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.