PeaceReporter - Driven from Home in the Name of Peace

21/01/2005 versione stampabile

The Colombian “Desplazados” Evacuated by the Army - part two

When were you able to set foot in your land again?

In 2000. We took it back five years ago. We came back and lived in terrible conditions. The most important thing was obtaining some international support. Thanks to the International Peace Brigades, the InterAmerican Court for Human Rights came to visit Cacarica and they released a statement demanding that the government respect our right to life and our community. The Canadian Embassy helped, and so did lots of national and international no-global organizations and other non-governmental agencies. The important thing now is that they keep an eye on us, and that we continue to get the civilian populations involved in our struggle.

How were you able to begin all over again?

It was thanks to nature, we gives us everything. It’s extraordinary. We defended it with everything we had. We managed to drive away an outfit that was indiscriminately cutting down all the trees in our paradise, to export as lumber. You wouldn’t believe how many multinationals were all set to steal everything. Our natural resources are indispensable to our survival. Even the water. There was a period when it looked like even that was going to be sold away. We defended the land for ourselves and we established it as a patrimony of the whole world.

How did you get organized?

We divided up the tasks by setting up twenty work groups, called combos. We even got the children involved. They can’t vote or run for office, but they have their own combo in which they practice music and painting. The combo of the matriarchs and patriarchs is responsible for Justice; they call to account and sanction anyone responsible for committing errors. The Coordinaciones combo organizes the work of all the other combos to satisfy everyone’s needs. The Coordinaciones have twelve women and twelve men to prevent discrimination. There are 26 coordinators. And none of us were protected from being tried by the state. We were tried in Bogotà. They accuse of us being political theorists, ideologues of the guerilla. But these accusations demonstrate their will to destroy our community, which is uncomfortable for them. General Moras Ranger of the Bolsa Militar de Colombia accused us officially, publicly. Let him talk. We will never hide. We will face down every accusation, proving its falsity. We have always answered by making accusations of our own. Lots of them! Even if it’s the struggle of the ant against the elephant, we’re going to carry on.

What are your priorities?

We are concentrating on three projects:

1)Give up on cultivating palms to concentrate on chocolate. We can guarantee our economic survival by selling it around the world.

2)Invest in education. We need notebooks and other materials for our twelve high school graduates who serve as teachers.

3)Put ourselves into contact with the rest of the world. Since we are denied real, constructive contact with Bogotà, we will look for support from beyond our own country. We are forced to resort to this so as to be able to go on living. We will tell the story of who we are and what has happened to us, what we are living through, and even who we want to become. We need help. We don’t want to end up like so many other desplazados who were driven to the cities and forced to become slaves living in constant desperation. So many widows with children have been forced to do that. Enough! We have to denounce this situation. We denounce that state’s refusal to respond to conditions they have caused.

What does that mean, that the state won’t respond to problems that it has created?

It means that the government allowed thousands of its citizens to be uprooted. It took away our houses, our resources, our lives. And as though that weren’t enough, it deceived us. How can you solve the problem of desperate people that you abandoned on the street with social cleansing? Because that’s what the Colombian state is doing. It responds to social crisis with ethnic cleansing. It happens all the time in Bogotà. Big empty trucks drive through the poorest neighborhoods. They load up the old, the indigent, and street children, and you never hear about them again. They are all destined to disappear. They never come back.

How can we tolerate this? We will continue to raise our voices to call for change for Colombia. Changes that the people need, not to fill Uribe and his people with pride. We need the help of the international community. By removing the hood of silence we can defeat their impunity. All Uribe wants is to legalize the paramilitaries and advance the interests of his allies. His politics have already cost the country so much bloodshed. We live in a country that talks about democracy, but there is no real democracy. We are nowhere close to being a state based on rights.

If I were to speak so openly in Colombia, some uniform would be sure to demand an explanation. It would be so easy for them to make me disappear. The people remain almost completely indifferent to everything that happens. By now, Colombians only get the news filtered through government media. There is no independent information. So all we can do is turn to the international community. Our only hope is those of us who go abroad to denounce the situation. All the stories about the farmers, the unions, and the defenders of human rights in Colombia are, finally, the same. Stories of oppression.

Stella Spinelli