Otanga Daily Times, 9/24/2006
by Elizabeth Duke

Children and adults carry smooth stones up from the river. They paint them in bright colours, and write a name on each. The Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, in northern Colombia, commemorates its murdered dead - over 150 from a rural community of around 1500.

For half a century Colombia has suffered internal violence, much of it directed at control of its natural and mineral wealth. Today a right-wing government is fighting left-wing guerrillas, with the aid of paramilitaries, who are nominally independent "self-defence forces", but with close ties to the army. The stakes are heightened by the huge profits from the trade in coca, the raw material of cocaine, and by United States intervention to cut off cocaine at its source, and to control this strategically vital region.

The conflict bears most heavily on the ordinary people of Colombia - indigenous peoples, Afro-Colombians, small farmers. Each of the armed groups suspects them of supporting the other side, and uses threats, assaults, killings and 'disappearances" to enforce its will. Great numbers of rural people have been displaced by terror, settling in hastily-built housing on the outskirts of cities.

The people of San José de Apartadó have chosen to reject violence, whatever the cost. In the face of intimidation and murder they agreed in 1997 to stay on their land and to declare themselves a Peace Community. No-one bearing arms - State forces, paramilitaries, guerrillas - is welcome on their land, and they refuse to sell their produce to armed groups. Of the 150+ deaths since 1997 the Community attributes 20 to guerrillas, the rest to State forces and paramilitaries. Worst and most recent was the massacre of February 2005, when soldiers killed four adults and three children, aged 11, 6 and 18 months. The bodies were mutilated.

After these murders the Government set up an armed police post in the township of San José. Unable to prevent this, and fearing violence from all sides, the people left their homes and built a new settlement further downhill, called San Josesito, "Little San José". They took down what they could, including the precious memorial stones of their dead, which they plan to build into a new monument.

I visited San Josesito in August 2006, with an international delegation organised by the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) USA, one of the international peace groups which support the Peace Community. We saw the newly built timber homes and community centre, the shower and toilet block, the kindy, the community's gardens, fishponds and henhouse, and the circle
within which the dead are buried, and where the memorial will be built.

The potholed 4WD track runs out soon after San Josesito. We took the two-hour journey by mule or horse up a muddy rocky trail to the Community's main agricultural village, La Unión. On the way we passed through the township which they had left, San José. The armed police based there had built a basketball court, and posted a notice - "San José, town of peace". Some houses remain empty, some are occupied by "demobilised" paramilitaries. (Community members have recognised men, supposedly demobilised, taking part in new paramilitary groups.)

La Unión lies among fertile hills, some covered with native trees, some planted with bananas and other crops. The Community cuts timber as needed, and protects seedlings of replacement trees. From the hills on a clear day you can see the coast of the Caribbean, but you cannot see whether there are guerrillas moving cross-country through the trees, or army and paramilitaries in search of the guerrillas. The Peace Community, refusing entry and support to all armed groups, is vulnerable to attacks from all sides. Two young international volunteers from the Fellowship of Reconciliation live in La Unión year round. The presence of international "accompaniers" deters attacks which could otherwise be committed with impunity.

Even more vulnerable than the inhabitants of La Unión are the families whose land is scattered further up the hillsides. The Community is developing small village centres, "humanitarian zones", in which people can take refuge if fighting breaks out in the area. We visited the first of these, Arenas Altas, another two hours up steep tracks, or by a shorter route slashed through thick bush. Sitting on chairs from the village school, we were told, "The army came over that hill, where you entered the village, and killed one man working his fields. They fired at the school, which was full of children, and later claimed it was occupied by guerrillas. The schoolteacher, who gave evidence to the contrary, was forced by threats to leave."

These villages practise mixed farming - cattle, pigs, poultry, ducks and fish kept in ponds. They grow vegetables, maize and sugar cane. Fruits such as banana, citrus and pineapple flourish. La Unión has two main cash crops, baby bananas and cocoa beans. The banana boxes are loaded onto mules and carried downhill, to be transported into town by truck. Sometimes the vehicles are raided on the way into town (and some drivers have been killed), sometimes the money is stolen on the way home. This may be simply crime, or a political attempt to ruin the Community.

Children and adults carry stones and gravel up from the river. It is a Community work day, and they are levelling and filling the muddy track towards the town of Apartadó. One day a week is spent on Community projects. On other days they care for their crops in work groups of 3 to 7 people. These groups, originally a protection against attacks on lone cultivators, have become a key bond in the communal life. Peace and co-operation are the Community's principles. As we pass they pause and wave goodbye. We carry with us their message, "Remembering is a commitment to
the future".