This July 12-25, CPT Colombia is hosting a delegation focusing on the experiences of women in this war. Delegates will participate in the forty year anniversary celebration of our partners in the Popular Women’s Organization (OFP). The OFP is a grassroots women-led initiative which focuses on female leadership, programs of social uplift, supporting victims of domestic violence as well as resistance to war. Delegates will also visit women leaders in the region and explore what it means to live as a woman in the midst of armed conflict.

“We remember that during the past 40 years we have paid a high price for defending life. There have been too many comrades, men and women, who have lost their lives on this long road. We remember the persecution that the leaders of our region – Magdalena Medio and throughout Colombia - have suffered and still suffer today. We remember that women are still the main victims of this social and armed conflict, that they suffer violence by those armed legally and illegally and the systematic negation and violation of their rights by the estate, suffering discrimination and violence in their own homes.” --from OFP Web Page

The women of the OFP continue to be the targets of violence. One evening in the last week of May two CPT team members responded to an urgent request from the OFP office here in Barrancabermeja. The director of the OFP, Yolanda Bercel, who was forced to displace from Barrancabermeja several years ago because of threats against herself and her family, was visiting the Barrancabermeja office to take care of some business. Soon after her security escorts left in their bullet proof vehicle an unidentified suspect attempted to gain entry through a locked door within plain view the group of OFP women gathered there. When the husband of one of the leaders became visible the individual fled on the back of a motorbike that had clearly waiting for him. The police, which had been called, showed up a half hour after the two CPTers, who had come on foot. The single policeman who responded repeatedly suggested that the suspect may well only have been a robber with no connection the repeated death threats being received by the women of the OFP. He also said a police squad was on its way to protect the women. He left an hour later. The police squad never did arrive. 

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CPT is an ecumenical violence-reduction initiative with support and membership from a range of Catholic and Protestant denominations. CPT has had a continuing presence in the Magdalena Medio region of Colombia since May 2001.

FUNDRAISING EXPECTATION: $2500 US or $2600 Cdn (covers roundtrip airfare from a designated U.S. or Canadian city. If traveling from another country, contact CPT office for details).