Oh Me, Oh MAY!

May was my first full month in Bogota, and it sure was eventful…

May Day, a public holiday in Colombia (in association with International Workers Day, not the Celtic calendar holiday complete with may pole dances and baskets), traditionally sees the most violent protests in Bogota. Riot police abound. Colombia is still the most dangerous country in the world to be a trade unionist, and this is the day of the year they take to the streets in mass. I woke up that day and chose to take a long peaceful run towards the north, leaving the rest of my co-workers to participate in the protests downtown.

All sorts of groups outside of unions march in the May Day protest. One that certainly deserves mention this year is the Marcha Patriotica, which is the new emerging leftist party in Colombia. The Marcha Patriotica draws connotation to the Union Patriotica, (Fastest Colombian history lesson ever: UP was the FARC-backed communist political party during the last peace negotiations. After the negotiations, with the UP as the official political party, the government systematically killed UP members, leaders and elected officials. Peace failed. FARC returned to current military tactic.) And while rumors of peace negotiations abound in the Colombian media, there are several media reactions to this new emerging party.  1.) Why would we (the left) set ourselves up for another repetition of what happened with the UP? 2.) Is the FARC actually backing the MP (clearly in political ideology that would make sense, but as compared to the UP which was created by the FARC, the MP is a separate political party). Those on the right tend to equate the two, clearly dangerous for non-FARC members who are participating in legal leftist politics (already dangerous in Colombia, obvious by the need for our accompaniment). 3.) How will this party be different from other parties on the left?

A few things are clear: this new party mobilizes groups from outside of the capital. In their march last month, it is estimated that 80,000 participated, the grand majority travelling in from other regions and rural parts of the country. According to a conference I attended yesterday, regional leaders and organizers of the party have been killed since that march (their first mass public demonstration). For good or danger, they have certainly grabbed the nation’s attention.

Day and Tippy come to town with a full extra suitcase of North Country contraband. I am still eating fine cheese daily and thrilled about it. We bummed around the historical downtown and hit the national museum. We hiked Monseratte and went shopping. We fined dined and market shopped, caught up on the life and times and chillaxed. It was lovely.

On May 15^th, the Colombian- USA Free Trade Agreement went into effect with a mid-night shipment of flowers out of Colombia’s port in Cartagena. The port, at midnight, was full of flag-waving Colombian children. As the BBC reported, “The accord, signed during President George W Bush's administration, was opposed by US labor groups, who feared job losses. Many Democratic members of Congress argued that it should not be approved until they were satisfied Colombia had done enough to stop violence against union organizers. There was also opposition from Colombian trade unions, who expressed concern about whether the country was developed enough to compete. Urging Congress to ratify the deal, the Obama administration warned that further delay would cost the US jobs and the chance to boost exports.” Needless to say, after living in Guatemala straight through CAFTA implementation, my heart sank a little bit on the morning of May 15^th.

And then, also on the morning of May 15^th, my heart jumped. A bomb exploded about 10 blocks from our apartment, shaking northern Bogota. While questions about who was behind the bomb still go unanswered, there is no doubt that the day chosen was symbolic. As an organizer who shares our office space lamented to me a couple weeks later over lunch: “we had a whole press conference about the negative consequences of the FTA and with that bomb, it was just decided that the news wouldn’t cover the FTA at all”.

This was the first bomb attack Bogota has seen in 10 years, and perhaps challenged the recent cover of Time magazine granted to President Santos. It certainly reminded the inhabitants of the capital (if not the world over) that there is still a very real and very dirty war going on in this country. Additionally, it made all of our team question our security analysis. While we are constantly aware of bombs and combats in the war zone, the hard truth of the matter is that this particular bomb exploded closer to our home than any of the ones we heard or saw in Uraba. Eek.

In an even MORE symbolic relevance to the bomb: May 15^th is International Conscientious Objectors day. With such rampant violence in this war torn country, I was thankful to have a string of meetings with the Conscientious Objector group who we accompany here in the capital. The peace movement is really the only way, says I.

We read a lot of news. A friend at Witness for Peace drew my attention to an extremely disturbing Trident gum advertisement in Colombia’s weekly political magazine, Semana. This ad has me currently writing my first personal consumer complaint letter to a corporation in years. The basic concept is that Trident gum produces healthy smiles, which, in turn, provoke other smiles. The image is two individuals hugging and smiling over trident gum. Sounds fine, until you take a closer look and see that the individuals are 1.) a US Border Patrol agent and 2.) a Latino (presumably illegal) immigrant. Apparently Trident hasn’t considered the implications of making light of the current US-Mexican border situation, but I am taking it upon myself to make them consider said implications. I read this particular issue of Semana the same week I received No More Deaths (NGO documenting Border Patrol abuses of migrants at the AZ-Mexico border) newsletter. And BAM!: Complaint letter content filled.

I have now officially and deliberately stopped reading my crisis alerts from parts of the world outside of the Americas. I feel a threshold. Guatemalan news alone breaks my heart everyday and Colombian news is a required part of my job. And that is only the tip of the Americas iceberg. Sometimes it all seems so overwhelming, even though peace seems so obvious. And then a friend sends me this uncited quote with the caption ‘why do we do the work we do?’:

“It’s impossible,” says pride.

“It’s risky,” says experience.

“It’s pointless,” says reason.

“Give it a try,” whispers the heart.

Lee comes to town! While she works for the IRC and much of our conversation ends up being political and work-related, we also got up to a good amount of shenanigans around the capital. We even took an impromptu day-trip to the  Zipaquira salt mines outside of Bogota. These salt mines have ben turned into the stations of the cross underground and are lit in psychedelic colors, making the whole scene seem like something straight out of Jesus Christ Superstar. Lee and I reveled.

Lee left a basil plant, and paired with the sprouting lavender seeds Monica sent me in her package last month, the urban garden is on the grow. In other happy capital lifestyle related news: Emily and I have been cooking from scratch. We have been dancing lots of salsa. We have been running the ciclovia, a highlight of my every week.

At work, May was full full full! There was a conference on the ongoing (and government ignored) issue of violent forced displacement, and our team’s final push to publish our Drug War Pop-Ed booklet (second in the series on “Demilitarizing Life and Land”). There were embassy meetings and accompanier’s protests and  reports to be written and urgent actions to be taken.

What a month! Protests and resistance and oppression and violence! (Not to mention research on protests and resistance and oppression and violence!) It’s not easy, sometimes, and Baker London’s album release also brought a good reminder to me this month: “when the soul needs reviving, though shall reach out for some help”. And thus I continue to reconnect with dear friends and family in far corners of the globe. It feels good and I am so thankful for my support system sending me love from afar.

The sounds of the city pump my everyday life with rhythmic noises. The traffic and horns of cars on busy streets. A man sings operetta outside of a music store, seemingly directly addressing the guitars inside the window.  Peddlers yell, vending everything from orange juice to tamales outside our windows and on my walk to work. Our (new!) pressure cooker whistles over black beans. Bikes shift gears on the Sunday ciclovia.  Blenders mix delicious passion fruit juice for my constant consumption. The sunny Bogota mornings make me wake thankful for every day and sometimes, walking home from the salsa studio late at night, I catch a glimpse of the moon over the buildings. It draws my attention and I just can’t look away. It reminds me of my close connection to nature in Uraba. I revel in patches of trees when walking cross-town and deep breathe on the top of Monseratte. The smell of grass at the Usaquen market reminds me of summer. I miss the clean air and outside lifestyle of La Union, while simultaneously feeling so much more whole now that I am in frequent communication with dear friends. And I think again about just how adaptable we are.

June has a lot in store. Next week both the Montreal jazz ballet and Lila Downs come to town (tough personal budget decisions!). By the end of next month we will have a new team member, David. With a trip home on the horizon in August, paired with the sensation that I just arrived in Bogota, I can’t help but feel like time will fly this summer.  

I have renewed my contract with FOR through March of 2013 and honestly feel there is no work I would rather be doing; there is nowhere else I would rather be.  

TAKE ACTION! Conscientious Objection Sign-on Letter

Hey Everyone,

We are trying to get over 100 organizations of all sizes, shapes and colors to sign-on to this letter about youth rights and conscientious objection. These could be community groups, collectives, schools, churches, university groups -- all are welcome! If you think your organization would be interested in signing on, please shoot me an email.

Thanks,

Gina

Juan Carlos Pinzón Bueno

Minister of National Defense

Bogota, Colombia

Dear Minister Pinzón:

As representatives of faith-based, academic and other civil society organizations, we are deeply concerned about the human rights of Colombian youth who not only are recruited by illegal armed groups but also victims of illegal and irregular recruitment practices carried out by the Colombian military. We urge you to adopt practices throughout the Colombian military that will respect conscientious objectors, put an end to the illegal practice of street round ups (“batidas”), and adopt other recruitment protocols that strictly follow the law. 

Colombia's Constitution requires all young men who are 18 years of age to fulfill obligatory military service. At the same time, Article 18 of the Constitution states that "...freedom of conscience is guaranteed. No one will be obliged to act against his/her conscience." Colombia is also a signer of the United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights that recognizes the rights to freedom of thought, conscience and religion. The right to conscientious objection was made more explicit by the United Nations Human Rights Committee in 1993, recognizing that the right to conscientiously object to military service can be derived from article 18 in the original United Nations International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.[1]

Furthermore, the Colombian Constitutional Court sentence C-728 of 2009 recognizes the right to conscientious objection to military service under the Colombian Constitution. The legal requirement for the majority of young males to perform military service is now set against the right not to be forced to act in contravention of one’s deepest moral, religious or political convictions. The court stressed that even though no legislation governing the right to conscientious objection exists, it is immediately applicable, and protection can be sought through a tutela(writ for protection), in case the armed forces do not recognize it (para 5.2.6.5).

Despite the above-mentioned legal framework recognizing this right, in practice the Colombian armed forces demonstrate little knowledge of the rights of conscientious objectors, and force them to serve despite their personal convictions. The United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (OHCHR) in Colombia stated in its 2010 report:

During 2010, OHCHR-Colombia observed irregular, and in some cases clearly illegal practices in the military recruitment process; these practices should be discontinued as soon as possible. Rapid development of mechanisms to regulate military service, including conscientious objection, with full respect for human rights, is urged.

Members of the Colombian armed forces carry out street round ups, illegally recruiting young men who are not carrying their libreta militar(military service card), a document that proves they have gone through the inscription process. Young men who are walking to school or work might be picked up through a street raid and find themselves, just a few hours later, in a military base beginning training to serve as soldiers. The UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention declared in its Opinion No 8/2008: “the practice of batidas or recruitment round-ups, whereby young men who cannot provide proof of their military status are apprehended on the streets or in public places, has no juridical foundation or legal basis.”[2] According to a report issued by the Collective Action for Conscientious Objection (ACOOC), in less than a month’s time between August 21, 2010 and September 12, 2010 they documented over 100 youth who were illegally recruited in Bogota through the practice of street round ups.[3] Additionally, groups have documented round ups in over 10 departments of Colombia and consider it to be a systematic practice carried out by the Colombian army.

Consequently, street roundups are defined as a “deprivation of liberty” and this is a violation of the 9th article of the United NationsInternational Covenant on Civil and Political Rights.  

Moreover, in November 2011, the Constitutional Court in its C-8488/11 ruling reaffirmed the right to object to military service and addressed the practice of street round ups declaring that they contravene Article 28 of the Constitution that protects Colombians from arbitrary detentions. The Court, while reasserting the Colombian state’s right to compel young men to fulfill their military service obligation, determined that “article 41 of Law 48 of 1993 cannot be understood in such a way as granting the military the power to realize indiscriminate street round ups with the aim of identifying ‘remisos’ and after which taking them to a place of confinement, because this practice will be defined as an arbitrary detention, which is prohibited by Article 28 of the Constitution.”[4]

In a recent case, Deivis Gregorio Martínez Castro, died on October 6, 2011, after he suffered a nervous collapse and jumped off the truck which was forcibly transporting him towards the military barracks in the city of Barranquilla.[5] And several of the soldiers killed in Arauca by the FARC during the tragic March 18, 2012 episode were reportedly recruited[6] through illegal street round-ups.

Other young people in Colombia are also victims of illegal and irregular recruitment practices. During routine recruitment appointments in which all young men 18 years of age must present themselves for their obligatory service, the military determines who is apt for service through physical and mental exams. Victims of displacement, students, indigenous people and others are exempt from fulfilling their military service. But in many cases, regardless of documentation presented to prove exemption, and in clear violation of Colombian law, military officials have incorporated the person into the military ranks anyway.  For example, according to the Medellín Youth Network, on August 31, 2011, twelve youth were detained by the IV Brigade to fulfill their military service, despite being exempt because they were students.[7]

We are concerned about the forced recruitment of youth carried out by illegal armed groups and we write to you because the army must respect young people’s human rights as a legitimate force of the state. All young people have the internationally recognized right to not take part in military service if it violates their conscience and to not be victims of irregular or illegal recruitment practices. We urge you to immediately take all appropriate measures to:

·       Stop the illegal practice of street round ups;

·       Educate the armed forces of the rights of Colombian youth and conscientious objectors;

·       Ensure that recruitment is carried out according to Colombian law;

·       Establish procedures to sanction officials who carry out arbitrary detentions of youth who don't have their military service cards.

The rights, consciences, and lives of young people, especially those who have declared themselves conscientious objectors -- a right now recognized by the Colombian Constitutional Court -- should be respected under all circumstances.

april: holy week, rumi, the summit of the americas, and tax day- so write me a letter, tell me your favorite song...

April kicked off with Holy Week and my departure from the CdP. As most people in Latin America will tell you, Semana Santa is not the week to travel. As if to rub it in, Semana Santa brought on airport closures and inclement weather to prevent my south-bound travels. I took off early in the morning for the airport in Apartado, only to sit there all day and then return, again, all the way to La Union. I arrived, laughing at the rising full moon, which seemed to be somehow conspiring with me, and thinking about how I was supposed to explain this return to everyone to whom I’d already said goodbye. I teased my neighbors who had cried that morning and told them all of the angels in heaven were crying in solidarity with them, and thus my plane could not fly.

And so it was that I came to spend a few more days in La Union. So it was that I came to see a neighbor walk by with freshly butchered pig meat wrapped in banana leaves.  And see the early risers off to work with their horses and mules. This is how I saw the roof of the library fall in and, later in the night, I saw stars through it. How I said goodbye to everyone who tried not to have to say goodbye to me. And watch my neighbors carry wood on their shoulders and sharpen their machetes and chop wood for their stoves like they do. This is how I heard salsa and vallenato and heard a child sing me a romantic ranchero at her grandmother’s house. I got to talk again with my neighbors, hold my favorite babies, and sing songs with the kids. I had a few more days to say goodbye to bunuelos by eating them in excess, and say goodbye to the magical, mystical cacautera and the relaxing breeze at the kiosks by simply being in them. I had a few more days to collect avocados and unripe mangos to stuff in my bag headed for the capital. I had time for a neighbor to tell me I stuck more to this town than gum to her shoe. (This was, of course, the second time that my initial travel date away from LU didn’t work out; in November I came back after there were landslides on the highway.) And this is how I came to repeat tearfull goodbyes.

I know that there are so many beautiful places and people in the world; I know there are so many places to go and people to meet. I know this, but it doesn’t matter. In those last few days, sitting at the kiosk, it is only  the cana and the sound of the machetes hidden inside the fields. At the tank it is only the blast furnace breeze through the cacao and the perfectly shaped green mangoes hanging from a tree. It is only the sound of the rain approaching the plateau, and the wind in the palms imitating that rain. In the end, breathing the air in La Union, it is hard to believe there is air anywhere else. It is hard to believe there is anywhere else that one is supposed to go.

And so it was that on my (second) last walk down to town, it is pissing rain and the river is waist deep and the current strong. A jungle whose life is everywhere in the deep greens and bright colors growing out and reaching for the two women at the side of the river, and then one starts her way across. Wet to the waist with a now wet bag on my back and my legs shaking from trying sooo hard to fight the current, I make it to the sand bar. I look back at my friend, who is under a blue pancho, crying in the downpouring rain because I am leaving and she is too scared to cross with the rushing water and her yelling at the top of her lungs DONT YOU DARE FUCKING DROWN and me barely hearing her over the rushing water and my legs trying so hard not to fall. And then all the way across, waiving back at her and then walking away through the sheets of rain and intense greens, alone, craddled by the life of the jungle.

And so it was that I arrived to Bogota to letters and candies from friends in far away places. And so it was that during my first week in Bogota, I marinated in this Rumi poem, honoring the love I left with the CdP:

Tender words we spoke

to one another

are sealed in the secret vaults

of heaven.

One day like rain,

they will fall to earth

and grow green

all over the world

I arrived to Bogota just in time to do some serious retreat preparations and then take off to Medellin for a week of full-team intensive planning for the next six months. It was exhausting, but overall we felt we got a lot done. It looks like I will be extending my time with FOR for a while yet.

Aside from my movement, April had some events worth mentioning:

The Summit of the Americas was held in Cartagena, Colombia this month. I guess most of the international news covered the secret service and armed forces cavorting with prostitutes, rather than the diplomatic Summit announcements like, for example, the passing of the Free Trade Agreement with Colombia (despite serious questions to the Obama administration about how exactly Colombia meets the Human Rights requirements) that is set to officially being May 15^th.  Or the People’s Summit where, alternative to the diplomatic summit, civilian groups got together to try and organize a people’s agenda. Emily and Susana represented FOR in Cartagena at this alternative summit. Here is a video where participants in the People’s Summit responded to the question, “What would you like to see come out of U.S.-Colombia policy?” Emily and the Bogota Witness for Team rocked out the taping and editing of this video over the weekend of the Summit:

http://forusa.org/multimedia/fifth-peoples-summit

If you are interested, take the time to read the declaration from the people’s summit, which I posted far below.

Most of you probably paid taxes this month. Did you know 53% of your tax dollars go to U.S. military spending? With some quick math, you can figure out exactly how many dollars that was. Gross.

Colombian President Santos made it onto the cover of Time magazine this month. I haven’t read the article yet, but the continued US-Colombia administration collaboration and acceptance by the international media/ mutual back-patting has me more than slightly uneasy.

Now I have been in Bogota for two weeks. I have been climbing Monseratte to get some air and see some trees, I have been dancing salsa, listening to music and using the oven. We said goodbye to Jon, joined a food co-op, started recycling, and were a part of setting the Guiness Book of World Records for the most people dancing cumbia in one place (highlight of my life!). I am listening to the new Baker London album online and skyping my family and friends. I am enjoying being reconnected to my bigger world of Gina pastpresentfuture, and I am missing being connected to LU.

A package from Monica and Chris just arrived and I filled my office with bubbles! Dad comes in town tonight! I live in Bogota now. Write me letters. Send me e-mails. Alert me when you have purchased your tickets to come visit. Hurrah!

Time and thought and space and tender words and blaring transitions and world politics and the life of the jungle and the life of the city and gentle movements and big plans and bigger improvisations and spiraling whirlwinds, all pumped with the sound of salvation… and somehow I have made it to the merry merry month of May.

Declaration from the People’s Summit in Cartagena:

Declaration of the People’s Summit

Cartagena, 2012

Versión en español.

The social and people’s organizations of the continent, gathered in the V People’s Summit – The True Voice of the Americas – from April 12-14 in Cartagena de Indias at the same time as the VI Summit of the Americas, declare:

We vigorously reject the insistence of the United States government to impose its agenda and decide the direction of these summits. Proof of this can be seen in its veto of Cuba’s participation in the Summit of the Americas as well as its strategy of militarization (for which it uses as a pretext the failed war on drugs, attention to natural disasters, and immigration control) as a way to maintain US hegemony. A fundamental component of this strategy is the criminalization of social movements.

The imperialist policies of the United States can be seen in its support of the coup d’ètat in Honduras and US backing of the illegitimate regime of Porfirio Lobo, its efforts to destabilize Haiti, its ongoing economic blockade of Cuba and the continued presence of the Guantanamo military base, as well as its opposition to the sovereignty of Argentina in the Falkland Islands.

It has been evident, following the Summit of Trinidad and Tobago [June 2009], that the government of President Obama has not fulfilled its offer to construct a new type of relationship with Latin America. In spite of the failure of th Free Trade Area of the Americas proposal, the United States government, in order to dodge the acute economic crisis that it has faced since 2007, insists on promoting free trade agreements and the entire neoliberal agenda which are an obstacle for regional integration and have mired the majority of the countries of the continent in backwardness and misery.

For its part, the Canadian government has declared a politics of free trade agreements, mega-industrial mining, and natural resource extraction in all of Latin America. Its industries are causing irreversible damages to the environment and to biodiversity, violating the rights of the people to their land. Social and environmental conflicts are multiplying as a result of this predatory model.

We recognize the advances in efforts at autonomous regional integration such as those established in the Bolivarian Alliance for the Americas (ALBA),  the Union of South American Nations (UNASUR), and the Community of Latin American and Caribbean States (CELAC). However, the construction and financing of democratic, progressive, and leftist governments must move toward overcoming a model based on extraction, agricultural monocultures for export, and the hoarding of land. Such practices damage essential rights such as free and informed prior consent and impede the full deployment of social movements as forces capable of deepening change.

The confluence of these governmental streams and those of social and political movements can be preserved to the degree that the people deepen their unity, their social and political mobilization, and do not renounce their autonomy and their ability to guarantee their rights. We note with satisfaction the sustained, non-violent, popular struggles against the neoliberal model.

At this V People’s Summit – The True Voice of the Americas, thousands of fighters from organizations of women, unions, students, farmers, indigenous people, African-descended people, small businesses, and ecumenical religious persons gathered from throughout the hemisphere. We deliberated on the problems that we consider truly fundamental for our countries and we moved forward in the construction of proposals and so, among other petitions, we demand:

- The elimination of foreign military bases, the end of colonialism, the cancellation of joint military and police exercises and training, the closing of the School of the Americas and the elimination of the Inter-American Defense System, and the end of the deployment of the IV fleet in our waters.

- The end of militarization under the pretext of the war on drugs and its replacement by a comprehensive, multilateral policy with emphasis on public health measures.

-  The end of the militarization of civil functions such as humanitarian assistance, disaster response, and immigration control.

- The end of the criminalization of social movements, and to the use of indigenous, afro, and campesino [small farmer] lands as battlefields. No to forced recruitment, to the use of women as spoils of war, and to forced displacement. In the case of Colombia, in which an armed, internal conflict persists, militarization has put these people on the brink of extinction.

- The elimination of free trade agreements and investments that deepen poverty, social exclusion, and inequality and which particularly affect women.

- The end of indiscriminate promotion of foreign investment, looking instead for relationships of cooperation and mutual benefit and the strengthening of autonomous processes of integration. The rights of investors cannot be above the rights of the people and of the environment. We condemn transnational companies as the primary actors in this model.

- We call for a new regional financial architecture that incorporates: South Bank, the Latin American Reserve Fund, and puts and end to the impoverishing politics of debt.

- Real solutions to the environmental and climate crisis directed toward its structural causes through rebuilding the financial architecture and thereby changing the development model. We defend life and common goods in the face of the commodification of nature driven by multilateral financial institutions and the countries of the North.

- Respect for the right of the people to decide their agriculture policies and assure their food sovereignty, to conserve and consume their native products, all of which are threatened by monocultures, biofuels, genetically modified organisms, and big mining.

- The creation of decent work for all, the guarantee of freedom of association and collective bargaining, and the end to violence against rural and urban workers of the continent to be made a priority.

- Effective changes in the education systems that assure full access to education with democratic participation in the education establishment and against the privatization and commodification of education. In defense of the right to education, we support the demand of the student movement of the continent for their education to be free and universal.

- Reestablish the right of Cuba to pertain to the multilateral system. Demand the United States cease the blockade of Cuba and cease its hostility toward governments that do not follow its dictates.

- The deepening of autonomous integration processes without the interference of the government of the United States, and the construction of broad processes of integration from the grassroots with respect, recognition, and incorporation of input from the communities for a society based in cooperation, good quality of life for all, and the construction of a culture of peace. Sister nations of the continent join with Colombia in the search for a negotiated and peaceful solution to the armed conflict.

We lament that the beautiful city of Cartagena is at the same time an example of inequality and poverty, and today of militarization with the occasion of the official summit of the presidents. We call upon all social sectors of the American continent so that we might undertake unanimously the struggles for the principles and aspirations described in this declaration, inviting them to accompany the peaceful mass civilian mobilization to achieve the proposed ends.

Finally, we consider that the Summit of the Americas cannot continue being an exclusive stage, subordinated to the empire, a simulation of false harmonies. This is our voice, the true voice of the people of the Americas and thus we proclaim it before the world.