Stand by Colombia's Victims of Violence

The State Department on September 15, 2011, certified that Colombia had met the human rights conditions attached to U.S. assistance. No surprise there—the State Department always certifies Colombia meets the conditions, no matter what is happening on the ground.  To be fair, this time, with the year-old Santos Administration, there’s somewhat more reason to certify than during countless rounds of certification during the Uribe Administration.   The certification document cites the Santos Administration's successful passage of a victims' reparations and land restitution bill; a “disarming of words” initiative in which it abandoned the inflammatory anti-NGO language used by Uribe and his top officials, which had endangered human rights defenders and journalists; progress on some historic human rights cases; and a variety of directives and policy initiatives, at least on paper, to support human rights and labor rights.
 
But the 118- page document contains a wealth of information that shows why we should still be deeply concerned.

We’re up against some big forces in our struggle against the U.S.-Colombia Free Trade Agreement (FTA): major corporations, the Chamber of Commerce, stubborn Republicans, free trade-loving Democrats, and even the President. They have money, power, and connections. But we have conviction.

We have hardworking partners in the United States. We have incredibly brave community leaders and human rights defenders on the ground in Colombia telling us every day about why this trade deal will be so devastating for those already hit hardest by Colombia’s conflict. And we have something better than a slingshot to fight this Goliath—YOU.

Will you chip in $50 or more today to make sure we can do everything in our power to stop this harmful trade agreement?

“And the worst of all is when the things happen to you and you can’t do anything,” said María, a displaced woman in Colombia who has endured abuses by guerrillas, paramilitaries and the army.  “And you have to just watch and simply be silent. If you say something, it will happen all the same. That’s when I saw that the only real right we have as people is to be silent. Maybe that’s the real right I’ve exercised here, in Colombia.  It’s watch and be silent, if you want to survive.”

LAWGEF is pleased to publish this selection from a book coming out in 2012 from McSweeney’s Voice of Witness, by editors Max Schoening and Sibylla Brodzinsky.  This will be a powerful collection of oral histories, compiling the life stories of a selection of Colombia’s over 5 million internally displaced people. In their own words, narrators recount their lives before displacement, the reasons for their flight, their personal tragedies and struggles to rebuild their lives. By amplifying these unheard voices through the intimacy of first person narrative, this Voice of Witness book aims to increase awareness of Colombia’s human rights catastrophe and illuminate the human impact of the country’s ongoing war.