An Encounter with Paramilitaries
By Carol Foltz Spring
My husband Charles and I are new members of the
Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), an ecumenical
peacemaking group based in the U.S. and Canada. CPT is
rooted in pacifist Christian tradition and its goal is
to support nonviolent alternatives in situations of
violent conflict. CPT currently has a presence in the
West Bank, Palestine; Chiapas, Mexico; Colombia; and
New Brunswick, Canada. We just completed a month of
nonviolence training in January to prepare for three
years' commitment working fulltime as volunteers.
Our first assignment is five months' peacemaking in
Colombia. Charles and I left for Colombia on March
20, and spent two days in Bogotá, meeting with groups
there to learn more about the situation in Colombia.
Then we traveled to Barrancabermeja, where the CPT
Colombia team is based.
After I spent a day and a half in Barrancabermeja
("Barranca" for short), Scott Kerr (an experienced
CPTer) and I left for the Cimitarra River Valley,
where CPT accompanies the Campesino Association
of the Cimitarra Valley (ACVC in Spanish). It is an
area primarily under control of the largest guerrilla
group, the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of
Colombia). However, paramilitaries have been moving
in the area recently and threatening civilians. The
following story is from the return trip back to
Barranca after a few days in the Cimitarra Valley.
Around 1 PM on Wednesday, March 27, Kerr and I and
about fifteen campesinos (poor farmers) piled into the
back of a pickup truck. About 25 years old, the truck
is outfitted with wooden slats to keep us from falling
out as we travel over the numerous potholes big enough
to keep the truck constantly lurching. This is public
transportation.
At 2:30, our truck was stopped by two young
paramilitaries no more than 18 or 19 years old, with
their twenty-something leader hovering nearby.
Each carried a handgun in his pocket. They wanted
everyone in the truck to get out, show there IDs and
have their bags searched. The only problem? This is
an illegal armed group, carrying out illegal
activities. Paramilitary groups in Colombia are now loosely
confederated under the name AUC (United Self-Defense
forces of Colombia). They were initially formed in
communities all over Colombia by wealthy landowners,
ranchers, the oil industry, drug traffickers, and the
Colombian military (on the advice and training of the
U.S. military in many cases). Paramilitaries
work closely with the Colombian military and police
and many of their leaders have been trained at the
School of the Americas in Georgia. Paramilitary
activity was made illegal in 1989 in Colombia, but
human rights violations have only grown. With about
8,000 troops, paramilitaries commit approximately 80%
of the civilian deaths and forced disappearances
in Colombia today.
On this hazy afternoon, everyone who passed the
checkpoint was asked for a "voluntary collaboration."
(If someone with a gun asked me for money, it would
not seem to me exactly "voluntary.") The amount of
money we saw handed over by each driver was typically
5,000 pesos - about $2.50, half a day's wages for the
average farmer. When Kerr and I realized what was going on, he began
snapping photos and I began writing down what I saw, in an obvious way.
We explained that we were with CPT
and that our job was to document abuses of civilians
by armed groups. We realized that they were detaining the truck we'd
arrived in, because of us. We paid the driver our
fare and told him we would finish the journey on foot.
He was fearful for us and almost apologetic
himself. "What can we do? They have arms and we do
not."
Suddenly I looked past the fear of the people being
stopped, and saw so clearly the fear of the teenagers
stopping them. We were told if we took one more
picture we'd have our camera taken away. Kerr took
another picture anyway, of the paramilitaries
searching a truck. The young men hung bandannas on
their heads to obscure their faces from the camera,
but did not forcibly take the camera away. Upset and
afraid, the two younger men avoided us.
The man in charge told us sternly that they needed to
check traffic, in case there were guerrillas passing
through. Kerr scoffed, "And what would three men with
handguns do against a truckful of heavily armed
guerrilla?" He had a point. If this were their
purpose, it would be suicidal. The checkpoints are
clearly designed to intimidate the civilian
population.
Over the course of the hour we were present, traffic
dropped to a trickle. Finally, the young
paramilitaries called their commander to see if he
would be more effective in taking away our camera.
Kerr and I gathered for a brief vigil-we sang "Nada Te
Turbe" ("Let Nothing Distress You") and prayed. When
the commander, Manuel (not his real name), arrived
five minutes later by motorcycle, we had a very
respectful conversation.
He explained to us that their presence was legitimate
because they were working in collaboration with the
local police and military to protect the area. I was
amazed by his truthfulness, because in the U.S. there
is no official acknowledgment that our military aid to
Colombia often winds up in the hands of this illegal
armed group which has no accountability.
Manuel was also concerned about the photos Kerr had
taken, but neither did he lay hands on us to take away
the camera. At the end of our conversation, we sang
for the four men another round of "Nada Te Turbe."
Then we continued our journey on foot.
I was jubilant. We had refused to play the fear game,
and had discovered our power as the eyes and ears of
the international community - a power that can come
only through nonviolence.