CPTnet
August 3, 2002
COLOMBIA UPDATE: July 16-July 21, 2002

Tuesday July 16
Scott Kerr, Carol Spring, Charles Spring and Keith
Young celebrated the day
of the Virgin of Carmen with farmers and fishers in
the Opon region. People set off firecrackers, ate
holiday foods and played soccer. The festival
commemorates the sighting of the Virgin Mary on Mount
Carmen.

Carol Spring and Young remained to accompany families
of the Opon region,
who are threatened by crossfire and/or
civilian-directed from
all legal and illegal Colombian armed groups:
guerrilla, paramilitary, army
and navy.

In the evening, Kerr, Lisa Martens, William Payne and
Charles Spring attended the Virgin of Carmen
festivities with people displaced from the Opon Lake
region because of paramilitary threats. Later, the
same CPT members attended a celebration in the city's
port, an area controlled by paramilitaries.

Wednesday July 17
Paramilitaries confiscated a truckload of cement bound
for a housing project in the Cimitarra River Valley.
(See forthcoming CPTnet release, "Cement Saga.")

On the Opon River, Carol Spring and Young patrolled
all three communities
where civilians have invited the team to accompany
them.

CPT members welcomed intern Jennifer Gomez to the
team. Gomez is a
Colombian Mennonite from Bogota who participated in a
CPT delegation, is
organizing future CPT delegations of Colombians, and
who will work on the
team when her schedule allows.

Thursday July 18
Kerr and Martens headed out to accompany Cimitarra
River Valley citizens who live under threats
from paramilitaries, the threat of being caught in the
crossfire between guerrillas, paramilitaries and
army, and who are living under an economic blockade
enforced, in part, by paramilitaries.

In the city, Payne received a request for support from
a civilian whose family has been displaced multiple
times because the Colombian army accuses them of being
guerrillas. The civilian fears accepting aid from
Colombian organizations because paramilitaries often
accuse Colombian aid organizations of supporting
guerillas.

In the Opon region, Carol Spring and Young checked for
armed groups in an
area where CPT members have often encountered
paramilitary members in the past. Spring and Young
found the area deserted.

Friday July 19

Kerr and Martens met with a guerrilla leader of the
FARC-EP (Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia - Army of the People). The
three discussed the
effectiveness of nonviolent campaigns, a recent FARC
attack (see July 27
release, "Spring and Martens witness Guerrilla
Graffiti and Bullet Holes"), CPT's work, and the
FARC's political objectives.

CPT members meet with all leaders of all armed groups
in CPT's accompaniment areas -- army, navy,
paramilitary and guerrilla -- to explain their
 reduction work, to let the leaders know that CPT
monitors all armed actors, and to encourage active
nonviolence.

Payne attended a peace meeting at which
representatives of local human
rights organizations, who are living with
threats, described their
struggle. A Canadian Embassy representative in
attendance spoke in support of local human rights
workers, and all present at the meeting observed a
minute of silence for a Colombian human rights lawyer
assassinated in
Barrancabermeja a year and a half ago.

Saturday July 20
In the Opon, Gomez, Schaaf and Young worked to set up
a meeting with a
paramilitary leader sometime within the next few
weeks.

Martens and Payne accompanied a representative of the
funders of a
Cimitarra River Valley housing project to talk to
paramilitaries about the
confiscated cement.

Sunday July 21
Martens and Payne accompanied three Colombian citizens
from the Cimitarra
River Valley to Barrancabermeja. Many citizens in the
area travel from place to place in fear of
paramilitaries kidnapping them at checkpoints and
subsequently torturing and them.
Paramilitaries target civilians for many reasons,
including having relatives with the guerrillas,
because someone has accused them of working with the
guerillas, because they are community leaders, or
because they support small farmers in an area rich in
resources coveted by wealthy companies and landowners.