by Glory Mushinge
– UK –
In much of the world, life for an eight year old is considered just started, but in Colombia, girls that age are dying, fighting in the military.
“As soon as they said they were going to kill us, we grabbed a change of clothes and anything else we could carry and took off running. We got in a boat and didn’t look back. We left our animals, crops, land and home behind… they came looking for us, to kill us and we weren’t there. Now we really need help because they tell us there are no resources.”
These are words from a mother in Colombia, who is just one of the people victimized by the paramilitary and guerrilla groups who are grabbing land, forcefully taking children to war and killing people indiscriminately in a country torn by civil war and 40 years of lawlessness. Such cases are an everyday occurrence as different armed groups seek to satisfy their greed at the expense of the innocent and helpless citizens, most of whom are now internally or externally displaced.
Recently, members of the Catholic Church in Colombia visited the UK to seek help for the country’s conflict, something they refer to as a ‘forgotten crisis’ because the international community has ignored Colombia’s issues.
Archbishop Reuben Salazar and Monsignor Héctor Fabio Henao, President and Director of the Social Department of the Catholic CARITAS Colombia, said during their visit that they travelled to England and Wales to raise awareness of the problems in Colombia and to bolster support for the church’s vital peace-building work.
CARITAS Colombia has since partnered with various organizations such as the Catholic Agency for Oversees Development (CAFOD), which has a large development program in Colombia that supports 13 local partners who work with the displaced people, indigenous and other poor communities on issues of sustainable livelihoods, human rights, peace and HIV and AIDS.
CARITAS stopped at Cardiff University in Wales, where they met with postgraduate students like myself from various parts of the world to get ideas and assistance in spreading information about the crisis in Colombia. CAFOD also participated.
As the presentation progressed, I could see the emotion and sympathy saturating the crowd; the ordeal in Colombia was too touching for one not to feel for the people there.
The extent to which innocent Colombians are being victimized was too terrible to ignore: their land grabbed from them as they remain helpless because there is no law to protect them; the numbers of children forced into the armies; the huge number of displaced people (which the presenters said is equivalent to the entire Welsh population) who have fled to other countries.
Priests and MPs are being kidnapped for ransom. People live in fear and cannot speak out. Colombian journalists cannot do their work freely and objectively because they are told what to write, and if they don’t, they are threatened with death and even killed. Most have run away to other countries. The presenters said in an interview that Colombians have been living this way for years because despite the seriousness of the situation, Colombia has been left to fight its battle alone.
The conflict has raged on for over 40 years and the guerrillas are only becoming more powerful. The government is not doing much to address the issue, except through ammunition. The drug business is thriving in the hands of the guerrillas who cultivate many of the substances that then provide the profits needed to sustain their operations. The future of the country is threatened in so many ways.
Colombia is the fourth largest country is South America with abundant natural resources and a population of about 44.9 million, 64% of whom live below the national poverty line according to the most recent United Nations Development report.
The conflict that has brought this suffering to Colombia’s people has been caused by guerrilla groups and drug traffickers who want to forcefully take power from the government because of an ‘unjust social and economic system.’
The conflict began in the 1960s when guerrilla groups were formed as a response to the peasant’s struggle for a fairer distribution of land. In the 1990s the guerrillas and state armed forces were joined by a third ‘armed actor’ – the paramilitaries. These forces originated as ‘self-defense groups’ set up by landowners to defend themselves and their property against the guerrillas, but were turned into an auxiliary army to fight in a dirty war against any attempt by the central government to negotiate with the guerrillas and thus weaken their power. The Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) and paramilitaries groups also became involved in drug trafficking as a source of funding. There is considerable evidence of collusion between the army and paramilitaries. In a war in which all sides have committed abuses, the paramilitaries have a particular reputation for savagery.
The FARC has demanded that the government free up some of the municipalities from military control in order to begin peace negotiations, but the government refuses because they think that it would give them more power. Billions of dollars have been donated by the United States to demobilize these illegal armed groups through provision of arms and military activities.
And in this scramble for power, the guerrilla groups and the paramilitaries have so far forcefully recruited about 6,000 child soldiers to fight in the civil war (with some as young as eight years of age), 30 percent of whom are girls.
As a result of the conflict, over three million people have been internally displaced and four million now live in places such as Germany, the US and Argentina. Official figures from the UN say that more than 450,000 Colombians have fled to Ecuador, Venezuela, Panama and Costa Rica.
Once residents have fled, these armed groups grab the abandoned land and many have established agribusiness, rearing cattle and producing African palm to raise money for their operations. This has in turn increased their political power.
The degree to which these groups have tormented the people of Colombia is what compelled the church and civil society to step up and play a role in addressing the situation. In his speech at Cardiff, Archbishop Salazar advocated for peaceful negotiations to settle these differences, saying “force cannot and is not solving the situation.”
Through a campaign called “Peace is possible in Colombia,” the church is mobilizing support in other countries by urging the government to start peace negotiations that respect the rights of victims to truth, justice and reparations.
After his presentation at the university conference, Archbishop Salazar said in an interview that the Colombian government is incredibly sensitive to the international community and if the outside world rose to the occasion, the government would follow.
“Our campaign aims for a negotiated and just peace for the millions of Colombians who are living in one of the worst humanitarian crises in the world, and to raise awareness with other countries around the world as to what is happening in Colombia,” the Archbishop says.
CAFOD Programme Support Officer for Colombia and Peru, Barbara Davies, said during the question and answer session of the talk that signatures were being collected in England and Wales to send the Colombian government a strong message of international solidarity and commitment to the displaced millions. They urge the government to adhere to the Constitutional Court’s decree and ensure that displaced people are able to enjoy their rights to material assistance, reparations, long-term solutions and above all, a life free of violence and persecution.
In 1991 Colombia got a new constitution, which Archbishop Salazar says marked a very important step in the country. “The constitution was democratic [with] clear social aims and reforms, but it has not been implemented.”
He says Colombia’s legislation on internal displacement is among the most advanced in the world, but the problem is enforcement. In February 2004, Colombia’s constitutional court issued a landmark judgement of the people’s displacement as “unconstitutional” and ordered the authorities to take action.
“We are beginning to implement it and believe we are going forward in the right direction. As a church, we are fighting very hard to achieve the social reforms,” Archbishop Salazar says. “We are trying to facilitate talks between the government and the guerrillas. We are trying to help the displaced people, the kidnapped and those that are suffering.”
Davies added that apart from engaging in discussions with these fighting groups and government, the church and civil society are still trying to find other ways in which the situation could be addressed peacefully, and therefore seeking suggestions from people all over the world.
At the moment, advocacy is most important says Archbishop Salazar: “We need to create an ambience of peace negotiation and this is possible by creating awareness. Our message is, ‘peace is possible.’ We have lived a climate of endurance since independence. This endurance is so big that we have journalists, bishops and priests killed so everyone is threatened. Speaking out in Colombia is always a risk, so we are trying to create a climate of confidence.”
After the conference, the entourage met with the Welsh Members of the European Parliament who, according to Davies, said that the church’s intervention was worthwhile.
Jill Evans, from the European parliament added that “People in Wales are deeply concerned with fighting injustice. Making links between our countries will help increase understanding and will put influence on governments at all levels to bring the suffering and injustice to an end.”
As Monsignor Henao observes, “Peace is possible, but it must be based on justice.”
About the Author
Glory Mushinge is a Zambian freelance journalist and columnist working with various media organizations, both locally and internationally. Having won a highly competitive scholarship to Cardiff University in the United Kingdom, Glory is currently in their Masters program for International Journalism.
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