PeaceReporter - Fleeing for peace

11/04/2005 versione stampabile

The Peace Community of San José de Apartado is forced to abandon its land

They are fleeing still fleeing from the war, from violence, from weapons and from menaces. The only objective is to preserve their neutrality consequently their life, and the only way is to keep away from any alignment and not to get involved with the armed movers that for forty years have been causing a bloodshed in Colombia. They have chosen peace at any cost and for this they are ready for any sacrifice.

Without peace. The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, still shattered by the last unpunished massacre of a few months ago that killed eight of their people among which also some children by the hand of the paramilitary, is forced to the umpteenth sacrifice.

From March 30 the police has started coming into the small village with a following of psychologists, sociologists, cameramen and other people that distribute fliers in which they propose to cooperate with the police. All of this is backed up by the political creed of the President of the Republic Alvaro Uribe according to whom "in democratic societies citizens cannot be neutral in front of crime There is no distinction between policemen and citizens". So they didn't have a choice and with April 1 they started their exodus.

The invasion. Troops of policemen have obtained the license to invade the ancestral land of the peasants communities, trying to convince them to participate to their battle for power against the guerilla.

“On March 30 – the Community says - they stayed until two in the afternoon handing out leaflets and waving around children educational and social work. Also, on March 31 we saw two men on a motorcycle arrive carrying weapons, then the police priest announced with a megaphone the imminent arrival of policemen. After half an hour a bus full of hundreds of people invaded the village. Among them various policemen with sweets and drums were inviting the community to work with the police and filmed us and our houses. When some children refused to take the gifts and the sweets that were being distributed, some policemen and the priest got angry and started shouting that we would have paid dearly for that".

Neutral at any cost. "We cannot coexist, it's impossible– explains Eillinton Cuesta Cordoba, campesino leader and vice-president of the Board of the Community of Rio Jiguamando and the Curvaradò families, an African descent community that live the same drama as the people of San José - it would mean taking a position on the war, and being part of the conflict. We are external to all clashes and we want to remain so. Where there are policemen there are paramilitary and where there are paramilitary there is guerrilla. It's a vicious circle. It's the civil war game and it's a game we don't want to play. We want our rights our land and our lives to be respected. But this State doesn't seem to allows us this; instead it wants to arm our children and rob us of our land and of its immense treasures. The rest are only words. We need to break the silence and to have the world informed about this truth that is all except Uribe's propaganda.”

The government's answer. “It's outrageous what the government is doing, they say from San Josè de Apartado, -. The military has massacred eight people and as an answer they send us the police as an hypothetical and unlikely solution to our problems. Did he forget the four meetings had with the Vice President on this topic and our firm rejection to coexist with the police or military? It's clear that it has no sense to continue communicating with the government since it doesn't listen. We met with the government delegates for two years and the result has only been a worsening of the aggressions and the clear intention to destroy our peace process. We have the right to know what is the government's position on the community and if the necessary steps will be taken according to the orders of the InterAmerican Court. As of now the only answer we have had is the arrival of the police and it psycho-social actions. The government has taken a decision of war for a community that believes in peace and that lives in peace. From now onwards we will not talk with the State but only with the people's defenders and with the national Prosecutors Office until we will have had attention on our village and the respect for our private property that is continuously violated."

Trampled rights. “We demand the respect for the place in which we are which is private property. We demand the respect for our process for the humanitarian areas and for the few families that have decided to stay in the village of San Josè. We do not accept the shame of those who say that the families have been obliged to leave or that it was simply the leader's decision. This is a collective decision and anyone has the full right to share it.

We ask for national and international solidarity in these moments in which they are trying to destroy our process. We know that one day history will judge these events, these insults, these injustices, this Crime of Injured Humanity that has been committed against our community. There will come a day in which a government will respect the peace initiatives that are born from the civil communities that suffer the war . We believe that what they have done to us has been an historical mistake towards the country and towards humanity and one day the latter one will judge this action.

Stella Spinelli