CPTnet
23 June 2006

COLOMBIA REFLECTION: Living with fear and hope

by Mari Tae

[Note: Tae, from Montreal, Quebec, participated in a recent CPT delegation
to Bogotá, Barrancabermeja, and the Opón River Communities. On 3-16
October
2006, another delegation will visit Barrancabermeja, Bogotá and the Opón
communities to have a first hand learning experience about the
forty-year-old civil war in Colombia, the connections between U.S. policies
and this conflict, and the wide array of initiatives for peace. If you are
interested in this delegation experience, please contact Claire Evans at
delegations [at] cpt [dot] org?Subject=Re:%20COLOMBIA%20REFLECTION:%20Living%20with%20fear%20and%20hope&In-Reply-To=<1151078298@mennolink> .]

During my Christian Peacemaker Team delegation to Colombia, the layers of
consciousness and emotion that Colombians live with struck a deep chord.

I perceived these emotional undercurrents in Barrancabermeja and especially
in the Opón river region. Our delegation visited many families who lived
by the Opón River and they shared their experiences with disappearances,
displacement, assassinations and terror at the hands of armed groups. Not
one person we spoke with had not been affected by the war; the trauma showed
in their eyes and in the timbre of their voices.

The fact that living with fear has become the norm for them disturbed me.
As a North American, I can say that my society objects vehemently to being
in a state of emotional and physical discomfort. We see hunger, pain, and
fear as a violation of our rights. Indeed they are. Fear should not be a
normal way of life for any human being.

In comparison, I feel spoiled but also very fortunate and I never again want
to take for granted the freedoms and opportunities I have. However, in the
Opón, I saw a community spirit that reaches far beyond what I have
experience in my own safe corner of the world. Despite the fear and
discouragement I saw in faces of Ñeques and Florida community residents, I
also saw pride, resilience, humor, solidarity and deep faith.

What gave me hope and respect for these people was the ease with which they
laughed, the gracious generosity they showed in welcoming us into their
homes and the happy innocence of their children.