On 27 April 2008, CPTers Jonathan Stucky and I attended the last mass held for (and partially conducted by) Padre Rafael Gallego, Said Antonio Echavez, and Martha Lucia Torres Sierra before death threats forced them to leave El Coco, Tiquisio. Padre Rafael has spent the last thirty years in Southern Bolivar, eight of them in Tiquisio, and had, we learned, planned to die there of old age. Said and Marta each spent three years living in and working with the local community and had hoped to continue their work there indefinitely.

Deadly threats to the security of campesinos living in the Cimitarra Valley continue. They believe the very entities responsible for their safety and protection are promoting rather than preventing their forced displacement in an effort to expropriate their farms and territory.

"The Army treats us like dirt," said another farmer." They have checkpoints on the paths to our fields, and they stop us and accuse us of being guerrillas and detain us for hours at a time. They entice our children with candy and then try to pump them for information. Is that legal? Sometimes people just disappear and are never heard from again."

Six months after the Colombian authorities imprisoned them on false charges of rebellion, Oscar Duque, Mario Martínez and Evaristo Mena were released for lack of evidence. They are leaders of the Asociación Campesina del Valle del Río Cimitarra ACVC (Campesino Association of the Cimitarra Valley), with whom CPT-Colombia has a working relationship. Right wing paramilitary groups and government forces have threatened and assassinated members of ACVC because they cry out for just land reform and sustainable development in rural areas.

Dear friends, family & acquaintances, fellow travelers,

I greet you with hopes that you are well and navigating your life with joy, courage, and freedom. I bring greetings also from CPT in Barrancabermeja and from [our coworkers]. Some greet you from prison, others from hiding; some while mining gold, others while planting maíz; some while hosting a survivor; others from an urban refuge; some from court seeking justice, others while facing charges; some shout to you from the street, others serenade you from atop a mule on a mountain path.

They send their thanks, and I add mine, for your participation in a circle that sustains life and hope through direct accompaniment, listening, prayers, speaking truth to power, financial support, advocacy, and other forms of peacemaking.

While I was in Colombia, CPTer Stewart Vriesinga and I spent a week with the Southern Bolivar Federation of Farmer-Miners…

Wednesday 5 March
An Opón resident reported that Colombian Army soldiers had set up camp in their yard the night before, and had brought a list of alleged guerrilla collaborators. "I told them, `I've sold them eggs,'" said the resident. "'As long as they're willing to pay and I have it for sale I'll sell it.' What am I supposed to do when armed people come wanting to buy stuff? That doesn't make me a guerrilla collaborator. "

…

 

Monday 31 March
Barrancabermeja: Some eighty displaced residents of eastern Antioquia and southern Bolivar provinces, who had spent the last month encamped at a facility of the oil workers labor union (Union Sindical Obrera, USO), occupied Barranca´s public university campus, preventing classes from convening, to amplify their demands for conditions that would allow them to return home. Shantz and Stucky went to the university to accompany the displaced people as riot police came to the site. After negotiations with the university, the Dean allowed the displaced people to remain. The university, called Universidad de la Paz (Peace University), has had a long history of solidarity with social movements in the region. CPT Colombia accompanied on several occasions the refugees who came to Barrancabermeja to protest the militarization of their communities and the assassination of several members of their community by the military.

CPT's Colombia team hosts four international delegations each year. These delegations allow English-speaking visitors to learn about the country's armed conflict, meet with courageous Colombians working to advance peace and justice, become familiar with the work of CPT and participate in a public witness action. A 14-27 May delegation will offer a unique opportunity to travel to Nariño, in far southeastern Colombia, where CPT has accompanied war-affected indigenous communities at the invitation of the Council of Awa Elders of Ricaurte (CAMAWARI) since December 2006. In addition to meeting with these communities, the delegation will visit Afro-Colombian communities and human rights workers in and around Tumaco on Colombia's Pacific coast.

3 February
While the team was taking an afternoon off at a lake, an army truck arrived. Soldiers walked through the restaurant and along the beach, taking young men who could not show proof of their military service. Team members expressed concern to the soldiers about this recruitment practice. One soldier told them, "If these young men are exempt from military duty because they are students, then they should be home studying." Colombian law requires the military to issue a citation to appear at the battalion to clarify one's military service status prior to any detention. 

17 February
CPTers accompanied an action of youth organizations responding to the twenty-five murders in Barrancabermeja in 2008. On signal, twenty-five youth who were mingling throughout Parque de la Vida, fell to the ground, with red liquid on their shirts representing blood symbolizing the dead. Another group entered the park singing, "Death came to look for me, and I told it, Stop! Respect me!" The members then traced a chalk outline around each body, helped the person up, and placed a candle in the middle of each silhouette.