CPTnet
26 May 2005
COLOMBIA REFLECTION: I Remember September 11
by Joel Klassen
Two of us attended a memorial mass recently to remember a massacre by
paramilitaries here in Barrancabermeja on May 16, 1998. With parents and
children, brothers and sisters, relatives and friends of the thirty-one
victims, we sang and prayed. Readers intoned their names, one by one.
As the priests and the bishop processed to the altar, it struck me that
people have commemorated the senseless death of loved ones in terrorist acts
far too often. I remembered that armed men entered a mass on Sept. 11,
1988, in Port-au-Prince, Haiti, and killed dozens, including a pregnant
woman. Miraculously, her baby survived. I remembered that in a memorial
mass in Port-au-Prince on Sept. 11, 1993, armed men forced a participant
outside and shot him dead. I remembered praying in my city square with
people of many faiths for victims of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks, and their
loved ones.
In the mass today, the bishop, Msgr. Jaime Prieto of Barrancabermeja,
remembered the Holocaust and the Second World War, and that afterward people
vowed, "Never again!". He spoke of how mourning family members put photos
on the empty coffins of loved ones whose bodies were never found. I
remembered that New Yorkers in 2001 put photos of their loved ones on
building walls, hoping desperately to find them. Msgr. Prieto said only
experiencing such an intense loss allows understanding it. Otherwise it can
only be fumblingly interpreted.
The bishop recalled the massive gathering of the people of Barrancabermeja
after the massacre--for a short time, it didn't matter if you were rich or
poor, from one neighbourhood or ideology or another. People gathered to say
an enraged, mournful "NO!" overcoming their fear of themselves becoming
targets.
Impunity reigns here. When armed actors kill, especially those, like the
"paras", with links to the state, rarely is anyone held accountable. In
this context, the state cannot build policy on the expectation that people
will simply forgive. The bishop called for society to find ways to tell and
hear the truth, to do justice within a framework of law, and to ensure
reparations for all victims of human rights abuses.
On that Monday of Pentecost, I remembered how U.S. military personnel have
for decades taught paramilitary strategies to officers from around Latin
America and the Caribbean at the School of the Americas in Georgia, United
States. I thought that if people in the United States remembered often
enough how intimately their government is connected to terrorism, surely
they would want to stop it.
Those made victim to sudden, massive violence reel in its aftermath. They
refuse to accept their losses. They try to make sense of them. They call
for justice. I pray that as people of the world, we can imagine a justice
that creates security for all, especially the weakest among us. In rage and
mourning, I remember May 16, 1998. I remember Sept. 11, 1988, 1993, and
2001.
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