=========================================
There are 12 volunteers working for PBI
in Colombia who 'accompany' human rights
defenders as they tour Colombia's villages,
documenting accounts of atrocities and
giving advice to locals on their legal
rights.
==========================================


THE GUARDIAN (London)

Thursday, 16 April 1998


Inside story: Fear in the shadows
---------------------------------

Life as a human shield is tough, but the
volunteers of Peace Brigades International
are ready to face the gunmen. Mary Matheson
reports from Colombia on human rights workers
and their friends from the north

By MARY MATHESON

Paco was talking in the kitchen with Mireya Calixto, a human rights 
worker in north-eastern Colombia, when suddenly Mireya's husband, 
Mario, called her name. He was in another room in their home in 
Sabana de Torres, with Paco's friend Hendrik, and his voice was 
quiet, scared and shaking. 'I ran into the room and there were two 
gunmen, one pointing his gun at Mario and the other at Hendrik,' said 
Paco. 'We were terrified and the children started crying 'Don't kill 
him, don't kill him!' " As Paco coolly asked what was going on, Mario 
took advantage of the moment and dashed for the door.

The nervous gunmen demanded to speak to Mario, but Paco 
explained that he and Hendrik were Europeans. 'Please leave, if you 
want to talk, do it in another way,' said Paco calmly. And the men 
left. 

If Paco and Hendrik had been Colombians, the gunmen would not 
have hesitated to spray them, and Mario, with bullets. 

That, at least, is the theory of Peace Brigades International (PBI), a 
global human rights group employing people like Paco and Hendrik 
to work as 'unarmed bodyguards'. There are 12 volunteers working 
for PBI in Colombia who 'accompany' human rights defenders as they 
tour Colombia's villages, documenting accounts of atrocities and 
giving advice to locals on their legal rights.

The PBI believes that even the most hardened of killers will think 
twice before blowing away unarmed foreigners. 'If any of us were 
killed it would be a huge international incident and people know 
that, the military know that,' said Tessa MacKenzie, a 28-year-old 
British volunteer in Colombia. 

It may sound like woolly idealism, but it is a thoroughly researched 
peace strategy - and it seems to work. Partly funded by UK aid 
agency Christian Aid, PBI has projects in Haiti, Guatemala, Sri Lanka 
and North America. Not one volunteer has been killed since the 
project began 16 years ago. 

Most of the volunteers are European or North American; they are 
computer analysts, nurses, human rights workers and range in age 
from 25 to 35. The group began its operations in Colombia in 1994, 
where the labyrinthine conflict pits leftwing guerrillas against a 
coalition of army, police and brutal death squads, with the drug trade 
adding a further complication. 

But the armed men rarely clash, preferring to wage their bloody 
battle for the oil-rich zone through the civilian population. Mario 
Calixto, who was involved with the local Human Rights Committee, 
was a marked man. And the threats against him were stepped up 
after the committee published a report documenting murders, 
torture and disappearances in 1997. Several of the cases accused the 
local army battalion of 'disappearing' people. 

The death threats against Calixto were made by paramilitaries, 
clandestine death squads increasingly used by the army to do their 
dirty work. In the second half of 1997, paramilitary groups, who go 
by ominous names such as 'the headcutters' or 'black hand', stepped 
up their vicious extermination campaign. The links between the 
army and the paramilitaries have been well-documented by Human 
Rights Watch and Amnesty International. 

Paradoxically, this relationship works to PBI's advantage. Talking to 
the army means their message will get through to the paramilitaries 
- a comforting thought in a country where the violence often appears 
to be completely random. Working as a human shield in a country 
where 30,000 people are murdered each year could seem risky 
bordering on the foolish. But it is the physical protection offered to 
human rights defenders that lies at the heart of the PBI's work. They 
shadow some people 24 hours a day.

Osiris Bayther Ferrias is president of Credhos, a human rights group. 
There are times when she won't leave her house without a PBI 
volunteer, and if she ever leaves her hometown, Barrancabermeja, 
she will ask to be accompanied. She has the utmost faith in the 
sanctuary the unarmed bodyguards provide. 'We know that the 
Brigades are like shields that things can hit, but not pass through,' 
she says. 

Bayther also receives death threats from the local guerrillas because 
her organisation has formally accused them of committing human 
rights abuses - a case that reveals the absurdity of linking all human 
rights movements to the revolutionaries.

The PBI does not confine its protection to individuals; it also tries to 
take care of institutions. Each day a PBI volunteer goes to the 
Credhos office, to give it an international 'presence'. Six Credhos 
workers were killed between 1992 and 1993, but since the PBI has 
offered them coverage, none has been murdered.

Although their physical presence is important, the volunteers know 
that the key to their strength lies in the contacts they have. 'If I was 
just some 'gringa' that happened to be following around a human 
rights worker, it would give them a certain amount of protection, but 
a very small amount,' Tessa says.

The less dramatic, but just as effective, side to PBI's work is 
lobbying. They have a team in Bogota that constantly meets with 
embassies, government representatives and, more importantly, the 
army. In October Gabriel Torres, a worker with Credhos, was 
detained by the army; he was falsely accused of possessing guerrilla 
leaflets. When the PBI heard about the arrest, the lobbying 
machinery was set in motion. The Dutch and Spanish ambassadors 
were called; they in turn called Colombia's deputy defence minister. 
After a few hours, Torres was being taken from his cell to be 
transferred to Barrancabermeja, when a soldier appeared and 
wearily said: 'Let him go, or else we'll have those people calling us all 
day.' Embassy support is vital, and calms the nerves of volunteers . 
'It gives me confidence,' Tessa says. 'I know that these people 
support us and are willing to say in, front of the government or the 
military, that they think that our work is very important.' Fear is 
something the volunteers have to deal with each day. Inka Stock, a 
25 -year-old German volunteer, has nearly completed her year with 
the PBI in Colombia. Like most volunteers who come to the end of 
their contract, she is mentally and physically ex-hausted. She spent 
much of her time in Bogota, giving 24-hour coverage to Yanette 
Bautista, head of an organisation working with families of the 
disappeared.

'I was really scared to be with her. You could feel people around you. 
It drove you mad,' Inka says. Bautista was targeted by the military 
when, for the first time in Colombian history, an army general was 
sacked after being found responsible for the disappearance and 
death of her sister. Bautista has since fled the country, but the PBI's 
assistance allowed her to stay on for three extra years.

The presence of the volunteers has transformed the way some 
organisations, such as Credhos, operate. 'We have been more 
awkward, more dangerous than we were before 1992. They now 
respect our lives,' Bayhter says. 'The military threatens us with 
lawsuits. But now it's difficult for them to try to kill us because of the 
Brigades." The volunteers in Barrancabermeja have spent hours 
analysing what happened with Calixto. Some human rights workers 
believe the attack was a message sent to warn PBI, but the gunmen 
seemed genuinely shocked to see the foreigners. As with everything 
the group does, their next move was thoroughly discussed and 
strategically planned. Last week, two months after the gunmen 
threatened Calixto, the team returned to Sabana de Torres with a 
commission, including embassy staff and international human rights 
groups. 

In their year-long training, the volunteers are taught how to deal 
with fear. Tessa, who is a British army officer's daughter, says that 
she can now identify the source of potential danger and can analyse 
situations. These days, she finds the most frightening thing about 
Colombia is being in a packed bus, hurtling along the pot-holed roads. 
Volunteers are taught about two distinct types of fear: of the 
darkness - the unknown; and of a wild dog - a recognisable danger, 
open to analysis. 

Hendrik reflects with a wry smile on this training. After his 
encounter with the gunmen, he jumped over the walls of neighbours' 
gardens to get to the house where he and Calixto would spend an 
uneasy night before leaving the town at daylight. As he was about to 
vault the last wall, a dog began to bark in the darkness.

Copyright 1998 Guardian Newspapers Limited 
______________________________________________________