CPTnet
March 1, 2002
COLOMBIA: No more guns to the slaughterhouse. A letter from Duane Ediger.

[Note: The following letter has been edited for length. See CPT's web
page, http://www.cpt.org/publications/pubs.php for Lenten worship resources from the
Colombia and Hebron Teams.]

  Dear friends,

  Greetings from Barrancabermeja, Colombia.

  As the latest breakdown in negotiations between the Colombian government
and
  the country's largest guerrilla group, the FARC, becomes stale news in
North
  America, the untelevised war grinds on. Tonight in the rural communities
we
  accompany outside this city, increasing numbers of both legal and illegal
  armed groups are moving through, causing further displacement of the
  civilian population.

Members of our team tonight are in rural areas that have only been made
  livable again by the international presence Christian Peacemaker Teams
  (CPT) has been providing in the region over the last year. I hope they are
  getting some sleep.

  Fighting among the armed groups continues to wreak havoc on civilian
life. U.S. military aid has not done anything other than add fuel to the
fire--especially with the Bush administration seeing it less and less
necessary to hide acquisitive motives behind a veneer of humanitarian
concern.

A month ago human rights organizations gave a resounding NO to the question
of whether the Colombian government had
  sufficiently severed its ties to the paramilitary killing machine that is
. . . responsible for most of the blood shed in this country for
  several years running. Our experience here supports that answer. If
  Secretary of State Colin Powell certifies Colombia on human rights, thus
  allowing military funds to continue flowing into this slaughterhouse, he
  will certainly have evaded the spirit and word of Congress when it laid
out
  strict conditions for such aid.

  I will not write you a book tonight. But I want to invite your prayers.
  Prayers for so many whose names cannot be written for their own safety.
For
  people afraid to come to town, afraid to be seen talking with the wrong
  people, afraid to not act friendly with the person of whatever group who
  carries the big gun. You may pray for children, whose innocence protects
  them from the worst ravages of fear. But pray especially for those who
know
  what they are doing. Who calculate barrels of oil and gallons of blood,
who
  put a price on the human soul, and a very low one at that. They know deep
  down that this makes them vulnerable and cheapens their humanity.

  Pray that we may be strong in humbly but even more boldly calling all who
  have taken steps in that fallen way back to the beloved community. We have
  been doing this by praying at paramilitary checkpoints, directly
challenging
  armed actors (to their faces) to put down their guns, writing
denunciations
  when necessary and rousing to wakefulness all of us in the north who are
so
  heavily sedated with our busy, dizzying wars.

  Tell your congressional Representatives and Senators that there are ways
  that the U.S. can improve life and contribute to a just peace in Colombia,
  but it will never be able to do so as long as it continues to saturate it
  with weapons of war.

  May the peace that is coming be the bulwark of our hope, the confirmation
of
  our faith and a guide for our blind steps.

  --Duane Ediger

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