Colombia's Indigenous Raise Their Voices

Ten thousand representatives of Colombia's indigenous peoples marched into Bogota last Thursday and are camping on the grounds of the national university. Friday morning we marched from the university to Bogota's central square, the location of Colombia's national government offices.

Marchers have named the mobilization "La Minga" which, loosely translated, means a gathering of the peoples. As I understand it, indigenous leadership call for La Minga only very rarely. The reason for calling La Minga this time is to be "caminando la palabra" which means "walking the word."

I have been listening to people talk about what the "Word" is, and here is what i have learned: It is the Word of dignity, meaning it is an expression of the dignity of all the native peoples. The Word is a recounting of the history of the peoples, especially their subjugation and oppression, and an analysis of what it means for today, and then acting on the results of the analysis. Walking the Word means living out what the Word calls one to do. The Word has called the indigenous of Colombia to raise up their voices together to appeal to all of Colombia.

I wonder if all of you see what i see: Christians were not the first, or the only, to show reverence for the Word. Scripture is also the story of the oppression and subjugation of a certain people in a certain time and place, and what they then did with their oppression that brought new life. Christians see our this story something universal, because it tells the story of all oppressed and subjugated peoples in all times and places, and helps us to know how to act. We are also supposed to analyse that story based on our own time and place and act out of that analysis. But Christians are not the only ones with a story to tell.

There are two main messages that the marchers brought to the people of the Colombia: First, that all the victims of the war in Colombia, the indigenous, the afro-Colombians, the campesinos, and the laborers, must raise their voices together to end this war and build a new Colombia that serves everyone. Second, the government must stop giving their lands away to multinational corporations that exploit the nation's natural resources for profit to investors outside of Colombia. The latter will lead to the former.

There are a number of specific actions that the march has called for in order to fulfill both of those demands. They include: not signing a free trade agreement with the US, forming a joint commission to investigate and proscecute human rights abuses against the victims of the war, honoring all past agreements with native peoples, rejection of "Plan Colombia" which is US military assistance to Colombia, and a number of legislative and constitutional reforms. This march is really, really organized and clear about their goals. For all you theologians out there: it seems to me they had a very good process of practical theology.

As I reflect on my own participation in this march, I feel that it was a significantact of solidarity, but that there was no real danger of violence, and that violence was not why we were present. There was violence when the march began, because it took place in the more remote lands of the indigenous peoples, far from the public eye. It never seemed likely to me that anything like that would happen closer to the big population areas. But as an act of solidarity it seems pretty important, because of the ugly history that Christianity has as having taken part in and enabled the subjugation, enslavement, and genocide of native peoples in the Americas.

I don't know if any of you have an interest in solidarity with these marchers. Most of their proposals are specific to Colombia, but there are two that US citizens have enormous influence over, which are the free trade agreement and military assistance. If you are interested, Latin American Working Group is working on a petiTion to hand over to Obama on his inauguration. You can find it at http://www.lawg.org/. You can also learn a lot more about these issues. LAWG is a pretty good organization, located on Capital Hill, made up of a coalition of mostly faith-based groups.

FYI, there was a prominent banner that read: Obama: We Don't Want the Free TradeAgreement. The silent majority, who are the poor people around the world, have placed a lot of hope in Obama.

Liturgy From Bogota

I am in Bogota accompanying the last stage of a long march of the indigenous peoples of Colombia. The mobilization of Colombia's indigenous peoples started on October 10, just before I arrived. A few days after I got here, it made national headlines because Colombian police opened fire on the marchers. As of today, they have reported 130 injuries and 3 deaths among the marchers.

After that happened, I heard national television reports quoting the president of Colombia saying that the indigenous were being manipulated by the guerrilla and are terrorists. The march began in the Cauca region of Colombia, home to many of its indigenous peoples. After being fired on, the group decided to take their concerns to a national audience, and began marching from Cauca, through Colombia, ending in Bogota this week.

As I understand it, Colombia's indigenous have a similar situation to those in the US. Most of them were murdered by European settlers. Those that remained are living on their ancestral lands under agreements with the government that they will have sovereignty. Apparently the government is trying to take away those rights. In addition, the government is nationalizing sources of water, which has led to contamination from multinational companies exploiting natural resources.

One of the things I hear them talk the most about is preserving the quality of their waters, a resource that belongs to all. The march began yesterday with a water ritual. There were two presiders, a man and a woman, both high-level national indigenous leaders. They began with what amounted to a sprinkling rite, meaning that everyone in the circle was sprayed with a little water. Then elders from several of the communities present performed water rituals from their own traditions. The presiders talked about the importance of water as a source of life and as foundational to their traditional way of life. As such, there is a need to preserve the waters and keep them from being contaminated.

I was thinking about the importance of water in Catholic ritual as well, and that water is one of those symbols that crosses cultural boundaries. Although Catholics might talk about it differently, at the root of our water rituals is the understandingthat water is the source of life. Wouldn't it be awesome if during our own sprinkling rites, or at baptisms, presiders talked about it in those terms, and made the connection between water and environmental integrity?

I was also thinking that the ritual that started the march is something that Catholics can also identify with: the importance of ritual as foundational to all our actions. And I was thinking that the this particular ritual was a good example of how to honor all traditions without taking anything away from any of them. And I was thinking that so often Catholics go to "mission" lands and try to force Catholic rituals on people who already have their own very meaningful rituals. And I was thinking that it would be great if the Catholic Mass could be "inculturated" by indigenous water rituals so that we could appreciate in the same way the need to honor water as the source of life. And I was thinking what a great witness it was to have a man and a woman presiding together.

Reflecting on Colombia

I have been continuing with the same work that I described in my last post. We went back to the mining zone for a few days last week. The Federation of miners was trying to meet with the government over a host of issues, including human rights abuses, and their insistence on receiving benefits from the exploitation of natural resources on lands they have lived on for decades. The government met with them, and some agreements were signed. Everyone was elated after this meeting...the results were not perfect, but it was good news after two frustrating years of work getting them to the table.

One important conversation took place about human rights abuses. Lawyers for the miners presented a document detailing human rights abuses that amounted to one abuse every four days on the part of the Colombian military. There have been recent high-profile arrests and resignations of Colombian military officials (for the killing of civilians). The Colombian government has also made international news over suppression of a peaceful protest of indigenous peoples over rights to their territory. The miners have been arrested, threatened, and intimidated, and we are accompanying them because they feel safer with outsiders present.

We also returned to another community organizing process with the organization "Programa"that i described last time, the one founded by the Jesuit. In this case, I did not feel that there was any real threat of violence or abuse. This was more an accompaniment of solidarity with campesinos struggling to organize, grow legal crops, and stay on their land in the face of enormous pressure to displace, or to grow coca.

When I reflect on the work here in Colombia, and who is to blame, and what are the solutions, many paths lead back to the United States. I am sure that all of you recognize that the reason they produce cocaine is to meet the demand in the US. In other words, as long as there is demand, there will be cocaine. I recently read that from 2000 to 2007, the height of the US "war" against coca growing in Colombia, production actually went up, not down.

A big part of that "war"has been crop fumigation which kills everything, not just coca. And after killing everything, the US does not offer alternative crops or a lucrative market to the farmers whose lives they have destroyed. We will end coca production in Colombia when we tackle the demand for it in the US, and not by military assistance to Colombia, or crop fumigations. Note that our military assistance to Colombia is paying for human rights abuses against civilians. If we were not paying for their military, they would not have the resources to oppress their own people.

It is complicated, but much of this war has to do with natural resources exploitation and who has control over the land. Campesinos do not want want big multinational companies to take over and displace them, butwhen they stand up for their rights, they are accused of being guerrilla. Most of the products of the exploitation of natural resources go to sustain our lifestyle in the US: gold and palm oil are two big products here. Palm oil is a substitute for deisel fuel, and is being planted here by big agro-conglomerates, replacing food crops.

It is important to realize two things: that the campesinos want development, but they want to control it themselves; and that this issue of resource exploitation and how it is done and who benefits is one of the roots of almost every armed conflict plaguing the world today. On the issue of who controls development: they don't want a big company to come in, force them off their land, destroy their traditional lives, and take all the profits. Usually these companies hire outsiders for the decent jobs, and may hire some local people for the menial, low-paying ones that do not bring them out of poverty. Usually these companies have bribed local and national officials. In Colombia, paramilitary groups, working as an arm of the military, are forcing displacement through intimidation.

This was the same story in Guatemala, where I worked two years ago. It is also at the root of what is going on in the Congo right now. They always want to call it something else, instead of placing the blame where it belongs: on the lifestyle of developed countries. These companies see dollar signs, and those dollars go to their investors.

I am pretty convinced that at least part of the solution is projects like the one I helped to start in Haiti, and which you all have heard a lot about, so I don't need to go into it here. We won't make money from it, the coffee growers will. Since it is the poor people who will benefit, it is really, really hard to get people to invest. But people are happy to invest in big companies that exploit poor people in order to make money for investors. In US culture, we want the dollars for ourselves. If i had the capital, iIwould do the same thing in other places that I am doing in Haiti. "Unfortunately," I have never lived my life in a way that made me any money.

When I reflect on the theology of this, I always end up going back to the concept of solidarity and what it means concretely. Etched in my mind is a picture of the family of Teo (the mining leader we accompany) as we climbed into the back seat of the cab with him. His wife was telling him to sit between us, because it was safer. His sons were smiling at us, and there was relief on their faces that he was not travelling alone. Teo kissed his toddler and his wife as he got into the car. If that accompaniment wasn't pastoral ministry, then i don't know any more what it is. It may have been dangerous, but so was the life of Jesus.

I think that sometimes as theologians we get lost in the concept of solidarity on a macro level, meaning like the global work of Catholic Relief Services, or something like it. Solidarity is also being present to individuals, families, and communities that are suffering the daily impact of dreadful US foreign policies. I was at a judicial hearing for a leader of a campesino group that was arrested recently, accused of being a guerrilla. There was nothing I could do except just be there, but I could see that it mattered a lot to his family and to other members of the group. I think it helps to not feel like you are alone in the struggle. I think that feeling like you are accompanied gives strength to continue the struggle. It is how we feel about God, right...that one's relationship with God gives one the strength to carry it on...and we are supposed to be the hands of God.

I also cannot get out of my mind the picture of Haitan coffee growers calling our project "God's grace." I feel like that is what mission is really all about...facilitating the experience of God's grace.

Introduction to the Blog

Planting an Olive Tree in Palestine

These blog entries are a compilation and cataloguing of emails I sent to family, friends, and colleagues from 2004 to the present. They are my stories and reflections from the “field,” meaning stories from my work around the world, in regions wracked with violent conflict, or poverty, or both.

They are catalogued by subject, and then later by date. If you use the subject index, the blogger program I am using automatically posts them in order of most recent first. This can be confusing, because at times the reader seems to be getting the end of the story first. If you are reading these stories for the first time, I suggest starting at the beginning, meaning with the earlier dates, instead of the end.

The stories from Palestine, Colombia, and the U.S.-Mexico border come from my work with Christian Peacemaker Teams. CPT sends teams of trained volunteers to zones of violent conflict to accompany unarmed communities who are at risk of violence. The idea is that those of us who believe that solutions to conflict are both more just and more effective if nonviolent, are willing to take the same risks as soldiers. The hope is that with the presence of outsiders, who document abuses, unarmed civilians face less risk of violence. As you read my reflections, you can judge for yourself what we accomplish.

The stories from Bolivia are reflections I wrote during time spent in Cochabamba, Bolivia. I was studying Spanish, but I was also observing a considerable amount of social change. The story from Kosovo I wrote while observing a CPT-type accompaniment project developed by an Italian group, Operation Dove.

The stories from Guatemala come from time spent accompanying a small, indigenous community at risk of losing their lands and traditions as a result of the arrival of a large, multinational mining company. I did that work independently of CPT. I had hoped to be able to develop an ongoing accompaniment presence there, but so far have not found sufficient people to organize a project.

The stories from Haiti are about developing a fair trade coffee project in one community, Baraderes, that I have been working in for a long time. I originally became involved when I took the job of social justice minister in a large Catholic parish in Silver Spring, Maryland, that had recently agreed to a sister parish relationship with Baraderes. Together with the Haitian pastor, over the course of nearly 8 years, we developed education, nutrition, and public health programs that we are still very proud of. Along with some others, we founded the “Just Haiti” project as a deepening and expanding of that anti-poverty work, in a way that empowers the community to work for its own survival, rather than remaining dependent on the good will of outsiders forever. As we all know, that good will can be withdrawn at any time. A link to the Just Haiti website can be found on the left side of the blog.

I also worked in the former Soviet Union in the 1980s, right up until it fell apart and became Russia and a slew of smaller states, including the stans. Among other things, during that time I compiled stories of Soviet Jews and former political prisoners who had suffered human rights abuses under communism, and advocated that the United States accept them as refugees. No written stories survive from that time, but I occasionally make reference to the Soviet Union, or the fact that I speak Russian, in my current reflections. I now regret that I was not writing more then.

The work continues, and the stories continue. I have put them on a blog because I feel they need to be told, because they challenge the dominant worldview in the global North. They are not my stories, but the stories of communities struggling for life. I am the vehicle, because I have allowed my own story to become tied to theirs. I welcome your comments.
Kim Lamberty