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Colombian Nonviolent Resistance to War By Vivien Sharples
I spoke with many of the organizers of such efforts during the course of a three-week visit to Colombia in August of last year, one week of which I spent at a youth-led conference on “Active Nonviolence and Resistance to War.”
The conference brought together more than 150 anti- militarist, indigenous, Afro- Colombian, campesino and human rights activists in Medellín. Participants also came from Mexico, Paraguay, Ecuador, Guatemala and Chile; a handful came from Europe and North America. (I represented the War Resisters League and was one of only two participants from the United States.) The six-day meeting was organized by Red Juvenil (Youth Network), founded in Medellín in 1990. Using art, theater and popular education to support human rights, self-empowerment and community development, Red Juvenil members work with youth from poor barrios (neighborhoods) to offer positive alternatives to joining gangs or the armed factions, or becoming sicarios (hired assassins); it also organizes anti-militarist demonstrations and nonviolent direct actions. Many of the group’s youths are conscientious objectors, a risky commitment in Colombia. Another impressive group is Ruta Pacífica (Peaceful Path), a feminist women’s peace coalition. Started in Medellín in 1995, it unites women across barriers of race, class and background. Ruta Pacífica’s first women’s march was in Apartado in the conflicted northwest region of Uraba on November 25, 1996—International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women. Two thousand urban and campesino women marched to show solidarity with the suffering women of Uraba, to make visible the impact of the war on women, to speak out against the use of rape as a weapon and to give women a voice. Since then, they have held annual marches in support of women in Bogotá, Cartagena, Medellín and Barrancabermeja. On July 25, 2002, they organized a huge march of 50,000 women in Bogotá right before the inauguration of current right-wing President Alvaro Uribe to say no to war and to demand that women be included in peace negotiations. In November 2003 they organized a peace caravan of more than 3,000 women to Putamayo to protest the impact of aerial fumigation of coca, drug trafficking and warfare on women and their families and on the local economy. “Active
Neutrality”
In 1997, some residents of San José declared themselves a Peace Community. Key community principles are that they will not carry or use weapons, participate directly or indirectly in the war or cooperate with any of the armed actors. They are trying to create a “zone of peace” in the midst of the struggle, asking that the armed actors respect their right to life and dignity and let them work their lands in peace. They call their stance “active neutrality.” The Peace Community has managed to remain on its lands since 1997, and is tremendously well organized. It has not only formed a pacifist alternative in the face of war, but a successful economic alternative to individualism. Its members work the land collectively and run several cooperative community enterprises. Everyone in the community has enough to eat, and they take care of each other when old or sick. All this is quite a feat in a country where 66 percent of the population lives in poverty, the official unemployment rate is 20 percent and more than 300,000 people a year are driven from their homes. But their success has a high price. The armed actors have targeted the community for repression. Almost ten percent of the people in the community (120 out of 1,300, many of them members of its leadership) have been killed or disappeared in the last seven years, and the community has 115 orphaned children to care for. While they have suffered from attacks by all the armed actors, the military-backed paramilitaries have been responsible for most of the killings. Last September, the San José community hosted a gathering of people from the 57 other communities around the country that have followed their example and declared themselves Communities of Peace. Several hundred people took the exciting opportunity to analyze, share challenges and strategies, build community and gain visibility. Also attending were members of the international peace teams that provide protective accompaniment to this and other communities. Peace Brigades International has had a presence in San José since 1998, and the Fellowship of Reconciliation since 2002 (and see “Unarmed Against the Gunfire,” NVA, May-June 2002). Justicia y Paz and other Colombian groups have also provided vital protection to the people of San José. Leaders emphasized the importance of this form of third-party nonviolent intervention to the community’s survival. I was struck by the power of the Peace Community’s clarity and unity. They have agreed by consensus on their basic principles of collectivity, active neutrality, transparency and nonviolence, and they stick to those principles with great determination. A community leader said that the repression they have experienced has forced them to learn to deal with internal conflicts and differences nonviolently and democratically. For example, the community has no jail and deals with transgressors by talking with them and finding out what was behind their acts. In annual elections for the leadership council, everyone over the age of 12 has a vote. They have a ban on alcohol, which they say cuts down greatly on violent incidents, and try to respect men and women equally—all the women work in the fields, childcare is provided and women are active in leadership roles. “Many women have had to learn to act as both mother and father to their children because so many men have been killed or disappeared,” said another leader.
Land and
Autonomy In 1971, the Nasa community of Toribio rebelled against their economic exploitation by large landowners and the lack of respect for their culture. In secret meetings, they organized the first regional indigenous organization in Colombia, the Consejo Regional Indigena del Cauca. CRIC promoted indigenous autonomy, nonpayment of taxes, the recovery of indigenous lands and strengthening of the traditional leaders and indigenous identity. “Without land, an indigenous person is dead,” they declared. They spearheaded one of the most successful agrarian reform movements in the Americas. Today, 30 years later, much of Cauca is indigenous territory once more. They achieved this by nonviolent direct action—by occupying the land and taking it back. They, too, paid a terrible price for their resistance. In the very first year, between 800 and 1,500 indigenous peasants were murdered. But their continuing nonviolent occupations eventually forced the government and landowners to negotiate, and they transformed 130 private haciendas in the north Cauca region into collectively held indigenous lands. On the lands they recovered, the Nasa re-established their traditional laws and customs in justice, agriculture and medicine. They created bilingual schools to reclaim their language, and literacy and other educational programs. In 1980 the Nasa community in Toribio created its own (prize-winning) community development program called “Proyecto Nasa.” Using participatory democracy, everyone discusses community problems and solutions in general assemblies until consensus is reached. They have created communal business enterprises such as stores, a mine, a dairy, a fish farm, an organic fertilizer factory, and their own transport system, decreasing their dependence on the government, large landowners and corporations. They have poured resources into training and capacity-building among youth and women, and in strengthening their language, culture and indigenous identity. “Plan Columbia”
Who profits from the U.S. military aid? U.S. arms manufacturers are obvious beneficiaries, as are the international oil companies that own most of Colombia’s oil fields. Colombia is the most important oil supplier in the region after Venezuela and Mexico, and fears of instability in the Middle East may be increasing the importance of Latin American oil to the United States. But sending more military aid does not protect civilians in Colombia; that takes an entirely different kind of force. In 2001 Proyecto Nasa created the “Guardia Indigena” to protect its territory from increasing violence. The Guardia are unarmed peacekeepers, carrying radios to inform people of armed incursions and traditional canes with colored ribbons as a symbol of their authority. They are trained in human rights law and conflict resolution. There are 10 Guardias per vereda (hamlet), and there are 20 hamlets in the three reservations that make up the Toribio community. They have created 68 civilian assembly sites for people to go to escape armed clashes. They have asked all the armed groups to respect these sites, and often make a circle to protect those inside. The Guardia have successfully and nonviolently confronted armed men who have stolen property or kidnaped people. The Guardia concept is spreading from north Cauca to the central and eastern zones too. In July 2002, a FARC ultimatum demanded that all the mayors in the country quit or be killed. More than 200 mayors resigned in fear, but Toribio’s Mayor Gabriel Pavi stayed. The Miami Herald quoted him as saying, “People are protecting me, and I trust them. I have no bodyguard, because bodyguards are useless here. I have no bulletproof vest, because vests are useless here. The only thing that works here is the unity of the people.” * * * For more information on nonviolence and conscientious objection in Colombia, see www.redjuvenil.org (in Spanish only). For information and action alerts on U.S. policy on Colombia, see Latin America Working Group. * * * Vivien Sharples is a Seattle mediator, nonviolence trainer and activist, and is WRL’s representative to War Resisters’ International. |
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war-ravaged Colombia, dozens of peace communities have formed. In the
countryside, indigenous communities are reclaiming their ancestral lands.
In the cities, youth are organizing against militarism. 
