Meta: Resistance, strength and courage in the face of violence.

28.05.08

By Joanne Crouch
International Peace Observatory

The three days recently spent in the central Colombian department of Meta were emotionally intense and gave an insight into the horrors perpetrated by the Colombian government. A state is supposed to act on behalf of its citizens and to maintain order within society protecting human rights. Supposedly democratically elected, the Colombian state should represent its constituents. I doubt however that many of the people of Meta would believe they were being represented when they were forcibly displaced, tortured or killed.

Abandoned village of El Medellin de Alto Ariari

The intention of the accompaniment was to collect information on the recent history of the communities in the municipality (county) of El Castillo. This information, regarding the human rights abuses of the state, military and paramilitaries — who are essentially one — would serve to preserve the true history of the region.

The department of Meta is one whose realities are relatively unknown. Much of this is due to the fact that many of the social organizations and human rights groups that had been present and active in the region have been forced out as a consequence of the tremendous violence against them. The region has historically been a stronghold of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Most of the Switzerland-sized demilitarized zone that former president Andrés Pastrana created for peace negotiations from 1999-2002 was located in Meta.

While the Colombian Army cleared out of the demilitarized zone, the Centauros Bloc of the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC) had a continued presence in El Castillo. Collusion between these paramilitaries groups and the Vargas 21 Battalion of the Colombian army was well known among community members. The paramilitaries acted on behalf of the military, terrorizing the population. Since 2002, the start of the Uribe administration, hundreds of families have been forced from their homes in the 18 rural villages in the El Castillo municipality through paramilitary and military terror tactics. (While we were told a total of 350 families were displaced in this period, the Inter Press Serivce (LINK) reports the number as 700.) . Tactics have included threats, torture, death and disappearances — not only of members of human rights, trade union and social organizations, but of community members in general.

In 1985, peace agreements between the FARC and the government of Belisario Betancur resulted in the creation of the Unión Patriótica, a legal political party that would allow the FARC and the marginalized Colombian left to enter into the political arena for the first time. In Meta, the UP saw its greatest successes.

According to the Colombia Support Network:

In 1986, the UP won Senate and House of Representative positions as well as various local deputy and council positions. In the same year, the UP won 7 mayorships in Meta alone. The UP achieved 25 percent of the total Assembly votes, majority votes in seven municipalities and second place in five other voting populations.

Such unprecedented success and rapid expansion of opposition political power did not go unnoticed by the traditional political ruling classes. The violent assault against the UP and its support base was a combined effort of economic interests, landowners, narco traffickers and the anti Communist sectors of the armed forces. The “extermination,” took the lives of Senator Pedro Nel Jimenez, members of the House of Representatives, local deputies, city councilors, hundreds of activists and sympathizers, as well simple peasants who became military objectives simply by living in a zone politically influenced by the UP.

Despite the supposed demobilization of the AUC, paramilitaries are still known to be active in the region, having re-emerged as a group called the Aguilas Negras (or “Black Eagles.”)

From the start of the accompaniment I realized it would be three days of hearing about the atrocious crimes against humanity that the Colombian government had undertaken. The journey from Meta’s capital Villavicencio to Campo Alegre, our first stop, was two hours long. As I sat next to a member of SINTRAGRIM (Independent Agricultural Workers’ Union of Meta) who himself had been displaced and received direct threats from the paramilitaries, I was recounted numerous incidents of violence and death at points we passed along the way. Houses and farms that had been abandoned and destroyed, points in the road where paramilitary checkpoints had been present and people killed, paramilitary strongholds, the innumerable number of bodies that had been dumped tortured and mutilated into the river Ariari. We passed through what were once villages, communities with schools and shops which now sit as ghost towns, discarded and empty in ruins. The people having left suddenly all behind as a consequence of the terror the military and paramilitary had inflicted upon them.

I believed that this would be a depressing trip, one that would make me lose faith in humanity as a consequence of the horrific violence that had come to pass undertaken by humans against humans. I’ve never understood how anyone could have the capacity to participate in such cruel acts against a fellow human being. Yes, the following two days was filled with stories of a cruelty I can barely imagine and yes there were so many moments where to allow yourself to emotionally engage in the realities of so many loved ones being hurt would be too much to bear. But what I came away with was an understanding of unbreakable strength and courage, and an inspiration only borne, unfortunately, of the atrocities committed against these people.

Working in an organization that supports non-violent resistance by communities and social organizations here in Colombia, and having undertaken similar work in other countries, a question that people unfamiliar with the situation have often asked is, how do these people resist in a non-violent manner? The answer I find is that they live and continue their lives despite the oppression and risks against doing so. They do not submit to the intentions of the state, to leave their lives and become displaced. They do not yield to the violence, coercion and threats that try to force them to leave. No. They stay. And even those who have been displaced, many of them return to reclaim their land despite having no guarantees whatsoever from the government to safeguard their lives. These are the people who resist. To do this is far from an act of indifference; it is an act of courage. It is not the easy option especially when you have a family to look after.

I was privileged to meet some immense people here in Meta. Two of which stand out in particular, although this is not to do disservice to the numerous others I met. One was a man who had been a member of the Union Patriótica since its inception. He had survived three assassination attempts. His wife had left him due to his commitment to the cause, apparently he was paying too much attention to politics and not to her. It takes courage and is a task many would have walked away from. He has lost many friends and companions along the way — people who have died for their beliefs — and knows that he could be one of those that is martyred in the cause of social justice. But he continues. He refuses to be dissuaded and to walk away. He could. But he doesn’t.

The second person was a lady called Maria* currently living in Bogotá, having been displaced from El Castillo. She has returned on numerous occasions despite threats to her. She had lost her father, husband, all of her brothers and finally her only child, her son, to paramilitaries and the military determined to put down all of those who resist and all of those who try to challenge the status quo. She herself had been detained, imprisoned and emotionally tortured by the military, whose interrogators recounted tales to her of what they had done to her son when they killed him. In spite of losing the vast majority of her family, despite being a victim of state terrorism, she finds the strength to continue to work to find justice — not solely for herself, but for the communities from which she came and the many other victims she encounters in Bogotá.

As we stood in the rain by the side of her son’s grave in an unkempt village cemetery, it was hard not to be overwhelmed by suffering this woman had endured. But what affected me most was her resoluteness to continue and keep hope alive by seeking justice for those that had died at the hands of the state.

I personally cannot conceive of a greater pain than losing a member of my family and I have no idea how I would respond. I don’t know if I would succumb and walk away, react with violence and allow hate into my soul, or whether I would have the courage to struggle in the name of justice. I look at people like Maria and what I see is the embodiment of hope. To find the strength and courage to continue when everything else has been lost. The army and the state may have guns and helicopters, propaganda and lies. But the people have an emotional strength far greater than any act the government may undertake.

I believe it is in this inner strength and determination that peace will eventually triumph. It is these people who are the embodiment of hope and give inspiration to us, as internationals and people outside the conflict, to keep the struggle alive, to support it and to add to it what we can. It is in doing this that someday we might succeed in gaining a justice and peace deserved of the people of these communities and of Colombia as a whole.

*Name changed in the interest of security.

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