CPTnet
22 October 2011
COLOMBIA REFLECTION:  They call out; will you listen?

by Seth Wispelwey

[INTRODUCTION: Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT) has accompanied CAHUCOPANA (Corporation for Coexistence and Peace in Northeast Antioquia), a human rights organization based in Northeast Antioquia, which continues to witness a high rate of tension, violence and environmental abuse.  The region is the home to millions of campesinos, many of them displaced from around the country.  This summer, an international CPT delegation, comprising church and community leaders from Ethiopia, India, the United States and Canada, joined CAHUCOPANA in a public action in the volatile town of Remedios.]

Colombia’s people of the land—peasants, farmers and artisanal miners, the indigenous— are calling out for an end to the exploitation and environmental destruction of their territories and homes.  They call out for a restoration of their livelihoods.  Greed and violence leaves them dead, disappeared, or disenfranchised members of one of the world's largest number of internally displaced people.  These human rights abuses take place in a country that the United States has showered with billions of dollars in military and foreign aid in the past ten years.  

One can feel overwhelmed, morally compromised, or numb when confronted with the violence and assaults on human dignity in a country that is an ally and beneficiary of the U.S.  However, as the campesinos of Colombia call out for partnership and support, as they call out for Colombia, some are listening.  Some are advocating.  Some are accompanying. 

 CPT closed the event in Remedios with a public action of solidarity.  Witnesses were invited to nail their grievances to a wooden cross on the stage.  Many were not sure if attendees would feel comfortable enough to risk publicly their safety with such a move.  Instead, people could not come to the cross fast enough.  As the liturgy progressed, CPT led songs of lament for the indignities and abuses perpetrated upon the campesinos of Colombia.  Then, the singing turned into an anthem of protest, prayer and promise:  “We take our hands away from things that destroy, the systems that oppress, from greed /  We will walk the earth without violence, in the strength of peace and imagination /  Raising your love, transforming our lives /  We walk in the dreams of God.”

As the chanting and singing grew, people were invited to the cross once again, this time to transform it, removing the words of injustice, and replacing them with words of promise, hope and restorative needs.  The cross was draped in the colors of the Colombian flag and the singing kept going.  Members of CAHUCOPANA joined the members of CPT on the steps, proclaiming the promise to "withdraw our hands from systems that oppress" and to "walk the earth in nonviolence...transforming our lives."  Campesinos raised their arms up in song while people in the square also joined in.   

 The campesinos of Colombia have called out.  Will we listen?  Will we take our hands away from systems of oppression?  Will we denounce their predicament, our complicity in it, and our determination to see lives transformed?  Will you be a part of this transformation?