During our visit, we witnessed scenes of hilarity and horror, violence and love, despair and hope, side by side with shocking regularity. "It's like a Fellini film," Cecilia commented one day. Finding coherent threads and a consistent point of view to describe our trip seems impossible -- but I'll try.
One day, observing a circus truck provided by the Colombian military and strategically placed in front of Apartadó city hall as a sign of civic stability, Cecilia suggested a title of our trip could be "Circus of the Generals". [The Colombian military continues to be steeped in the Cold War; the circus is classical 'civic action' that goes hand in hand with counter- insurgency.]
A thread I'd like to explore is the ingenious experimentation in making peace with justice possible in Colombia today -- which might be called "Campus of the Geniuses". The trip was like a walk through a university for peace in which human rights is a central focus of its mission. For the sake of unity and memory, I have categorized my stories into an acronym for PEACE: Politics, Economy, Amnesty, Culture and Education.
The political experiments for peace in Apartadó during the visit might creatively be described by a symbolic "body politic". The eyes of Apartadó's leaders, Mayor Gloria Cuartas and Bishop Isaias Duarte, symbolize the political vision for peace. I remember the eyes of Gloria on her visit to Madison (4/95) as she discussed a sister school program between Apartadó and Dane County. Those eyes of hope met us in Apartadó and helped focus our gaze on "drops of hope in a sea of impunity". When we arrived at the cathedral, the eyes of Bishop Duarte met ours and he voiced the vision, "Let me be very clear. We begin all our efforts with a belief in the dignity of each human person." His eyes widened as he described this visionÕs dividend in the words of St. Iraneus, "The glory of God is a human being fully alive." Gloria and Bishop Duarte using their eyes to communicate with each other while working out plans with the Dutch Ambassador for economic assistance is one of my best memories of the week.
The shoulders of this body might be those of the group called "Sueños de Las Mujers" (Dreams of the Women). We met this group of women at City Hall and listened to their stories of co-op enterprises, self- esteem workshops and non-violence strategy sessions. Their shoulders raised up while sharing well-pondered dreams. When Cecilia suggested a letter exchange with women in the U.S., Las Mujeres responded with urgent efficiency and the next day a pack of letters was ready to be delivered. The hands might be those of Maria, a woman who served us at our residence in Apartadó. I'll never forget seeing Maria washing feet and hearing Cecilia observed. ÒThey're killing people like this." The hearts and voices of this body politic experimenting for peace might be symbolized by the scene of the whole town serenading Bishop Duarte just before he left to become the Archbishop of Cali.
A different perspective was shared by Jesuit priest Javier Giraldo: "Colombia is a genocidal democracy". His upcoming book, published by Common Courage Press, analyses this. Economic experiments for peace with justice threaten status quo arrangements. We met with Francisco de Roux who spoke in Madison last April. His ideas for a "inclusive" economy and symbolic public place for discourse were being put into action -- he is beginning a project to get oil companies to trust the people of the regions, rather than mercenaries, with protection of the pipelines located in their backyards.
While the U.S. mass media eyes Colombian Prisons, wondering how to keep drug lords in, the question of CSN is how can we get political prisoners out. A few important ways are to study the strategy of defense in a case like Jose Antonio's. It is essential to send letters and faxes, to show the Colombian legal system that these prisoners must be given due process, not "faceless justice".
Experiments in cultural grass roots solutions to violence take more time than top-down ones, and in the long run, provide the most reliable results. The people-to-people approach of CSN aided my understanding of cultural experiments for peace.
Finally, educational experiments for peace during our visit are symbolized for me by two contrasting teaching props. The first is a stethoscope used by Dr. Roger Fisher (Harvard professor and mediator) during a week-long seminar sponsored by the Governor of Antioquia in Apartadó. Fisher held aloft a stethoscope and reminded us of the need for instruments to help us get a better understanding of the patientÕs disease. The instrument for diagnosing the ills of the human rights violations and oppressive violence in Apartadó was FisherÕs own multi-step process designed to reach the "best alternative" in a conflict. One problem, though, was that the key military officials in the region were absent from the class.