church, one of
sixteen Mennonite congregations in the country. Many visitors attended,
both Colombians and foreigners. The team met in the evening with MCC worker
Darryl Yoder-Bontrager, who suggested ways in which MCC and CPT
could cooperate. Colombian Church leaders recommended the team consider two
places to visit in the coming week: the northwest city of Sincelejo and
Barrancabermeja (Barranca), more directly north of Bogota.

Monday, February 5
The team discussed two upcoming trips with principle orientation person.
Travel
to most destinations in Colombia, especially for foreigners, is by flight
only. Bus travel is too dangerous, given the high number of kidnappings,
most of them by members of guerrilla groups. The team decided Ediger would
travel alone to Sincelejo and that Forand would travel to
Barrancabermeja.

Team member Cliff Kindy arrived in the evening, fresh from leading a
27-member delegation to Vieques, Puerto Rico.

Tuesday, February 6
Ediger left on an early flight to northwest Colombia. While there, he met a
Mennonite woman who is working with displaced people in the area and
starting a Mennonite Church in Sincelejo. He also visited another town of
people displaced by paramilitaries who gave them the choice of leaving
without any of their possessions, or not leaving at all and remaining under
paramilitary rule (see Feb. 15 CPTnet release, "COLOMBIA: Church
Congregation Flees Military Violence.")

Forand and Kindy met with a Jesuit non-governmental organization, CINEP.
CINEP accompanies "Peace communities" in the Chocó Department (Pacific
coast). In the course of the visit, CPTers were invited to attend a seminar
in southern Colombia on the conflict in that part of the country, currently
the most directly affected by Plan Colombia--a program the U.S. government
has pressured the Colombian government to adopt ostensibly to fight drug
trafficking. The team
met with the American Friends Service Committee to learn about their work in
the
country.

Wednesday, February 7
In the morning, the team met with two representatives of Programa por la
Paz, another Jesuit initiative, largely involved in peace education. At an
afternoon meeting with Peace Brigades International the team was given
cautionary advice about publicly denouncing any of the players in the
Colombian war, including the US or Canadian governments.

Thursday, February 8
The whole team attended a 7:00 a.m. meeting of Asamblea Permanente de la
Sociedad Civil por la Paz, a consortium of peace groups and non-governmental
organizations. Afterwards, they met with Ricardo Esquivia and Paul Stucky
of JustaPaz to discuss CPT's role in Colombia.

Christina Forand learned that the trip to Barrancabermeja had been cancelled
because of problems caused by paramilitaries, including an attack on a PBI
worker (see Feb. 12 CPTnet release, "Colombia: Call to Repudiate
Paramilitary Violence.")

Friday, February 9
Christina and Janet met with Casa de la Mujer, a woman's organization
active in raising awareness about the violence perpetrated against women in
this war. Cliff and Duane then joined them at ILSA, an alternative legal
services organization. In the afternoon, the team received a political and
historical overview of the current situation in Colombia from a worker at
Asamblea.

Sunday, February 11
Duane, Cliff and Christine attended Sinai Mennonite Church. Pastor Losada
talked (for the first time in a Sunday service) about his most recent
experience counseling a person who wanted to leave the guerrillas. After
the service, Losada informed the team that he had received a call the day
before from those who had been threatening him recently, "requesting" a
meeting with him on that day. Losada turned down an offer for immediate
accompaniment. The team shared this news with Mennonite leaders.