Main Street in Tiquisio
Tiquisio has been hit hard by the long-running conflict in Colombia. A long list of people from the area have been killed or "disappeared" by all three types of armed groups: guerrilla, para-military, and Colombian armed forces. In 2003, instead of displacing, which many communities in their situation feel forced to do, under the leadership of their creative parish priest, Padre Rafael Gallego, Tiquisio decided to take matters into its own hands.
The community launched what they call "The Citizens' Process," and, with the accompaniment of a number of outside groups, they developed a plan to stay on their lands and kick out the armed groups. They say that as a result of this process, the activities of armed groups have decreased dramatically, and now they have opened up the space for economic development. They have a well-thought-out plan for doing so; they just don't have anyone to invest in them.
Like everywhere in Colombia with natural resources, they are under threat by large multi-national corporations who want to come in and exploit the resources in away that benefits investors, but will displace the people. In other words, after kicking out the armed groups, the threat of displacement is not over, because the multinationals are a new threat. They feel that the solution is a development project of their own which does not leave any space for the multinationals to enter.
After awhile, everywhere I go it starts to feel like the same story. The multinationals are a catalyst for more violence, because they are a threat to peoples' identity and way of life. One of the things that the conflict resolution literature of the past few years has taught us is that people resort to violence when their identity is being threatened in some way.
I asked a number of people why they thought people joined the armed groups (whether guerrilla, para-military, or military). The answer was uniformly the same: unemployment. People are not joining for ideological reasons; they are joining to deal with poverty. This should give all of us pause, since US tax dollars are paying for the Colombian military. What would it be like if US tax dollars paid for small-scale development projects that brought work and dignity to poverty-stricken communities, instead of paying for the military to violently rout out the other armed groups only to open up space for the multinationals to come in and do so-called "sustainable" development projects?
Another interesting thing I learned was that prior to the beginning of the Citizens' Process, there was a goup of Franciscan missionaries in Tiquisio who fled as a result of threats from the Colombian military. This happened in the early 90s. Padre Rafael also displaced for a short time this past spring due to threats from para-militaryforces (which is basically the same things as the military in Colombia). But as a result of the Citizens' Process, Padre Rafael and others dialogued with the Colombian military and created the conditions for him to return to Tiquisio.
I have learned that processes like the one in Tiquisio, which rely on accompaniment for a variety of things, end up opening up space in a conflict zone both for dialogue with armed groups and for economic development. The key to a lasting peace are economic development projects that don't just lead to further poverty and displacement for local people.
What the people said confirms a lot of what I already thought. For one thing, lasting peace will not come from above; it will come from below, village by village. If we want to build a lasting peace, we have to invest in these villages, one-by-one. Now I think you can understand the rationale for Just Haiti. We have to invest in them, but not with our charity, which gets them nowhere. We have to invest in them so that they receive training and leadership formation, so that they can come up with their own development plans, and then we have to invest in their plans. I wish it was as simple to put in practice as it is to write about here. Where are the people who want to put their money here?
In my view, what Tiquisio really needs right now is a sister parish (and people said as much, but in different words). They need the friendship and solidarity of a community that is walking with them, and regular investment of funds from a parish in the north. They don't need huge investment; they need small-scale investment. They would be an awesome candidate for it.
