COLOMBIA: CPT delegation to explore impact of war on Afro and Indigenous Colombians
May 26th, 2008
in:
CPTnet
26 May 2008
COLOMBIA: CPT delegation to explore impact of war on Afro and Indigenous Colombians
The southwestern Colombian Department (province) of Nariño is the destination of a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation that arrived in Bogotá on Wednesday, 14 May 2008. Four three-and-half days in Bogotá, the group met with a variety of indigenous and Afro-Colombian organizations to discuss the consequences of the ongoing war on these peoples. Displacements, death threats, landmine deaths and destruction of food crops by fumigations targeting coca crops under the U.S.-funded Plan Colombia are among the serious consequences to these indigenous and Afro-Colombian people as the war continues. The delegation has also met with several church groups to hear how they are seeking to support the people hurt by the continued violence.
The delegation includes Paul Neufeld Weaver, of Bluffton, Ohio; Arman Habegger and Richard Geiger, both of Pandora, Ohio; Hannah Redekop from Floradale, Ontario, and Julian Gutierrez Castaño, a full-time CPT worker from Pereira, Colombia. The delegation members will visit a number of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities over the next week in Nariño. This is CPT's first delegation to Nariño, which has become a main theatre of the ongoing war in Colombia after the implementation of Plan Colombia in 1999. (For more information on Plan Colombia, see http://www.chomsky.info/books/roguestates08.htm.)
26 May 2008
COLOMBIA: CPT delegation to explore impact of war on Afro and Indigenous Colombians
The southwestern Colombian Department (province) of Nariño is the destination of a Christian Peacemaker Teams delegation that arrived in Bogotá on Wednesday, 14 May 2008. Four three-and-half days in Bogotá, the group met with a variety of indigenous and Afro-Colombian organizations to discuss the consequences of the ongoing war on these peoples. Displacements, death threats, landmine deaths and destruction of food crops by fumigations targeting coca crops under the U.S.-funded Plan Colombia are among the serious consequences to these indigenous and Afro-Colombian people as the war continues. The delegation has also met with several church groups to hear how they are seeking to support the people hurt by the continued violence.
The delegation includes Paul Neufeld Weaver, of Bluffton, Ohio; Arman Habegger and Richard Geiger, both of Pandora, Ohio; Hannah Redekop from Floradale, Ontario, and Julian Gutierrez Castaño, a full-time CPT worker from Pereira, Colombia. The delegation members will visit a number of indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities over the next week in Nariño. This is CPT's first delegation to Nariño, which has become a main theatre of the ongoing war in Colombia after the implementation of Plan Colombia in 1999. (For more information on Plan Colombia, see http://www.chomsky.info/books/roguestates08.htm.)