In January, I traveled to Colombia on a delegation with Witness for Peace to meet with communities resisting displacement in Northern Cauca and with communities of internally displaced people near Bogotá and Cali. Since I got back, I’ve viewed my work differently, and here’s why:
I realized that in our advocacy we talk so much about “victims,” when the word we really should be using is “heroes.”
In a decisive ruling for democracy, Colombia’s Constitutional Court determined February 26th that a law authorizing a referendum to change the
constitution to permit a second consecutive reelection of President
Álvaro Uribe would be unconstitutional. President Uribe immediately accepted the decision.
by Adam Isacson, Center for International Policyon November 10, 2009
On Friday, November 6th, the U.S. government finally released itsestimate of how much coca was cultivated in Colombia in 2008. The result is the first reduction in coca-growing since 2002-2003, a significant drop from 167,000 hectares measured in 2007 to 119,000 hectares in 2008. (A hectare is equal to 2.47 acres.) This brings the U.S. government’s coca cultivation estimate to its lowest level since 2004. (The U.S. government has not yet released 2008 coca data for Peru and Bolivia.)
This matches a downward 2007-2008 trend – though not the number of hectares – that the UN Office on Drugs and Crime announced (PDF) back in June.
A reduction in coca cultivation is good news. But what caused it?
by Lisa Bonds, Lutheran World Reliefon February 03, 2010
We thought you should hear this story from Lisa Bonds, with our partner
Lutheran World Relief in Colombia. See LWR’s blog on Colombia and other
topics by clicking here.
“I joined my Lutheran World Relief colleagues and Rosario Montoya, the
Director of Fundacion Infancia Feliz, in a visit to the ‘Finca la
Alemania,’ the German farm… As we drove to the farm, Rosario briefed us
on the farm's history and the people who had recently returned to the
farm after having been displaced by one of the most feared paramilitary
leaders, called ‘the Chain,’ in the state of Cordoba...
by Adam Isacson, Center for International Policyon October 21, 2009
Writing a few days ago in El Espectador, columnist Felipe Zuleta
reported that mothers of young men killed by the Colombian military
have begun receiving anonymous threats.
The mothers live in the poor Bogotá suburb of Soacha, where in 2008
elements of the Colombian Army abducted young men, killing them and
later presenting their bodies as those of illegal armed group members
killed in combat. When news of the Soacha killings broke in September
2008, the scandal forced the firing of 27 Army personnel. Murder trials
have been proceeding very slowly, with an increasing likelihood that
some of those responsible may not be punished.
In every province of Colombia, women long to know what happened to
their husbands, to their daughters, to their sons. Children want to
know what happened to their fathers, to their mothers.
Even Colombia’s associations of families of the disappeared have long
estimated that at most the disappeared totaled 15,000. And many did
not believe the toll was so high.
But as forensic teams are conducting exhumations following the partial
paramilitary demobilization, prosecutors are interviewing paramilitary
leaders, Colombia’s National Search Commission is soliciting
information from the victims, and victims are organizing to know the
truth, the scale of the human catastrophe is slowly being unveiled.
by Vanessa Kritzer and Lisa Haugaardon September 15, 2009
Today, LAWGEF joined labor, environmental, human rights, development and faith-based organizations in submitting written comments to the United States Trade Representative (USTR) in response to a formal request to the public for opinions on the pending trade agreement. In their comments, these groups outlined the specific human rights and labor problems in Colombia, and urged the Obama Administration to insist upon seeing fundamental improvements on these issues before going forward with a free trade agreement. Violence against trade unionists and other obstacles to worker rights were outlined by the AFL-CIO and US Labor Education in the Americas Project. Some groups also outlined the potential impact of the trade agreement on the rural poor, including Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities.
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