Extracts from interview, August 23, 2004
Interviewer: John Lindsay-Poland

In that time, in those areas, it was really hard for the youth who didn’t have a position – that were not taking up arms. It was very hard because they were in the middle of a logic, a crossroads, right? You were the one carrying a weapon, or you were dying from a stab, right? It was a condition of absolute fear.

More than having a political idea of a different country, no, there was none of that at the beginning. It was, you could say, an instinctive response to a situation. They simply were tired. Of being in the middle of a bunch of armed groups, and people who are setting up weapons for youth, setting up disputes.

So, to be young was to be a problem, it was a symbol of violence, of war. And what these people who had the first idea did was to look for how to show a different image of young people. It was not an artificial image but an image of what they really were.

So they used culture a lot, and art. And what happened in that time of the Network’s founding was to create many groups, form groups of youth that were organized for artistic work. Groups of dance, of music, of theater, of folkloric dance. In two years, between ’88 and ’90 there were more than 30 youth groups created that were meeting in those three areas of the city where they were working.

And it went to a neighborhood that was very affected by the violence, and what they did then was call together the groups that were already organized. They had a big cultural fair in that neighborhood. Many youth participated, 300 youth.

That the life of young people - we are not only war, we have another idea. I mean, we are not interested in any group recruiting us. But we are interested in them allowing us to live out our path. And it is not an armed path.

They formed cells, the Network itself does not represent an entity or institution. The Network refers to a method that has allowed us to maintain up to now the dynamic for forming groups. Otherwise the Network would not have survived. The Network is all of that: the meeting, the interaction, the communication, everything that was put into it. More method than institutional, right?

When we got access to communication with the world, in ’96-’97, was when we found out that in the world people were living many situations of violence, that in many parts of the world they were being recruited, youth of different armies and that there were movements talking about strange things. Non-violence, resistance to war, civilian resistance…

There was a lot of motivation, and also communication by Internet. And there were people doing something that looked like what we do. But they had a whole political component. Our campaigns had been more instinctive but people had not training. It was all based on the desire to get out of that.

That was how we started to get going, to restructure the Network as a movement, a non-militarist proposal based on non-violence. But what we did was not applying the theories of anyone, but we put into context everything that we could.

The difference from the context in Spain is that we don’t have an army, we have many. What we conscientiously object to is the war, to all the armed groups that make up the war mentality. Nonviolence in Colombia is not the same as in other places. The problems are different, too, although they have patterns in common.

Our whole context was adverse [to the creation of the Network].

Among youth, there are diverse practices, diverse thinking, diverse visions of the world – plural youths. We can’t pigeonhole youth into one thing.

The dominant culture was that social expressions were lead, promoted, constructed by the adults. It was what we call adult-centric. To speak as a youth of politics was not coherent. The adults didn’t like it. If you talked about the war, if you talked about the country’s context, then the adults in the organizations and government told you no, you are youth without a political idea [discurso].

To start the groups meant going into the neighborhoods, looking for people, talking with the youth. And obviously, meeting up with the armed groups, questions, “You, what are you doing?” It was really risky. And there were many instances of youth who went up to promote the Network in some neighborhood and coincided in their visit with armed battles, they risked their life for the Network. And in addition it was a whole sacrifice that youth used their time to participate in a group, because they were young people studying, they were in school, and more than that, the majority had to work and bring money into their families.

The Network rose up out of desperation.

It was not so much what they said, as what they did. It was little talk, and a lot of action. The Network people who invited us in at that moment were very honest, and told us: Well, we’re trying to organize a proposal. We have some ideas. Our interest is that you come to contribute, to create… From going in, it was a language of inclusion. And that, well, the humblest person can tell… it is what has kept the Network going. It is not the same to make an organization for youth, as to make an organization with youth.

You would go to a Network meeting, and you would stay with a friend from this neighborhood, with two girls that asked for your phone number in another neighborhood… there were young people who never left their neighborhood. For example, I did not know the city. I was a normal being of the neighborhood. My geographic space was my neighborhood. And so the Network opened up a space, in addition to everything else, to know the city. We all had groups in the neighborhoods, the Network brought us out of the neighborhoods, opened a door to the city. Through the Network, we could share our stories, and come to understand why the war was a problem for us. All that you have lived takes power in you and structures your thinking, your way of seeing, of seeing the city, the young people, the world. The visions that we have today have been the product of all that we have lived and shared in that time – more than the product of academic learning.

The majority of the youth who have come to the Network have had a history with the violence, in the sense that they have been victims, that a family members has been killed, a friend, loved ones, companions. Or, they have seen killing. They are people who have lived the presence of violence, have lived that pain. And they are people who go looking for another possibility. It is like a gray panorama, and you see an organization that fills you with colors. You would stay, right?

The exhaustion has generated in us an identity. The war has generated in us an identity. The stories have generated in us an identity. There has never been a teacher like that, no.

[The Network’s vision for Colombia:]
There is clarity that there is no better or different Colombia possible while a logic of war continues to be. We believe that that has been the alternative for more than 50 years. It hasn’t worked, it didn’t work, and it won’t work. That is our vision.

There is a group that feels oppressed, because the government doesn’t listen, because it doesn’t want to make social reforms, it doesn’t want to make political reforms, because there is no agrarian reform. And that group decides to get out of the oppression. But it chooses a method, which is to arm themselves to be heard. We understand the reasons, and we can share them. But we do not share the method.

In Colombia they talk about armed revolutions, armed insurrections. But for us, revolutions are not made with weapons. Revolution, what is it? To renovate, to create, to invent – war was invented a long time ago, and weapons also. And there is no revolution; they are not revolutionizing anything. For us, they are all armies. They can profess different ideologies, have different names, but if you see what their structures are and how they operate, you don’t find any difference. They have central commands, principal commands, heads of that thing, platoons of whatever, training camps. They all function as armies.

To break the stigma was a bit of breaking with the perception that although we are an organization of youth, we can’t close ourselves off to share and talk only with youth. We have to open ourselves to discussion between generations. Because this too will allow us to overcome the stigma, and also nourish us with the visions of other people.

[The Network’s achievements]
In the city now, other social sectors that are organized have a lot of respect for the youth. And not just specifically for the Network’s youth, but for other young people. But this has been the product also of everything that the Network has sought and promoted, so that the city understands that there is power in youth.

Six or seven years ago, no one imagined that in the city there would be so much talk of campaigns against the war, young people speaking and publicly promoting their conscientious objection: I’m here, I didn’t go into any army, come, arrest me, I have a support group around. All those actions have generated an environment in the city that is propitious, not just for discussing the issue of conscientious objection, militarism and nonviolence, but an environment propitious for reaching people through the stories of the young guys. A lot of sensitivity and a lot of solidarity have been created.

And that is more important, more even than that the whole city talks nonviolence or objection, that the people can live it, feel what is important, that it is a real alternative, that it is not utopia, because there are 50, 100 young people going around there, saying they are conscientious objectors.

Medellín is a very isolated city. Little is known about what happens in Medellín with resistance initiatives. I believe that the work of the Network has allowed many to center their attention on the different movements happening in Medellín. That has been the result of the tours, the conference, the international meetings, the lobbying work.

All of the youth who participate in the Network are talking about the same thing, but each one has their own expression: musical, artistic, direction actions, they write, take photos, organize more groups. There are different ways of doing work that is centered on promoting a path of resistance to the war of armies. And that has allowed the movement to be massive, because no one feels excluded, because however they want, they can explain it.

When a group of people organize themselves around a situation in common that is oppressing them, there is a lot of power, no?

At that time in the city, free and public events didn’t exist. They were closed. Imagine that in your neighborhood block there is a gigantic screen to see a movie.

They went down from different neighborhoods, and they met in one of the main avenues of the city. They went to San Antonio Park. It was an impressive thing, with a lot of people. And it closed with the millennium concert, where Todos tus Muertes [All your Dead] came, a big group from Argentina. And the final result was a big manifesto for the close of the millennium where everything that had been gathered of what the youth thought about the closing millennium was put down, and what they wanted from the coming millennium.

We have had to learn to be one step ahead of what they’re thinking, in this case the government, the armed groups. An idea is not so relevant if it occurs to you after the adversary takes a step. You have to be always prepared, and even have two or three ideas for responding.

Be at the places where the army is recruiting to promote messages against war, and take advantage, in fact, if there are arrests. If they don’t arrest us, okay, we get the word out. And if they arrest us, then there is another group already prepared to find the meaning in that arrest to be able to denounce the situation.

The Network has done many street actions. And that is difficult in a context like Medellín’s, with so much public prohibition, so much repression. But at the same time that makes the actions more notable, because it is what people don’t expect. What the police don’t expect.

Kids who have been at risk of being recruited in their neighborhood by paramilitary groups or “urban blocks” of the FARC, they have gone to the Network. It means more risk because, obviously, as creative as the Network may be, we still don’t have strategies to go up against an armed group in a neighborhood.

What we have done in this case is to use the formation of very broad support groups. In some cases, there have been young men who write a declaration that is sent to all the contacts we have, and protection groups are created that generally are accompanying the youth that has made the decision in his daily work. Like, accompany him to have a beer… be with him, and be always ready. And of course, seek all the international solidarity possible, because it is the main form of protection there is.

This information is received by the organizations we know as well as the armed groups. I believe that they still respect some when there is a whole group around a person’s decision.

A kid, in his neighborhood was about to be recruited by the paras. The paras had told him that he had to turn himself in. He said no, he was not interested, that it was not his path, which was something else. Then, they threatened him. He was really brave and spoke with us and organized a community bonfire in his neighborhood. And he talked about everything we did, and it was like publicity, he told about what had happened, and that he had made a decision and asked for the solidarity of everyone to support him and to know that he had a different vision and wanted respect for his decision.

He converted the community, his neighbors. And he still has his support group. And if in some moment he has some difficulty or security problem, he contacts his support group. And his support group has a plan, such as for example, put him in someone’s house. Others write on the Internet, others compile his case and do the legal work if needed.

If the Colombian military institutions care about anything, it is to protect their image. It is not the image of a military institution, it is the image of a country and a government.

One is an objector when one has made a decision, has set out a conviction in order to work from that, in actions. If it doesn’t go through one’s life, then it is a speech, a theory.

They tell me that in the schools they don’t teach the kids geography. That on the map, South America doesn’t exist. And, if I were teacher in this country, I would teach youth that studied with me how important Colombia is to the maintenance of this country. All the food they sell, all the natural resources that are important for this country.

Only from that perspective could I inculcate a little of the idea of solidarity. It is not that a country is more than another, but that each country needs the other to survive. If only that were understood, I believe that the vision of Colombia would be very different.

Something difficult for the Network has been to subsist in a city that has a crisis of imagination. We have been accused of being dreamers, utopians, because we talk of a world without armies, of anti-militarism. And that is not in people’s minds. Because what the war has done is introduce a chip, like a computer program, that processes one’s ideas and there can’t be anything outside of that.

And in moments of the city’s crisis, there have been circumstances that make the majority of people keep their eyes on the ground. And the Network, with its idea… to keep ourselves at that level of imagination has been difficult. It is a city with a crisis of ideas.