Human Rights Accompaniment, Part 1

I just returned from a 10-day trip accompanying a group of human rights lawyers from Bogota into a very high conflict region up north, called Montes de Maria. The area we traveled to had been experiencing open combat between the guerilla and government troops just days before we went. Both guerilla and paramilitary are present in the area, each holding part of the territory, though the government troops deny the presence of the paras (more about that in part 2). The area is littered with antipersonnel mines placed by the guerilla, and there are many reports of deaths and maimings. There are also widespread human rights violations on the part of government troops and paras.

Basically the campesinos (small subsistence farmers) are caught between all armed groups, are being pressured from all sides, and say they just want to be left in peace. The message I heard over and again from them is that this is not their war, and they are determined to stay on their land and preserve their way of life and their culture. The purpose of the accompaniment was to provide an international presence with the delegation, which Colombians feel gives it some protection. In other words, with us there, the lawyers were less likely to be subjected to violence or to be prevented from going.

I have lots of stories to tell, but here is a brief summary of what we did. The lawyers were traveling to the region to hold meetings telling the campesino communities what their rights under the law actually are, and to collect complaints of human rights violations perpetrated by government troops. They collected the complaints in writing, created a document, and submitted it to the appropriate authorities and legal processes.

To sum up, they found three classes of human rights violations in every single community and on a large scale. They are: blockades of food and medicine, prevention of travel along the roads, and massive and arbitrary detentions without due process. The military is preventing food and medicine from moving between communities because they claim that the campesinos are feeding the guerrilla, and the military is also preventing them from moving freely because they claim that they are aiding the guerrilla. To accomplish this the military has set up road blocks and check points, which we had to go through and so I can vouch that they exist.

There was one set up in the middle of town, placing the residents at risk of being caught in the middle of armed combat. We got detained at them but ultimately were let through. Detentions take place because some paramilitary informant will claim that some campesino is guerrilla, and then they get arrested and held, sometimes for years, without trial. According to government statistics 80 percent are eventually released for lack of evidence.

On our way in to one of the communities we got stopped at a road block where there had been fighting the day before. It was about 5 in the afternoon, and was going to be dark by 6, when it is dangerous to be on the roads due to guerrilla presence. The military held us for 45 minutes, so we ended up traveling the last 45 minutes in the dark on some of the worst roads I have ever seen, rivaling even those in Haiti.

It may have been one of the most dangerous things I have ever done. In addition to the bad roads, the darkness, the jungle, and the presence of armed groups, I was sitting on the passenger side of a jeep with no front door. It was a knuckle-whitening experience. But when we got there, we were greeted by 5000 campesinos lining the road, applauding ing wildly. They had come from all over the region, and had been waiting for us for hours. This was the first visit of its kind to this region. If I did not know before, I knew then how important our mission was to the communities, because it would allow them to file formal complaints against their abusers.

We visited four seperate campesino communities, doing the same thing in each one. Each meeting had representatives from several campesino communities present. At the end of the presentations by the lawyers, people could submit their complaints in writing. Every community insisted on some kind of cultural presentation at the end of the meetings. They were determined to let us know the value of their cultural heritage and their desire to preserve it. We heard over and over that this is not their war, but they feel they are bearing the brunt of the punishment for it.

They also said that they feel abandoned by the government. The roads are not passable, they have no electricity, running water, schools or health care. And unlike Haiti, Colombia is a fairly developed country. The campesinos feel that the government is doing it on purpose, in order to force them off the land.

I asked a lot of different people why there was fighting over this land. We know it is a drug corridor--meaning that although no coca is grown there, it is a corridor between the river and the ocean where drugs are shipped, and all sides seem to profit from control of the corridor. We also know that it is rich agricultural land. There is speculation that there is mineral wealth underneath, but we have no proof. One of the lawyers in our delegation told me that the president of Colombia (Uribe) is buying up parcels of land in this area--through intermediaries-- in order to profit from future large transnational corporations who want to locate there. Obviously, I have no way of verifying that.

Colombia is the second or third largest recipient of US aid, and 80 percent of that is military aid. So our tax dollars are going to fund human rights abuses against small subsistence farmers, most of whom are either Afro-Colombian or indigenous. I felt that this was a very important accompaniment, and I felt that we were right where we were supposed to be, which is making it possible for the most marginalized groups in this country to raise their voice against abuse that is financed by my own country.