COLOMBIA UPDATE: September 2008
October 31st, 2008
in:
CPTnet Â
31 October 2008
COLOMBIA UPDATE: September 2008
During September, members of human rights organizations in Barrancabermeja (Barranca) experienced further threats and risks to their safety as they continued their work. CPT-Colombia supported these activist organizations through its presence at various gatherings and workshops. In addition, the team continued its accompaniment work in the Middle Magdalena region, visiting communities in four municipalities.
3 September
Janeth Foronda Torress, a government official in Criminal Investigations, met with CPTers Nils Dybvig and William Payne to request information related to four crimes of homophobic violence she is currently investigating.
3-5 September
CPTers Michele Braley and Gerald Paoli traveled to Garzal, where they visited families and attended a school celebration in honor of two newly completed classrooms. Garzal is a community of subsistence farmers that CPT-Colombia has accompanied since 2007. While the farmers are now experiencing less physical violence, they continue to face the threat of losing their land.
4 September
A leader of the Barrancabermejan human rights organization Corporación Nación, accompanied by CPTers Payne and John Volkening, traveled to San Vicente de Chucurà to conduct a workshop on "Subjectivity and Democracy" for the School of Democratic Leadership of the Barranca diocese.
7 September
Payne met with a representative of the International Red Cross to convey a request for assistance from a woman of the Southern Bolivar province. The woman is searching for her fifteen-year-old daughter, whom the FARC guerilla group recruited in 2006. The representative took information and promised to be in touch with the woman.
8-9 September
In Barrancabermeja, Dybvig and Payne attended a "Humanitarian Protection" workshop sponsored by the group "We are defenders," a non-governmental program to protect at-risk human rights defenders.
10-11 September
September Braley and Dybvig visited rural communities on the Opón River, where families continue to sell their land and move into the city. The CPTers talked with one such family who have been on their land thirty-eight years but feel they have little to show for it and do not want to remain in the "rich" landowner's territory. Two Opón residents reported that three members of guerrilla forces had come through the area in late August and that one approached a house to request water.
16 September
The Barrancabermejan youth organization Legion of Affection, which had received death threats from a paramilitary group the previous month (see August 2008 Update), held a well-attended press conference in response to those threats. The young people described the nature of their work, how they respond to threats with courage and humor, and concluded by performing a cultural dance.
In the afternoon, two men went to the home of a leader of the Women's Popular Organization (OFP), asking where she was and insisting they knew how to find her. Because of this potential threat, the following day CPTers Jenny Dillon and Stewart Vriesinga accompanied this leader to her meetings in the region.
18-21 September
Braley and Dybvig traveled to the mining community of San Pedro Frio to attend the Fifth Assembly of the Southern Bolivar Agricultural-Mining Federation. Those participating in this assembly discussed the challenges and accomplishments of the Federation's fourteen years and commemorated the second anniversary of the assassination of Alejandro Uribe Chacón, former president of the Federation.
22-25 September
CPTers Vriesinga and Pierre Shantz traveled to the municipality of Tiquisio, where they visited several communities and talked with members of the Tiquisio Citizens' Process. They attended a community meeting of families who in 1988 received permission to farm some land from the previous owner, who had abandoned the land. Colombian law states that someone who has farmed a plot of land for five to ten years gains ownership. However, with emerging agro-business possibilities for the land, the former owner's family has fresh interest in the property they had previously deserted, and the community faces legal action that could displace them from their land.
In the town of Puerto Rico, the CPTers met with the Lieutenant Police commander, who discussed police investigations of four murders committed there this year. Following three years without a violent death in the community, these murders have frightened the citizens of Puerto Rico.
27-28 September
The Women's Social Movement against War and for Peace, a movement initiated twelve years ago by the OFP, held a weekend workshop in the city of Bucaramanga, which CPTers Dillon and Sarah MacDonald attended. About seventy women representing twenty organizations, gathered from throughout Colombia to analyze the current national context and strategize next steps in strengthening the movement. Those in attendance agreed to publish a letter denouncing the 24 September 2008, assassination of Olga Marina Vergara, a leader in the Women's Peaceful Way, another nonviolent movement organized by Colombian women.
31 October 2008
COLOMBIA UPDATE: September 2008
During September, members of human rights organizations in Barrancabermeja (Barranca) experienced further threats and risks to their safety as they continued their work. CPT-Colombia supported these activist organizations through its presence at various gatherings and workshops. In addition, the team continued its accompaniment work in the Middle Magdalena region, visiting communities in four municipalities.
3 September
Janeth Foronda Torress, a government official in Criminal Investigations, met with CPTers Nils Dybvig and William Payne to request information related to four crimes of homophobic violence she is currently investigating.
3-5 September
CPTers Michele Braley and Gerald Paoli traveled to Garzal, where they visited families and attended a school celebration in honor of two newly completed classrooms. Garzal is a community of subsistence farmers that CPT-Colombia has accompanied since 2007. While the farmers are now experiencing less physical violence, they continue to face the threat of losing their land.
4 September
A leader of the Barrancabermejan human rights organization Corporación Nación, accompanied by CPTers Payne and John Volkening, traveled to San Vicente de Chucurà to conduct a workshop on "Subjectivity and Democracy" for the School of Democratic Leadership of the Barranca diocese.
7 September
Payne met with a representative of the International Red Cross to convey a request for assistance from a woman of the Southern Bolivar province. The woman is searching for her fifteen-year-old daughter, whom the FARC guerilla group recruited in 2006. The representative took information and promised to be in touch with the woman.
8-9 September
In Barrancabermeja, Dybvig and Payne attended a "Humanitarian Protection" workshop sponsored by the group "We are defenders," a non-governmental program to protect at-risk human rights defenders.
10-11 September
September Braley and Dybvig visited rural communities on the Opón River, where families continue to sell their land and move into the city. The CPTers talked with one such family who have been on their land thirty-eight years but feel they have little to show for it and do not want to remain in the "rich" landowner's territory. Two Opón residents reported that three members of guerrilla forces had come through the area in late August and that one approached a house to request water.
16 September
The Barrancabermejan youth organization Legion of Affection, which had received death threats from a paramilitary group the previous month (see August 2008 Update), held a well-attended press conference in response to those threats. The young people described the nature of their work, how they respond to threats with courage and humor, and concluded by performing a cultural dance.
In the afternoon, two men went to the home of a leader of the Women's Popular Organization (OFP), asking where she was and insisting they knew how to find her. Because of this potential threat, the following day CPTers Jenny Dillon and Stewart Vriesinga accompanied this leader to her meetings in the region.
18-21 September
Braley and Dybvig traveled to the mining community of San Pedro Frio to attend the Fifth Assembly of the Southern Bolivar Agricultural-Mining Federation. Those participating in this assembly discussed the challenges and accomplishments of the Federation's fourteen years and commemorated the second anniversary of the assassination of Alejandro Uribe Chacón, former president of the Federation.
22-25 September
CPTers Vriesinga and Pierre Shantz traveled to the municipality of Tiquisio, where they visited several communities and talked with members of the Tiquisio Citizens' Process. They attended a community meeting of families who in 1988 received permission to farm some land from the previous owner, who had abandoned the land. Colombian law states that someone who has farmed a plot of land for five to ten years gains ownership. However, with emerging agro-business possibilities for the land, the former owner's family has fresh interest in the property they had previously deserted, and the community faces legal action that could displace them from their land.
In the town of Puerto Rico, the CPTers met with the Lieutenant Police commander, who discussed police investigations of four murders committed there this year. Following three years without a violent death in the community, these murders have frightened the citizens of Puerto Rico.
27-28 September
The Women's Social Movement against War and for Peace, a movement initiated twelve years ago by the OFP, held a weekend workshop in the city of Bucaramanga, which CPTers Dillon and Sarah MacDonald attended. About seventy women representing twenty organizations, gathered from throughout Colombia to analyze the current national context and strategize next steps in strengthening the movement. Those in attendance agreed to publish a letter denouncing the 24 September 2008, assassination of Olga Marina Vergara, a leader in the Women's Peaceful Way, another nonviolent movement organized by Colombian women.
