I finished my three-year term as a full-time member of Christian Peacemaker Teams and returned from Colombia just a few days ago. I have loved our work, and felt privileged to be able to devote myself to it in the way that one can when one is a member of team working together for the same goals. I found my faith deepened as we share with people whose faith is carrying them through very difficult times, and as our team holds them, and each other, in prayer in our common worships that start each day.
On the Opon river, a community we've accompanied for over six years, more people are starting to sell their land, often to large landowners who convert the land from the staple crops of corn, plantain and yuca to grasslands for extensive cattle-raising. This kind of selling pattern often goes with threats of violence: "You decide - either you sell to us, or your widow will," is a famous saying. We're pretty sure this is not happening in such a direct way in the Opon, but at the same time people know that a lot of the moneyed interests that want this land have some kind of ties to the paramilitary forces that have been terrorizing people for over twenty years in this region. A number of factors are coming together - recent interest by larger landowners, low crop prices (due to liberalized trade laws), frequent flooding, and the history of violence against small-scale landowners - to lead to a wave of selling. Several families are still determined to make a go of it here, in fact two women have recently joined their partners on the land, which is a reversal of a more common pattern where women live in the city and men farm alone, due largely to the insecurity of the area. We are working less there now, one or two nights per week since the armed groups - armed forces, guerrilla and paramilitaries - are much less in evidence than in previous years.
Over the last year and some we have begun to regularly accompany communities of small (artisanal) miners up in the San Lucas mountains just down the Magdalena river from Barrancabermeja. They are sitting on some of the richest gold deposits in Latin America, so we're told, and multinational interests are looking to get in there. This has got the Colombian government interested in controlling the area more through military operations, which it began on an ongoing basis nearly two years ago. They've done a lot of things which aren't the job of an army to do, including murdering a leader of the small miners, and telling the people that they are preparing the way for the multinational. This has a lot of people scared about being forcibly displaced from their land. The government and military has been looking to arrest the main leadership of the miners' federation ( the Southern Bolivar Agricultural Miners' Federation) for the past several months, on charges of rebellion - a convenient charge laid against many civilians working for social change in ways that the state finds interferes with its agenda. Because of this, or because they might be attacked, they have decided to stay away from home. I sense they feel deep ties to their land. It's very sad to see them in forced exile within Colombia. Nevertheless, they have made a lot of gains through their organizing and speaking out about the crimes committed against them.
We physically accompany the miners as they walk the trails through their zone and as they travel about the country, organizing so that their communities can have a viable future. And we accompany them politically, talking to governments and raising awareness about their lives, both in terms of their suffering and their resistance to the direct violence and indirect, structural violence that they are living through. The other day we were meeting with some of the leaders, and they were telling us that they no longer see us as accompaniers, i.e. outsiders to their process, but rather as part of the process. It is an honour to be welcomed in that way.
Within the team, and within CPT, we have been increasing our focus on what we call undoing oppressions. We are working at becoming aware of, and transforming how our race, class, gender, sexual orientation, age, and ability privilege some and disadvantage others, both within and without CPT. This is often the hardest work of all. I continue to become more aware of how I behave in ways that I abhor. At the same time I am learning about how to work for transformation both for myself and for CPT as a whole. I've been part of CPT's undoing racism working group for the past couple of years, and will continue to be part of it as a part-time, or reservist, CPTer.
Our team in Barrancabermeja remains strong - eight full time members are currently assigned to it, though not all are there at the same time. This is a time of transition for the team as another three year member finished her term at the same time I did, and we are in the process of hiring a new support coordinator for the team. Finishing together with another team member was good for me, and (I hope!) the team, as we took a good chunk of intentional time to say farewell.
During the holiday season, I am mostly focusing on being with family. Afterward, I will move into the Catholic Worker community on Close Ave., near Jameson and the Gardiner in Toronto. Several good friends live there. I'll be looking for work in the area of community work.
I hope all of you are enjoying your holiday season. I thank you all for the support you have given me during this time. The work of any of us depends on the support of those around us. I have for some reason struggled in writing this, thinking that I wasn't getting it right. So I'm now at the point where people are writing me and asking what's up! It's time to give you at least a bit of a glimpse.
I do invite you to continue to hold me and CPT and our partners in the light and in your prayers, and to make a financial donation if that is within your means. CPT is covering my own needs as I transition to new work. Unfortunately, we cannot accept online donations in Canada. The mailing address is below. If you want to learn more about CPT, check out our website at www.cpt.org Both our team and CPT as a whole have a publications listserve that you can sign up for by writing me or the team at ecapcol@edatel.net.co.
With love, and blessings of the season,
Joel
Canadian mailing address:
CPT
25 Cecil Street, Unit 307Toronto, ON M5T 1N1
