The Colombia Support Network is pleased to present an English translation, authorized by the author, of the analytical document of Father Javier Giraldo, S.J., on matters which must be taken into account if the Peace Talks between the Colombian Government and the FARC-EP guerrillas are to result in a lasting, just peace with a truly democratic political system.  The impediments indicated by Father Giraldo, as well as the remedies for removing these impediments, we believe provide an essential focus for debate and agreement upon the characteristics of the Colombian polity and Colombian society which are necessary to establish a truly democratic system upon which a lasting peace can be built. Those of us who live in the United States can readily see characteristics of our own society and political institutions for which the types of reform Father Giraldo suggests for Colombia could very usefully be implemented in this country. We welcome your response.

John I. Laun

President

Colombia Support Network

June 17, 2013

FOR THE EARS OF THOSE WHO ARE DISCUSSING PEACE TERMS

(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN Volunteer Translator, with editorial review by John Laun)

One of the most important points on the agenda agreed upon by the government and the FARC for their peace dialogue in Havana is the problem of PARTICIPATION.  That is being understood as the opening of possibilities for some former combatants to insert themselves into politics in Colombia in the traditional manner.  Nevertheless, the very sub-themes of the agenda provide room for understanding that theme much more broadly and for analyzing the real obstacles facing ordinary Colombian citizens who want to participate freely and conscientiously in decisions that concern them.  Here we will analyze FOUR WALLS that close off the possibilities for participation and we will suggest ways in which those engaged in the peace dialogues can tear those walls down.

Dr. Humberto de la Calle Lombana -National Government Delegates to the Peace Dialogues

Mr. Iván Márquez and FARC Delegates to the same Dialogues

With all due respect:

Now that study of the second point on the dialogue agenda that you are working on in Havana is near, which is the point referred to as political participation as a general theme, it contemplates as a sub-theme:

         “the rights and guarantees for the exercise of political opposition in general, and          in particular for the new movements that will arise after the signing of the Final          Agreement.  Access to communications media. Democratic mechanisms for citizen          participation, including those for direct participation at various levels and on  various subjects.  Effective methods for promoting greater participation in          national, regional, and local politics for all sectors, including the most vulnerable          population, under equal conditions and with guarantees of security”.

I would like to propose that you consider some analysis and some reflections that have concerned me for a long time and that specifically have to do with this aspect of our national problems.

In the first place, I would like to invite you to take a good look at what we understand by the word “Peace”.  The violence and conflict that affect Colombian society cannot be reduced just to the armed fighting, even though that is an expression, the most dramatic expression, of that conflict.  The violence and conflict have very deep roots in Colombia, economic as well as political, historical and social, and peace will never be achieved without affecting those roots. For that reason, the points on the agenda agreed upon for these negotiations, such as problems of land, political participation, guarantees of rights, the victims’ situation and the drug problem, affect all of us and you need to listen and promote the participation of every social sector of the country in the search for solutions.

More specifically, on the aspect of political participation, the negotiations should not focus on finding formulas to guarantee the inclusion of the former combatants or of new groups or political movements in the electoral processes, with the aim of lubricating traditional mechanisms of political activity once again.  This would only unleash, in the current circumstances, or indeed in new circumstances, genocides against the movements that are trying to create big changes.  Or it would result in new forms of co-optation and corruption, through the assimilation of political customs by a handful of new members of the political establishment, who, because they would be such a small minority, would have no effect at all.

Before thinking about and finding ways that the new sectors can be integrated into the structures that are called “democratic”, I beg you to consider with sincerity whether those current structures are really democratic.

Is the access of the general public to the information and communications media really democratic? Does a right to truth and information really exist? What kind of “truths” are fed to the vast majority of the Colombian population?  What kind of reading material about his/her own real life is furnished to the ordinary citizen?  Can the suffering people really communicate with the rest of the suffering people?

Who can really participate in elections in Colombia?  Isn’t it true that a person who decides to be a candidate for public office needs to have many billions of pesos?  Who provides that money?  What is the role of the parties?  Does this not reveal an inescapable economic filter by which the most concentrated economic powers co-opt, condition, select and subjugate anyone who will hold public office?

How does the electoral apparatus work?  Isn’t it a known and well-publicized fact that this system is entirely controlled by the drug traffic fused with paramilitarism?  Did not the deeply rooted “parapolitics”, to the degree it was briefly scrutinized by our high courts, reveal the absolutely shameless dominion and control of the electoral system by the narco-paramilitaries?  Did not the very judges who entered into those moral pigpens feel impotent and afraid to continue exploring and thus give up?  Does not the country frequently receive leaked news of members of Congress and politicians supposedly arrested but who maintain intact the powers of the office to which they were elected through renewed structures?  Does not the functioning of the electoral apparatus have all the characteristics of a “mafia” structure?

Isn’t it evident that paramilitarism persists in the length and the breadth of this country? Will it be possible to hide any longer the origin and characteristics of paramilitarism, such as it was designed by a United States military mission in February 1962, commanded by Colonel William Pelham Yarborough, in the nature of a strategy of the State to involve civilians as clandestine branches (brazos) of the armed forces, intended to combat ways of thinking contrary to the imperial ideology, at a moment in which there was not any armed opposition in Colombia?  Is it possible to ignore all of the official and clandestine manuals that promoted paramilitarism during these five decades and the semi-public strategies that promoted paramilitarism, such as the “Convivir” (supposed self-defense groups, literally “live together in harmony”) and the “Networks of Informants and Cooperators”, etc.?  Is it possible to ignore much longer the frequent and multifaceted cooperation between the armed forces and the paramilitary structures, whether these are called “Bacrim” (“bandas criminals”, criminal gangs) or take various other names? Does it not constitute an affected ignorance when the character of paramilitarism is not perceived in its most varied versions, as an arm (brazo) that annihilates or tears apart the political opposition and those sectors critical of the dominant power?

All of that can only converge in an image that reveals to us the FOUR WALLS, which today are impassable, and which not only block political participation for some former combatants, but which also effectively prevent the most elementary political participation for the Colombian population in general, except for a narrow fringe of citizens who utilize for their benefit the discriminatory structures, or who arrange to open little breaches in these walls. Among these are the breach opened by some users of the internet (a small group of a certain economic and cultural level who above all live in cities) or those who open alternative movements that with great effort obtain small economic resources to promote a candidate who will have no power of any kind to confront the oceans of corruption and clientelism that condition, dominate and control everything.

It means nothing, then, to engage in a dialogue about conditions for political participation in a structure that is not participatory, but exclusionary, discriminatory, monopolized by corruption and submerged in the dynamics of co-optation by bribery or threats, and that does not reveal possible or effective means of correction.

Because of that I propose that, before diving into a dialogue about the possibilities for political participation for former combatants, your delegations should take on the problem of the FOUR WALLS.

Does it not constitute an unpardonable fiction to offer to those who have exercised armed opposition to the system, their participation in a non-participative system as a means of exiting their status as rebels?  Are not the common people of Colombia, almost all of them, the ones who need to find ways of participation, at least to open big holes in the four walls?

To my way of thinking, the four walls have an intended order:

*  First, the CULTURAL-MEDIA WALL, which is responsible for conditioning the most intimate levels of the people (their conscience) to convert them into adapted and submissive users of the governing political system.  This wall projects all of  its shadow upon the conscience of the people and molds them, on unconscious levels, into true robots, making them assimilate false values, a biased and manipulated reading of reality, induced hobbies and fashions, hatreds and fanaticisms, political preferences and even professional options and ethics, adjusted by means of subliminal techniques to the interests of the dominant elites.

* The ECONOMIC WALL is the second filter that blocks the conscientious and free participation of that already robotized population.  The media echoes have already conditioned their conscience to accept that everything in the society ought to be susceptible to being bought and sold by order of nature itself, and that for what one most wants or needs one has to pay higher prices. Upon this base of psychic and media-induced adjustment to universalized mercantilization, one accepts, as something natural, to compete economically for power, silencing in the back rooms of the unconscious the colossal inequality of the competitors.  Thus, the “democratic” dogma of competition accepts the inescapable factual conclusion that the poor can never have power nor political influence, even though they constitute the immense majority of the nation.

* But next comes the POLITICAL WALL, which is to say the electoral apparatus or machinery, as a third filter.  It enthrones the mafia powers in real control of clientelism, making use at the same time of  the enormous power to cover things up and disinform of the Media Wall and of the intimidating power of weapons linked to money (narco-paramilitarism) with the capacity to control even the anemic and corrupt justice apparatus. Tied to this wall, the parties converted themselves into administrative units for the buying of votes and for paying them with official posts, abandoning all ideological identity.

* Finally, the PARAMILITARY WALL closes the circle of obstruction of political participation.  If there are groups that manage to pass through the three prior walls and still maintain the impulse for reform, or continue by some accident – as happened in the case of the U.P. (Union Patriotica) —the rule of terror, via genocide or some other form of extermination, will soon become aware of that persistence. The unpresentability of this wall has repeatedly led to disguising it and hiding it with the tattered rags of common crime which have never been able to hide the de-legitimizing shame of the State.

Changing this situation will not be easy.  I am profoundly worried about the news that reaches us concerning pressure to sign a peace agreement quickly and that it be submitted to schedules that actually obey the ritual of consolidation of corrupt practices of fictitious participation, which are what the election processes are.

I am aware that an authentic peace has to contemplate radical transformations of many of our institutions, joined in one way or another to structural injustice and to the generation of multiple incidents of violence such as, for example:

*The forms of election of members of Congress; the lack of methods for control by the voters; the criteria for their remuneration; the role of the parties; their corrupt practices in the creation of laws and constitutional reforms; the deeply rooted clientelistic system; their lack of independence of other powers; their corrupt practices which are so deeply rooted and so consolidated that they have led to a very high percentage of members of the National Congress in prison.

* Such deep corruption of judicial power; the lack of mechanisms for control of  the quality of their decisions; the venality of the justice system; its proverbial   inefficiency and impunity; the systematic manipulation of procedural rules to  absolve the guilty and condemn the innocent; the consolidation of a justice  system based only on testimony as well as on the sale and the maximum   degradation of testimony.

* The historic adulteration of the function of the armed forces and their ideological conversion to the service of foreign and elitist interests; criminal and antidemocratic doctrines taking root in their tradition; generation in their bosom of paramilitarism committing such horrendous and massive crimes; their  genocidal and inhuman practices protected by anti-juridical privileges.

* The legalized empire of the market economy, focused on excessive profits, subjects the citizens’ basic necessities to maximum profitability, thus generating scandalous inequality, poverty, and misery, which are absolutely to be repudiated. The privilege that the largest transnational companies enjoy, their uncontrolled destruction of the environment and their perverse plunder of nonrenewable natural resources.

It is certainly impossible for such extraordinary problems to be analyzed and corrected within such tight time lines as in the current discussions in Havana, where the great absence is the Colombian nation with its diverse races, creeds, ethnicities, ideologies, professions and social and economic stratification—where only a single digit percentage have access to truthful information and to mechanisms of communication that are not manipulated by their fellow citizens.

The current peace conversations certainly have inescapable limitations keeping them from being able to face and affect the factors which are the greatest generators and motivating factors for the armed-social conflict that we are experiencing.

Nevertheless, I am convinced that a process like this one can at least OPEN DOORS for a more long-run solution to these factors.  To my way of thinking, the subjects that are on the agreed-upon agenda touch upon vital points.  Among those is the fundamental theme of PARTICIPATION.  If an agreement could be reached that could open definitive breaches in the FOUR WALLS that obstruct participation, these dialogues would contribute to setting in motion a process which could lead to building a country that can start down the road to peace.

My proposal is aimed at designing, as the priority of priorities, a new legal framework for information and communication, to be placed in service together with three other key measures that affect the other three walls that obstruct participation.  It would set a basic period for those democratic bases to be evaluated, so that a second phase in the peace process could be undertaken, one that would have a broad range of participation by the Colombian nation.

Tearing down the MEDIA-CULTURE WALL must constitute the priority of priorities to open up paths to PARTICIPATION.  In effect, the basic and elemental condition of all participation necessary is access to the truth, to information that is not manipulated, and to free communication that is not gagged.

When one examines the current system of massive “information” that we have, one has to conclude that here we are not even close to having a right to the truth or to having a right to information.  Information is not governed by any criterion of public service, but rather by the inexorable laws of the market.  All of the mass “information” media are the private property of large economic conglomerates, some of which are transnational businesses and use transnational capital.  Their governing principle is apparently the principle of profit and maximum gain.  That is to say the “truth” is merchandise, which introduces the most radical contradiction within itself.  A “TRUTH PRODUCT” can never be considered true and nevertheless that is the only “truth” that we have for mass consumption.

In our universities and communications faculties the criteria of “information marketing” or “techniques of publicity” govern.  These disciplines have been converted into the refined science of lies and deception, of manipulation of the conscience and what the most opprobrious tyrannies have called “brainwashing”.  Those merchandizing techniques have discovered massive and effective mechanisms to neutralize all ethical resistance to deceit by blending completely with psychological studies.  They unscrupulously take advantage of every weakness of the human psyche.  The media imposition of the competitive ideology has found a channel in soccer (futbol) and other sports for permanent consolidation and that explains the very high percentage of time occupied by this sport in the daily programming of the mass media.  Media information is selective, calculated and takes sides. Among their technical methods, they include hiding their interests, like the surveys and opinion programs, whose malice is only perceived by a small fringe of people possessing a critical conscience.  This media ideology stigmatizes and promotes, most of the time by messages that operate at unconscious levels or with subliminal messages, in accord with the economic, political and ideological interests of the powers they represent, which are without a doubt the most powerful in the nation.  They create “angels” and “devils” to fit their interests and through their spokesmen they say they represent the whole country.

The mass media openly or subtly use defamation to neutralize positions that are uncomfortable for the powers that they actually represent.  They have deeply enthroned an ethic in which the line between good and bad is defined by submission to or rejection of the structural axes of the governing system and its representatives.  This implicit “ethic” requires a means to identify necessarily every critical or alternative opinion, especially when it attempts serious declarations, with the armed opposition, utilizing the only method they have to place those whom they consider an obstacle to their interests at the margins of what is legal.

It cannot be alleged that the slander is legally repressed; it is only in theory.  The undersigned has been dragging along for many years with the destruction of his reputation by mass media like El Tiempo, RCN, Caracol, El Siglo, several radio chains and other mass media, without his civil rights actions (Tutelas) having been able to achieve any rectification.  At the same time I have seen the good name of a whole town destroyed, as has happened to the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, through enormously perverse media strategies promoted by El Colombiano, El Mundo and several radio chains, without their directors admitting—to say nothing of correcting or rectifying—the perversity of their cunning tricks, in spite of the fact that we showed them the criminal and fatal consequences of what they did.

All of this immorality is shielded by the phony principle of “freedom of the press” or “freedom of expression”.  But, could we possibly call freedom of the press the freedom to publish whatever you want—including lies and libels of great proportions, reaching throughout the system with lethal effect—by those who have enormous quantities of money, when even the one who is libeled has no money and has to pledge several weeks of very low earnings to be able to publish a defense of his opinion?  The inconsistency and the absurdity of this result are self-evident.

It is, therefore, necessary and urgent to change the legal framework of information and communication.  It is necessary to begin to construct, from much farther back to point zero, the right to the truth and the right to information.  In effect we have to confront the reactions of power of those who have utilized for their benefit, almost for centuries, the right to deception, to lying, to media manipulation and to brainwashing.

A first element of that new legal framework is to remove the massive and arbitrary control of information by the media companies and their decision-makers.  To define the concept of “mass information”, I suggest gathering a group of experts who could suggest the levels of publishing and ratings, in each case, that begin to constitute mass information.  If indeed there are newspapers in print that border or surpass a million copies for national distribution, there will be others with greater regional distribution that fluctuate between one hundred and two hundred thousand, but which have a powerful regional influence.  For radio and television, we have to look at the schedules and audience ratings.  Those that are classified as “mass information” ought to devote at least 70% of their content to give expression to the social sectors of the country, through mechanisms of election and permanent democratic control.  A broad popularly-elected council should guarantee the right to information coming from the most unprotected sectors, as well as their opinions.  It should formulate rules that would allow equal expression for all sectors and social organizations.

A legal transformation of those proportions is not going to guarantee the right to the truth and to information from one day to the next, but that transformation would progressively open the way, certainly in the midst of a lot of conflicting accommodations, to the truths that have been muzzled and repressed for centuries.  Slowly, the right to truthful information would emerge.

It is necessary to acclimatize this fundamental basis of participation during prudential periods. In effect, taking part in political processes in the midst of oceans of fraud, with truth being muzzled and manipulated, makes no sense and just constitutes one more deception.

To complete the bases for participation that is authentic and not fictitious, it is necessary to conceive of other urgent measures to neutralize the other three walls:

* Elections require enormous amounts of money in order to take part, because of the well-known cost of billboards, quantities of publicity and other propaganda techniques, as well as the massive and inveterate vote-buying and buying of juries.  It is more than evident that this excludes poor people from the power of decision or participation, not to speak of the moral rottenness of these mechanisms.  A drastic election law ought to remove elections from the exclusive participation of those who have a lot of money and should take measures to make illegal that which requires money and consecrates obvious inequalities in candidacies.

* Even though the previous measure might limit somewhat the mafioso control of the electoral apparatus, it is not sufficient.  Narcoparamilitarism has demonstrated enormous shrewdness and power to infiltrate and neutralize all of the controls that that have been undertaken, and in this their networks of relationships with the majority of government institutions have been a big help to them. It is necessary to make use of all of the methods and techniques used in democratic countries which permit the preservation of the vote from manipulation.  Before that, we will have to purify fundamentally the institutions that take part in the electoral process.

* With respect to paramilitarism, the last wall that, through barbarism, eliminates parties and movements that show critical levels, it is evident that the nuclear factor in its great power is the multifaceted collaboration, by action or by omission, provided to paramilitaries by the armed forces.  Because of that, it is in the hands of the President of the Republic, as Commander in Chief of the armed forces and guarantor of our rights, with sufficient constitutional authority to remove officers who interfere with obedience to the Constitution, to discharge without recourse the commanders of units in whose jurisdictions paramilitary structures operate. This measure would replace the evident complacency and support that paramilitarism has enjoyed until now and which otherwise would certainly continue.  It is absolutely evident that the factor that keeps paramilitarism alive and functioning is the official support, by action and omission.  Once this is broken, paramilitarism will disappear, and that depends on the political will of the Chief of State.

On leaving these concerns in your hands, I wish to insist that you not ignore the exclusionary reality of these FOUR WALLS, and that the eventual agreements on political participation not be converted into one more fiction which leaves intact these exclusionary structures that have dominated us.

Sincerely,

Javier Giraldo Moreno, S.J.

May 19, 2013

(This translation may be reprinted as long as its content remains unaltered and the source, author and translator are cited.)

A Message from the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó

May 29, 2013

(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN volunteer translator)

The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, was gathered together today by the national government to carry out an order by the Constitutional Court in Order # 164 of 2012.  We consider ourselves obligated to make manifest the following to the country and to the world:

On numerous occasions since it was formed in March of 1997, the Community has been the victim of many wrongful accusations of criminal acts, accusations made by high officials of the government.  In particular, the addresses by the President of the Republic on May 27, 2004 and on March 20, 2005, supported by lying witnesses and frame-ups prepared by members of the armed forces and of the judicial system, have had fatal consequences during these nine years.  Every time that his statements have been reproduced in the different national and international mass media, they have served as an alleged justification for the armed forces and the judicial system to perpetrate hundreds of crimes against the Community and against the farming people who live in the surrounding area.

The complaints that the Community has filed for many years with the House of Representatives Prosecutions Committee and with international tribunals to ask for justice have achieved nothing.  Finally the Constitutional Court, following up on its Decision T-1025 in 2007, set a hearing in March 2012 and admitted the justice of the Community’s complaints regarding conditions for re-establishing some conversations with the government. Those conversations had broken down completely after the horrendous massacre on February 21, 2005, where several Community leaders and their families, including children a few months in age, were cut in pieces.

The first order of the Constitutional Court in its Order #164/12 requires “the retraction of the accusations made against the Peace Community and its supporters and the definition of a procedure to avoid future statements against it”.  In the same article of the Order, it “orders the Ministry of the Interior to coordinate and undertake a procedure for the presentation of the retraction.”

Ever since our first contact with the Ministry of the Interior the Community has insisted with absolute clarity and emphasis that we would only consider it to be a retraction in proportion to the false statements if it were an explicit statement by the President of the Republic, since it was the President who had committed the serious crime of slander that had caused so many hundreds of fatal consequences, crimes against humanity, in a series lasting nine years.

The Ministry of the Interior informed the Peace Community in April that President Santos had agreed to present the retraction and the date was set for some time in April.  This was later postponed because of problems with the President’s schedule.  Finally the date was set for today, May 29 and the Community designated 32 of its members to go to Bogotá to take part in the ceremony.

When the entire delegation had already arrived in Bogotá, and just a few hours before the commencement of the ceremony, the Community was informed that the President would not attend.  His absence is one more affront to the community.  We are unaware of the reasons for the absence of the chief executive.  All through last night and in the early hours of this morning, the Community undertook a consultation with the different settlements of our members about what we ought to do.  Finally we reached the conclusion that we consider that an action taken by someone other than the Chief of State is not in accord with the demands of justice, nor with the Court’s order.

The Community recognizes the good intentions of the Honorable Fernando Carrillo, the Minister of the Interior and of his working team in the Human Rights Unit of the Ministry.  They had prepared the logistics for the ceremony.  We are also grateful for the presence of all of the guests who attended the event; they are witnesses to this new affront to our system.  But we can only consider it one more aggressive act by the head of the government, who changed his schedule when our entire delegation was already in Bogotá, changing the character of a retraction that was aimed at making amends for the affronts perpetrated by the Chief of State and correcting conduct that had induced a protracted series of horrendous crimes.
Once more the Peace Community deplores the contempt for the Constitutional Court on the part of the Executive.  We assert that the affronts and the outrages originated by the government continue to cry out for justice and for reparation that is in proportion to their seriousness and magnitude.
The Constitutional Court, in its Decision T-1191 of 2004 made it clear that the public statements of a President can never be supported by data that is untruthful and can never ignore the first duty of a President to protect the lives, honor, property, faith and liberty of the citizens. While doing that, the President must take criminal, disciplinary, political and international responsibility for his crimes.  Because of that, the crimes against the Peace Community of slander and wrongful accusation of crimes continue in impunity and continue to call out for justice.

Peace Community of San José de Apartadó

May 29, 2013

( This translation may be reprinted as long as its content remains unaltered and the source, author and translator are cited.) 

Read all about our exciting 25 year anniversary and more in this issue of our CSN newsletter!

Click here for the CSN April 2013 Newsletter

Newsletter Contents:

• Observations on the Visit of Jesús Emilio Tuberquia
• Celebrating CSN’S 25th Anniversary
• Freeze for Food
• In support of Carol Chomsky Mountain
• Fair Trade more important than Free Trade

Dear Cecilia:

We apologize to you and all the CSN  team which supports our Community for the delay in sending this letter to thank you. We are very grateful for all the political work and accompaniment of our process. We also feel grateful for all your accompaniment of Jesus Emilio in the recent tour he made in the United States. We believe that these gestures are very significant for the Community, for all the work which could be done in the United States, and which still continues to have a great impact upon our lives in our day-to-day activities.

A short while ago we completed 16 years of the Community’s existence. This great achievement would not have been possible without the accompaniment of persons and organizations like yours.

We believe this network of accompaniment which has been put together in solidarity with the Community permits us to keep following the way of civil non-violent resistance in the midst of the armed confrontation which Colombia is experiencing.

These spaces permit us to perceive that reality which is unknown and which we have to live daily in the midst of so many injustices.

Your work in bringing our situation before the national government is very important for us, because it shows all the solidarity and support of such valuable organizations which have chosen to support us, with satisfaction and great appreciation.

But more than this, it is this affection which unites us as brothers, more than as friends.

We hope to have you among us very soon.

With great affection and appreciation,

Cordially,

Internal Council

Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado

http://www.cdpsanjose.org

(Translated by Eunice Gibson, CSN volunteer translator)

Source : Kairos Colombia via email

Date : April 9, 2013

This prayer was read at the multitudinous March for Peace on April 9, 2013, before an estimated 1.1 million people gathered in and around the Plaza de Bolivar in downtown Bogota. The Prayer was a second Prayer for Peace; the first was pronounced by Jorge Eliecer Gaitan on February 7, 1948 before a silent gathering of some 100,000 people, a quarter of the city’s population at that time, in downtown Bogota. Gaitan, the leader of the Liberal Party, called for peace and an end to the inter – party violence which had broken out after the election of Conservative Mariano Ospina Perez in 1946. Gaitan, a great orator who spoke out for the common man and for justice, was assassinated on April 9, 1948 in downtown Bogota. The March for Peace was held on the 65^th anniversary of Gaitan’s murder in homage to him. The present-day conflict in Colombia is in a sense a continuation of the violence which erupted upon the assassination of Gaitan, known as the “Bogotazo”.

Sixty-five years ago today a cry for peace in Colombia arose from this lectern.

Sixty-five years is a human lifetime.  That means we have waited our whole lives for peace.  And peace has not come.  We don’t know what it looks like.

A people who can wait 65, 70, 100 years for peace is a very patient people.  One hundred years of solitude.  It is a people that works, that trusts in God, that dreams of a dignified and happy future, because, in spite of what the useless opinion polls say, we are not living in a dignified present or in a happy present.

They don’t provide us with any reality here.  They provide us with statistics.  The people are hungry, but statistics show that food is abundant.  The people suffer from more violence, but statistics show that everything is getting better.  The people are wretched, but statistics show that they are happy.

Now we understand that a people cannot just sit and wait for a peace that is not coming.  That in order for peace to flower, people have to plant it.  That peace is much more than a word.

The real name of peace is the dignity of the citizens, trust among the citizens, and  kindness among the citizens.  And where there is so much inequality, so much discrimination, and so much contempt for the people, there cannot be peace.  Where there are no jobs, it will be hard to have peace.  Where there is no real, respectful and liberal education, it will be hard to find peace. Where health care is a business, how can there be peace?  Where forests are chopped down shamelessly, there can be no peace, because the trees, which give everything and ask for almost nothing, who give us air and water, are the most peaceful beings in existence.

Where the indigenous people are silenced, where their culture is erased, where their history and their nobility are denied, how can there be peace?

Where the grandchildren of the slaves are still in invisible chains, and are still not seen as a sacred component of our country, how can we call it peace?

Peace seems like a word, but in reality, it is a world.  A world of respect, of generosity, of opportunity for everyone.

And we have to understand that selfishness is the first thing that destroys peace.  Selfishness is what seizes land belonging to everybody for the benefit of a few.  It is what uses laws applying to everybody so a few can get rich, and is what seizes everybody’s future to provide fortunes for a few.  That is what leads to violent rebellions and leads to transgressions and crimes.

We have been learning what peace is . . . by adding up what we are missing.

Peace is potable water in every town and pure water flowing in all of our springs.  There can be no peace when waters are poisoned, when forests are chopped down, and when the children are sickened by the water they drink.

Peace is a decent job for every pair of arms that want to work and for all those who have only been offered blood, violence, and crime for their salary.

Peace is beautiful towns and harmonious cities that appear to be part of the natural world.

Because the mountains, the rivers, the plains, the jungles and the oceans of Colombia are wonders of the world and we have not learned to live in them with respect, prudently making use of them and sharing them generously.

Because for a lot of big landowners, their idea of generosity has just one name:  barbed wire.  They have that medieval idea of owning a huge amount of land while the majority of people are stacked in miserable slums.

But peace doesn’t just demand a public that is respected and great and dignified. It also demands true leadership.  And true leadership does not struggle twenty years for approval of a free trade agreement, and then when the agreement is approved they are surprised that their country lacks highways and lacks ports, with impoverished agriculture, with industry in crisis, relying only on selling the metals and minerals in its denuded soil so that the huge multinationals can exploit them however they like.  Not only is generosity lacking, but also intelligence.  Pride and greatness are absent.

In any country in the world, when a free trade agreement is negotiated, the first priority is  what their own nationals consume and what they need. Why does it have to be a priority to put gold on the tables of others before putting food on our own tables?  Today the world has rushed into an obscene carnival of consumption.  But those countries that worship consumption, like the United States and Europe have at least had the prudence to first make sure that their people have clean water, decent housing, reliabale and free education, health care for all, jobs with decent salaries, an economy that makes an effort to offer quality jobs and doesn’t, as they do here, call it a job when people dig desperately through trash or beg or traffic in violence.

If we at least would be able to offer the citizens their basic needs for a decent life, it would not be so absurd for us to preach the crazy gospel of consumption, but even then we would have to think responsibly about our planet, because that indiscriminate consumption becomes a threat.  We have fragile climates because we have rich and precious ecosystems that produce water and oxygen for the whole world.  Colombia is a country with beautiful land and a benevolent climate.  This is not Europe or the United States, where the climate demands millions of things; here we can live a simple life with marvelous landscapes; here we don’t have to take refuge in strident and unhealthy cities; the country truly is The Big Beautiful House.  What is interfering with this good fortune?  Violence and inequality.  The greed that hovers over everything.  Nature is not just a cupboard full of resources; it is the temple of all life.  But a misreading of the country and a niggardly way of administering it have converted this temple of life into a house of death.

Sixty-five years ago Gaitán cried out here for peace.  His enemies not only murdered him, but they also led the country into war, into violence that killed 300,000 people. The whole country entered into an orgy of blood.  We lost our sense of humanity and we almost became accustomed to horror.  We stopped shuddering at death.  The taboo of murder was lost.  Colombia became tolerant of crime, and in the last half century, it is possible that another half million people were killed because we had no peace or solidarity.

And every day that we fail to sign a peace agreement between the government and the guerrillas, there are more dead from every side, and more victims are added to the list.  Because it is not just the conflict in the countryside.  In the shadow of that conflict, there are wars of survival in the cities, the violence of the mafias, the crime, the family violence, the helplessness, the ignorance.

But the only thing that will stop the hand that is ready to kill is a feeling that what you are doing to a victim, you are doing to yourself.  The only thing that stops that hand is compassion, and to feel compassion, you have to feel that the other person is your brother, a living miracle, ephemeral, precious, irreplaceable.  If we cannot feel that, we cannot feel anything.  Without that deep respect for another person, we can never feel real love for ourselves.  But in order to have that deep affection for our fellow citizens, we have to be taught generosity, in generous institutions.  We have to be loved.  One who is not valued, respected and appreciated in childhood, how can we ask him to love others or to value and respect them?

Because of that, a society is so blind when it gives the people nothing, yet asks them to give everything in exchange for that.  When it provides adversity, obstacles, and discrimination, but asks the citizens to behave as if they had been educated by Socrates or Saint Francis of Assisi. The government has become irresponsible.  The citizens have lost respect for the government and the government has lost respect for the citizens.  There is no country where there are so many bureaucratic formalities for any thing at all.  And the one who is at a disadvantage is the one who has no money for bribes, to hasten the formalities, and to run from office to office.  Frequently the government does not help to make your life easier, but rather it is a hindrance to the most basic efforts.

The prisons are full of people who never received anything, who were brought up with harsh treatment and insecurity.  Society demanded of them that which it had never given.

Because in this country we demand respect only from those who have never been respected.

We have to cry out that our people are not bad people, but rather a mistreated people. And yet we are going to ask this mistreated and admirable people, although we have no right to do it, we are going to ask them to give us an example of their better nature; we are going to ask them, in exchange for a hopeful agreement with the guerrillas, to show that they are capable of forgiveness.

There is no ceremony more difficult or more necessary than the ceremony of forgiveness.  But it is the people who have to forgive, not the stingy executives and not the violent guerrillas who took up arms against them.  And of course we all have to take part, humbly and fraternally, in the ceremony of forgiveness if, by doing that, we can open the doors to a country that is different, more generous, that will lay down its fratricidal weapons, abandon its hatreds, and build a future that will be dignified for everyone, most of all for a future that is dignified for those whose needs have always been passed over.

For sixty-five years we have called for peace, begged for peace, and have waited for peace.  Today we can no longer request it or beg for it or wait for it.  If an agreement between the government and the guerrillas is achieved, we will have to build peace for everyone, peace with just laws, peace with a democracy that doesn’t play tricks, peace that is a real feeling in our hearts, peace with true generosity.  And the only condition necessary to build that peace is that protests not be killed off, that peaceful resistance not be annihilated, where ideas can flourish, a peace that allows this great and patient country to be the master of itself and of its future.

The peace that we will build will be a comfort for those thousands of dead who left this earth without love, sometimes without mourners, sometimes without even a name on their graves.

Then we will know that peace is not just a word, but that peace means living together with respect; it means general prosperity, true justice, fields that are cultivated, profitable businesses, forests and jungles protected, rivers that we have to clean up and springs that we will purify.

Once again there will be deer in the savannah and wholesome fish in the river.  We will save the greatest number of bird species, Mauricio Babilonia’s butterflies* will be flying and Aurelio Arturo’s horses** will make the earth shake as he wears his bronze helmet.  Men and women will go fishing at night in Guillermo Cubillos’ pirogue***, and the traveler we meet in the moonlit fields will not produce fear, but joy instead.

May there be indigenous songs on the Colombian savannahs, and African lullabies on the riverbanks.  May the weapons rust or be melted down and may ports and highways be built, and may ships and trains travel to Mexico and Buenos Aires.  May our young people have friends all over the continent and may one industry become unnecessary and require aid to change its production:  the industry that manufactures locks and bolts and padlocks and iron bars, because all people will have what they need and can trust each other.

Because peace is based on trust and on openness, instead of the disputes that require a thousand iron bars and a thousand traps and a thousand laws.  Right here, all around us, we have the arms that are going to build that peace, the feet that are going to walk in peace, the brains that are going to think it through, and the lips of the people who are going to sing in without rest.

So that those who today are the enemies of peace will be thrilled to see its face.

May peace come now, and may we all deserve it.

• Mauricio Babilonia a character in the novel
  • “One Hundred Years of Solitude”
• **  Refers to a famous Colombian poem

*** A popular song referring to the lonely rower of small canoes in Colombian Rivers

This translation may be reprinted as long as its content remains unaltered and the source author and translator are cited.

Mr. Michael Mathes

Editor, Tri-County News

Delta Publications

606 Fremont Street

Kiel, WI 53042

Dear Mike:

I write in response to your editorial in the February 28, 2013 Tri-County News. You wrote in favor of the legislation which the Wisconsin legislature has now passed reducing the requirements for operating a large-scale mining project in this state. Among the changes in the law is the elimination of a pre-permit contested case hearing for propose mining projects. The latter allowed local residents to bring forward evidence in a formal setting to show why a particular project should not be permitted, on the basis of environmental or other concerns.

The reasons why the Gogebic taconite mine proposed for northern Wisconsin should not be permitted are very substantial. The proposed excavation of a 4.5-mile long gash in the northern Wisconsin hills will cause damage to the habitat of animals and birds. And operation of the mine would cause virtually irremediable damage to water sources in the vicinity. Leaders of the Bad River Chippewa tribe have called attention to the fact that sulfide minerals in the waste rock would threaten their sacred wild rice beds on the nearby Bad River Reservation. Chemicals used in the mining process would likely pollute nearby water sources. And the huge quantity of water required in the mining process would almost certainly lower the water table in the vicinity of the mine to the extent that nearby farmers would not have adequate water for their crops or homes. Meanwhile, the big trucks laden with rock and the heavy machinery working in the mine would fill the air with particulate and smoke, polluting the air.

I have seen how an open-pit mine such as the planned Gogebic mine affects the environment and damages the living conditions for residents of the area. Open-pit mining by multinational corporations—somewhat like Gogebic, a  company owned by a Florida multimillionaire, Chris Cline—has been supported by the government in the South American country of Colombia. The results have been disastrous for communities in the vicinity of these mines. Several years ago Exxon/Mobil developed an open-pit coal mine next to the homelands of the Wayuu indigenous community. Like Gogebic, the company promised jobs for many people. In fact, after the initial construction phase, very few jobs were created. The company turned to experienced drivers and mechanics from other areas to manage their expensive fleet of large trucks and earth movers. The mining process has become increasingly automated, and ever fewer miners are being hired for these mining jobs. Nor is there great promise from this mine of many new jobs in the Milwaukee area or elsewhere in this state—you suggested thousands of new jobs in your editorial—since this equipment can be produced abroad at lower cost, given the much lower wages in other countries, such as China. Indeed, Caterpillar, which owns the mining equipment company Bucyrus of Milwaukee, has invested heavily in China, with the idea of setting up production plants there.

What the Colombian people experienced from their open-pit coal mine was air and water pollution, destruction of the landscape, and very few new permanent jobs. We should not sacrifice our beautiful forests and streams, in the process undermining our tourist industry, for a chimerical, unrealistic mining project.

Sincerely,

Jack Laun

Published : Thursday, March 21, 2013

(Translated by Jack Laun, a CSN volunteer translator)

The following is a translation of the message by Taita Aureliano Garreta Chindoy, Vive President of OZIP, who is a leader of the Inga indigenous community in the Sibundoy Valley in Putumayo Department, in response to the closing of its proceedings by the MICI of the Inter-American Development Bank (IADB).

Thank you, Dr. Lavadenz for sharing the information about the determinations which have been taken unilaterally by the IADB and INVIAS (the Colombian Government’s road construction agency: translator) in their rush to consolidate the IIRSA (Initiative for the Integration of the Regional Infrastructure of the South, a development plan to link South American economies through new transportation, energy and telecommunications projects: translator), by means of the construction of the piece of road running from San Francisco to Mocoa (variante San Francisco-Mocoa). This road is gong to affect the ethnic, socio-cultural, environmental and economic integrity of the INGA and KAMENTSA peoples of the Putumayo and the Colombian Amazon. This is a legacy which we will continue to defend for the preservation and the defense of the Amazon region as the World’s Natural Reserve of Humanity, the largest and most important environmental reserve, in accord with our views as indigenous peoples, and for the rest of the inhabitants of the world.

The above information (the decision to proceed with construction of the road: translator), corroborates the concern which high officials of the Government (in the Ministries of Interior, Mines and Energy, Environment, and Transportation) have shown. They have concluded that we indigenous peoples are an obstacle to development and therefore they seek desperately to make regulations concerning Prior Consultation (the Constitutional and legal requirement that the government conduct consultations with indigenous peoples before it undertakes projects which will affect indigenous lands and communities: translator) to facilitate the advance of the initiatives set forth in legislative measures, such as the development of mining and energy mega-projects and roadways through indigenous lands, among others.

From the foothills of the mountains of the Andean Amazon region, territory of our ancestors, which had a high cost  to them confronting the Spanish Crown, to leave the cultural inheritance and the territory of our Chief Carlos Tamiaboy, today more than ever we show our resistance and roundly reject the undermining of our rights. Very soon we will be sharing an invitation to the Congress of the Indigenous Peoples of the Putumayo, where the MANDATE for the PRESERVATION, the DIGNITY and the DEFENSE OF THE FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS OF THE INDIGENOUS PEOPLES OF THE PUTIMAYO AND THE COLOMBIAN AMAZON REGION will be established.

Fraternally,

Aureliano Garreta Chindoy

Vice President, OZIP

Traditional Authority of the Inga Condagua Reservation (Resguardo)

CONGRESS FOR PEACE – convened by CONGRESO DE LOS PUEBLOS

Proposals from the nation for building peace INTRODUCTION.

Colombia lives in a social, political and armed conflict that is over 50 years old. This conflict has historical roots in inequality, repression and hunger. These causes of the conflict still exist. It is also clear that the human and economic costs of half a century of war are very high for the country and for its people: displacement, sexual violence, daily violence and sadness. Peace has been one of the most urgent aspirations of diverse social sectors in Colombia, and today once more the necessity of a politically negotiated solution – but with the participation of wider society – appears at the centre of national debate.

Eight years of government by Uribe, when the politics of ‘democratic security’ and war were strengthened, demonstrated that a military exit from this conflict is not possible. The failure of the military and the ‘democratic security’ route is evident. Peace is not just the silencing of the guns, it is the opening up of a full exercise of rights for all Colombians. To achieve peace is synonymous with justice, equality, inclusion, employment, housing, health, education and in the formulation and construction of a new political and economic model that includes the entire nation.

We find ourselves before a new stage of dialogue between the FARC and the government and in the expectation that a dialogue with the ELN will also be opened. The agendas and dynamics of these negotiation tables have certain limits given by their contexts. However in the wider society and its social organisations and democratic grassroots movements, we have decades of experience in building and working on these themes, facing the necessity of advancing towards a country at peace, with social justice, and a life of dignity. We believe that we need broad social and and political platforms that take account of this accumulated knowledge and allow those of us on this path to make proposals to the country.

To achieve these purposes we consider it necessary to create a national Congress for Peace, as a meeting place for all those who want and look to work on a proposal for a holistic peace and a life of dignity. There have been many call-outs made to advance this and many steps made towards achieving this end.

The Congreso de los Pueblos, in its inaugural session en October 2010, laid out a peace proposal within the framework of a vision of Life, Justice, and Paths Toward Peace, understanding that it is not possible to develop this in a new type of country, or by ignoring the current state of economic, social and political conflict in which the Colombian people have been mired. An attempt was made to give form to one of the seven strategic axes for building peace. The political commission of Congreso de los Pueblos (CdlP) created in Dos Quebradas in June 2011 signalled the necessity of driving forward and articulating the other initiatives we are developing in the Congress for Peace, understood as a holistic strategy for developing various dimensions of social and political action.

We begin by understanding a proposal of Peace as i) a process, not a momentary action; ii) built upon local, regional and national level dynamics, respecting the particularities, histories and specific presences of particular actors; iii) peace goes further than achieving a ceasefire and implies tackling the substantial problems of communities in social, political, economic and juridical terms; iv) from the above we can conclude that to discuss peace for Colombia implies a dialogue of different voices: communities, insurgents, the state, economic powers, the churches, and the international community; v) the Congress for Peace is a holistic proposal for peace, to overcome by way of politics and argumentation the essential problems of communities; a solution to open the windows of life, doors to the future and paths of dignity for our people.

Peace for the Congreso de los Pueblos is part of the mandate, the necessities and the desires of the Colombian population, as expressed in the statement of 2010, LIFE, JUSTICE AND PATHS TO PEACE: “It is impossible to build a country for everyone without making a commitment to peace and justice, our framework of thought is not short-term but part of the character of life itself.”

The reality of life in ordinary communities, urban and rural, screams to us that it is necessary that the communities discuss how to find a solution to the social, economic and political conflict that the Colombian people live. We have lived more than 200 years of war that has molded the objective and subjective realities of the Colombian people and has left deep tracks in our memory and in the life of communities, and has brought a level of human degradation that must stop.

The process of building peace – by which we mean halting the armed conflict and strengthening the conditions and guarantees for the improvement of the welfare of the population – has always been crushed in Colombia by those with an interest in maintaining the politics of war. We have seen many attempts, many false hopes, frustrated dreams and an almost total veto on making arguments about the war on terror and the post-conflict context. The current situation re-opens the possibility of once more shouting aloud for peace.

In building the idea of the Congress for Peace we have been involved in spaces like the Ruta Social Común para la Paz, where diverse social sectors and organisations can articulate important contributions to the construction of peace. We believe in the necessity of building a broad-based social movement for a comprehensive peace that expresses the commitments to peace of the great majority of the country, a common path by which we can walk together down a shared route.

It is vital to propose scenarios and spaces in which we can exchange visions and build collective decisions. We must built broad platforms, organisations, processes and working dynamics that can bring us to agreement, knowing that on issues of peace we must move from simple movements to the possibility of a movement.

1. CHARACTER:

The Congress for Peace is understood as a process that should involve diverse levels of sensitization and visibilization of proposals and experiences, regional and national gatherings, and the construction of mandates for peace. It has a deliberative character in that it involves the participation of spaces, voices and processes, and collective decision-making for the construction of a common legislature to mandate the future and present of our country. We are creating the future but also generating participatory legislative proposals for the present, for a moment of change in our country. The character of the Congress for Peace is the construction of a mandate for peace.

The Congress for Peace is broad-based, representative and mobilizing process in the sense that it takes account of participatory decision-making in local, sectoral and regional processes. The Congress will give power to the voice of grass-roots movements and democratic social sectors that join this historical process of peace-building, working from a broad social base with a vision of a new and peaceful country.

The Congress for Peace looks for elements in common so there can be a collective expression by the various social sectors participating in any peace scenario. The character of the congress allows diverse levels of participation according to the confidence and level of relationship that can be built.

3. GENERAL OBJECTIVE:

To consolidate and position our collective proposal for peace and for the country through the articulation of visions, commitments and social initiatives at the local regional and national level. These will contribute to the construction of a holistic peace for Colombia and to the generation of concrete initiatives and mandates for this moment our country is living, as required to advance towards a country at peace.

4.   SPECIFIC OBJECTIVES:

-      To gather, articulate, construct and mobilise a social agenda that addresses the real problems of communities in terms of the social, the political, the economic, the cultural and the juridical.

-      To contribute to strengthening a social movement for peace by enhancing the voice of grassroots movements and their vision of peace.

-      To contribute to various national and international forums and platforms  for peace-building in order to build alliances around humanitarian, structural and political themes.

-      To generate social mobilization for peace, to enhance the development of actions for peace and acts of mobilization and resistance.

1. 5.   THEMES OF THE CONGRESS:

1. Proposal for a holistic peace and a new country

a. Building a people’s notion of peace. Proposals and mandates for peace from the perspective of the people of the country.

b. A social agenda for peace, towards a new country:

-      The economic model of dispossesion and its motors. Life plans and alternatives from the people.

-      Model of justice. Victims and genocidal politics in Colombia. Overcoming the humanitarian crisis: disappearances and political prisoners.

-      Land and territory. Consolidation of the mandates of the Congress on land and territory.

-      A life with dignity and rights for the people. Education, women, health, housing etc.

-      Political model. Democracy and civil and political rights. Demands and possibilities for political action and social mobilization. Consciencious objectors and freedom of religion.

1. Scenarios and paths for peace 

a. Building peace from a social base and from the regions

b. Popular participation for peace

c. Guarantees of right to political action

1. Social and political action for peace
   1. Social mobilization and convergence for peace
   2. Development and the articulation of demands
   3. Advocacy and the international community
   4. Communication and visibilization. Alternative and commercial media.

1. METHODOLOGY:

A congress built with and for the people and communities, moving towards a scenario where its political purposes can be collectively taken forward, building from a social base, from the regions, from the people, from different social sectors, and from the grassroots. This is how we should take forward the Congress for Peace.

The methodology of the Congress for Peace is to build from a regional base and from the routes articulated within social processes and grassroots movements. It will try to take account of the national picture while focussing on the regional, taking on the dynamics of the local processes of articulation that are building peace and a new country.

The methodology of the process of the Congress for Peace is to build collectively. We are creating a framework that gathers multiple visions of the country from the regions and from social movements.

Until now we have been planning and creating Regional Congresses, understood as regions that have been building collective processes – by this means overcoming purely geographic logic. If conditions allow it we would also like to enable the organisation of events for different social sectors. This involves increased efforts and resources and is key to having an impact, in terms of contributions to the agenda and the construction of a social movement for peace.

In accordance with the value we place on regional processes we are taking the process forward in the following zones:

1. Carribean Coast.
2. Southwest.
3. Antioquia , Coffee Axis and Choco.
4. Centre of the country (Cundinamarca, Sumapaz, Sabana y Bogotá).
5. East Central.
6. Huila, Tolima and Florencia.
7. Magdalena  Medio, Bajo Cauca, Santander.
8. Catatumbo, Sur de Cesar and the border with Venezuela.

National Congress for Peace. Date:19 to 22 April 2013. Place: Bogotá

AUTHOR : Gonzalo Peña

THE MINING LOCOMOTIVE AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR THE ENVIRONMENT AND SOCIETY.

(Translated by Steve Cagan, a CSN Volunteer Translator)

Source : Comité para la Defensa del Agua y del Páramo de Santurbán 

Introduction:

In the face of the threat that the country and the whole world is already going through, of the unquestionable effects of climate change, and the desire of multinational firms to operate in areas of the paramo and high mountain ecosystems in order to extract gold, silver and rare metals, calm and scientific reflection necessarily moves for the immediate declaration of a moratorium of no less than 10 years, with the goal of bringing together the best intellectual forces of all tendencies and breadths, in order to study the real effects on these areas of the country, which are so special and indispensible for human life.

Studying these areas is necessary in order to understand how they function.

¿What are the paramos for Colombia and the world?

There are only five countries in the world—located in Central and South America—that have the privilege of having paramo areas. Colombia has 49% of all the paramos that exist in the world. This special biogeographic condition has meant that around 70% of the entire Colombian population lives in areas directly influenced by the paramos. The reason for this proximity of the Colombian population lies in the fact that the paramos with their areas of direct influence, that is to say the high mountain ecosystems, is something that, if they are properly cared for, maintained and restored, guarantee the functioning of the water cycle, which is to say, they provide water.

Just as the great civilizations throughout history have developed along the rivers, in our country, because of this fortunate circumstance, our most important ancestral civilizations have developed in paramo areas.

Our knowledge about the dynamics of the existing paramos, now only partial, will be enriched by profound studies, which must be developed during the period of the proposed moratorium.

The logical conclusion will be the inevitability of declaring the paramos and their buffer zones to be free of any sort of massive or medium mining, agricultural or cattle-raising activity, no matter what type.

How is it believed that the paramos work?

The paramo receives water in two ways: the first is the normal rain that falls vertically; the second, more beneficial and constant, is produced y the continuous collision of clouds with the soil. The paramo’s profile allows all this water to be absorbed through condensation. The vegetation and the soil of the paramo function like a sponge; they receive and store rain water in rainy periods and allow it to flow continuously in dry periods, that is, they act as regulators. This is what allows us to always have water available to cover our necessities.

The paramo is formed of what are called igneous or volcanic rocks. Its origin goes back to past times when the earth began to cool and to be consolidated in what today we call the continental plates. These plates make up what today we call the earth’s crust.

Through phenomena of very different kinds, such as water vapor that came from the volcanoes or masses of ice from outer space, the seas were formed during the course of millions of years. Because of differences in temperature, water leaves the seas and forms clouds, which fall again to earth in the form of rain. This is known as the water cycle.

At one point, the mountain ranges of Colombia were being formed, a product of movements in the earth’s crust, or the continental plates, creasing, rising and falling to end up at the topography that we have today.

In our case, these igneous rocks, as a result of their formation, are very porous, as they are very fractured, as a result of the phenomena that formed them. This special condition, added to the soil and the predominant vegetation in these ecosystems united to produce the marvel that today we know as the water factory,” that is, the paramo.

When there is an intervention in the paramo through agriculture, cattle raising or mining, that is, when the soil is stripped of its natural condition of capturing water, then it begins to lose its magic—that magic that today allows us to live.

Recent studies by the World Bank (April, 2010) carried out in Peru, concluded—after calibrating and validating the proposed model—that in the next 20 years, as a result of climate change, the amount of water that gets to them will be reduced between 18 and 21%. We are behind in carrying out a similar study in our soil.

In the study of the paramos carried out by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute, they mention as a special case the dry paramos of Santander and Norte de Santander, which confront a grave danger of shortage of water. Well, in this area more than two million persons are settled.

Where do we have to go if there is no water for us?

What does open-pit mining expose us to?

We mention this because in Tolima, in the mine called “La Colosa” (municipality of Cajamarca), Anglo Gold Ashanti is still thinking they can get gold with open-pit operations. We could say the same about Marmato in Caldas, where a priest has already lost his life for wanting to prevent the municipality from being swept away to take out the gold.

This “technology,” already applied in Peru, Chile and many other countries on every continent, kills all the life in the area. In our environment, there is nothing more predatory than open-pit mining in La Guajira or in Cesar.

And what about underground mining?With the underground mining that they intend to do in Santander and Norte de Santander (California, Vetas, Suratá and Cucutilla); in the northeastern part of Antioquia (El Bagre Zaragoza, Remedios, Nechi); the Colombian Massif (Cauca and Nariño), Tolima and Huila, what are we facing?

An altitude has been defined as the boundary of the paramo, but at the same time, for reasons of “the high government,” mining at those altitudes has to be privileged under penalty of having difficulties and fights with the owners of the mining titles.

What shamefacedness! A vile metal, of which 85% is used only for vanity or pieces of jewelry! Water, which is life for all the species, including the human species, is relegated to second place.

The Constitution of the Republic, in articles 2, 8, 58, 79, 80 and 93, as well as article 202 of Law 1450—the National Development Plan—privilege life above any other activity.

What are exploratory tunnels?

They are generally horizontal excavations, but they can be sloped or vertical, whose objective is to establish the presence of ores of whatever kind in a specific area.

When an “exploratory” tunnel of large dimensions is created below the altitude of the paramo, that is, below three thousand meters, as an altitude of reference, the following phenomena occur: all the communicating basins which before the contamination maintained the water inside the mountains in a dynamic equilibrium, once their lines are broken, allow the water to flow freely into the interior of the tunnel. From there it emerges, converted into acid water.

What is acid water?

It is water that contains dissolved arsenopyrite and iron pyrite, plus all the heavy metals that are present among the rocks. The pyrites are sulfuric compounds—that is, compounds of sulfur and the respective metal, for example iron or arsenic— which, if they remain in contact with the air, by biological or chemical or physical processes, the sulfur compounds are separated and the join with water from the formation or subterranean water, producing hydrogen sulfide as well as sulfuric acid. These substances lower the pH of the water to values as critical as 1.5. The foregoing produces two devastating effects: first, the heavy metals are dissolved and dragged along in the current of the water; and second, it does away with all the vegetable and animal life there. Living beings of whatever nature are not adapted to living in such acid environments.

Since the water that emerges through the tunnel comes from its upper part, all life in the upper part of the mountain, without the vital liquid, from what is called “the paramo,” dies of starvation.

On the other hand, as the water flow reached\s the level of the tunnel, the water also does not go on downward from there, and the oak forest below is also irremediably condemned to die..

In this way, the snowball that is formed will end up turning into an avalanche that will wipe away life in the entire ecosystem.

How does the extraction of gold and silver work?

First the ore is taken out of the tunnels, with the indicated consequences, that is, the deterioration of the bio-system. Later the material is carried by different means, but basically in vehicles, to the processing location

There the material is crushed and washed. The washing requires substantial amounts of water. Let us keep in mind that on average out of every ton of material they get between 5 and so grams of gold (according to data from INGEOMINAS [The Colombian Institute of Geology and Mines—a government body—SC]). The rest is small-sized rocks and clay. We can estimate between 50 and 50 percent for each of these two components. The rest is small rocks and clay. We can estimate each of these two components at 50 per cent of the total.

From a daily volume estimated per company of between 25,000 and 30,000 tons of material extracted, and considering that there are 5 big companies in the area of California and Vetas, we would have a total of 150,000 tons processed every day.

Of this amount, around half, some 75,000 tons is clay, which is separated from the rock by the washing that is necessary to clean the rocks that contain the gold and silver ore. In this way, it is mixed with water and heavy metals, which are included because of the acidity of the water that comes out of the mine. Remember that heavy metals dissolve in water with an acid pH, that is, less than 4 degrees or at lesser values.

The mega-businessmen say that they are going to recirculate this water, but we wonder, what water are they talking about?

What we have is a concentrated mud that increases every day with an equal volume of clay. So it is impossible to think of recirculating this mud, since it keeps becoming more concentrated. Just to say something, in 3 days there will be just mud. So, What will they do with this highly contaminating material? They are going to dispose of it, but where? What controls will they have? Will this volume of material be covered?  What guarantees are there of its harmlessness? Where has this been done where it has not generated problems?

Similarly, but with the aggravating factor of the concentration of cyanide, we will have another similar volume of the material that has been processed.

What guarantees are there, especially in areas like ours, characterized by a high level of seismic activity, that the dikes where it is stored will not break and that this water will not go down into the watercourses of the rivers?

Additionally, who is going to control the acidic waters that are going to continue coming out of the cave-ins for tens of years once the productive process has finished? Who is going to pay for this continued damage?

What is acid rain?

In the process of extracting the ores, dynamite is used. When it explodes, it frees nitrous gases, that is, various kinds of compounds of nitrogen and oxygen. To move ahead each time they break through rock without risking the lives of the workers, they have to get the residual gases out. To do this they use gigantic fans, which take the contaminated air from the mine. This gas, rich in nitrogenous compounds, goes out into the atmosphere, and on making contact with ambient humidity it forms nitric acid.  When it rains, this falls on the earth and destroys the vegetation. In the same way, when it falls in the river watercourse, it augments the effect of the acid water from the cave-ins.

This suggests once more the imperative necessity of the moratorium in order to study the paramo and its dynamics, but not for mining developments.

It is clear in the Constitution that the protection of water, and therefore of life, are motives with more weight than whatever economic benefit.

As we can see, this is a problem that will be very difficult to resolve if there is no objective will on the part of the Government to conserve water and therefore life.

This is why there is an urgent need to stop the mining locomotive, since if we wait to see the damage, it will already be impossible to recover our ecosystems.

[Translator’s note: the references to “the locomotive” are references to the use of the word by president Santos, who has argued that extractive industry, and mining in particular, will be “the locomotive” that will pull the train of Colombian economic development forward—SC]

(This translation may be reprinted as long as the content remains unaltered, and the source, author, and translator are cited.)

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Imagine my surprise when I listened to him this time.  For his program he discussed Hugo Chavez’s career and the effects of his rule with William Dobson, whom he presented as a journalist for Slate magazine. It was soon clear that Mr. Munson had very limited knowledge of Hugo Chavez and Venezuela. Mr. Dobson some years ago wrote a book on the dictators of the world in which he included President Chavez, despite the fact that Chavez came to the Presidency of Venezuela by winning election to the office and was re-elected to successive terms in elections declared to be free and fair by such international observers as former U.S. President Jimmy Carter. Mr. Munson had no trouble with the classification of Chavez as a dictator. Nor did he question Dobson’s assertion that Chavez’s actions and institutions would have little future effect upon other South American countries. In fact, Hugo Chavez led the way in establishing political and economic ties among South American countries which are very likely to result in their charting a successful common course in the future. Likewise, President Chavez’s government reduced the percentage of families in poverty from an estimated 80% to close to 20%, while eliminating illiteracy, extending free education to all, and building clinics which provide health care to millions of rural residents who had previously had no access to medical care. And for Wisconsin residents, it seems important to take into account that the Chavez government provided heating oil for poor families in this state through Venezuelan government-owned Citgo. In fact, the Chavez government reportedly provided $61 million of such aid last year to families in the United States, including in the city of Milwaukee; meanwhile, Exxon-Mobil, Conoco-Phillips and other U.S.-based companies declined to participate in this aid program The apparent wishful thinking of Dobson that Chavez will be considered a failure was not effectively questioned by Mr. Munson, who may have been overwhelmed by Dobson’s credentials of graduating from Middlebury College with high honors, completing a law degree at Harvard University and having edited the magazine “Foreign Affairs” for a time. Dobson’s characterization of Hugo Chavez’s government bears little relation to reality—as Mr. Munson would have known had he prepared in advance of the program by reading diverse sources on President Chavez.  (Parenthetically, I have degrees from Harvard, Stanford and Wisconsin and some 40 years of experience in Latin America, but I don’t expect that fact to deter anyone who interviews me about Latin America from asking tough, probing questions.)

My principal criticism of Mr. Munson’s WPR program is that he relied almost completely upon Mr. Dobson, taking very few calls, so that his radio audience had little opportunity to get a more complete perspective on Hugo Chavez.  The calls that he did take were by quite uninformed listeners, although I have been assured by the station that Mr. Munson did not pick just callers totally critical of Chavez. I spent 45 minutes waiting to have my call put on the air, but it may well be that there were so many callers that Mr. Munson could not get to my call. Which still leaves me with the two basic criticisms I have of his work: 1) he did not study in any depth the activities of Hugo Chavez in preparing for his radio program (or he showed stunning ignorance in interpreting what he read about Chavez) and 2) he did not take many calls, which, had he done so, would have shown the shallowness and prejudice of his interviewee, Dobson. One would hope for better things from Mr. Munson and WPR in the future.

Jack Laun

March 13, 2013