Most of our time we are lying in hammocks discussing about future & past reunions with generals/military or the peace community leaders, about any "chisme" (= gossip) of little La Union or military movements in the region. Cooking and sleeping also request a lot of time, as well as chatting with the locals, playing football with the kids, enjoying beautiful nature (as eg a georgous river for swimming) or watching the "embarque" (= shipping) of the fair-trade-peace-community bananas which later on will be bought by consumerism-sensitive persons in Europe.
Seems to be a gorgeous, quiet lifestyle ... but not everything is like it seems at the first instant ... explosions, mines and illegal actions and threats from the armed actors in the region leave the small peace community under tension. If we as international accompaniers have to leave the village - for buying vegetables, downloading bulk-documents from the internet or getting gas for cooking - people are afraid, afraid of any danger they could face in the meanwhile, without any international backup that makes them politicaly so much stronger and secure.
They have been disappointed by so many organisations as well as by the state, that they continue to fight their fight nearly all by themselves ... relying just on very few organisations ... as for example FOR (Fellowship of Reconciliation) with which I´m based in La Union.
Last week a member of the peace community stepped on a mine while he was leaving the main path for watching out for his pig which was walking arround the forrests and enjoying its life as free-range-breed. Instead of calling the International Red Cross (in which the community already doesn´t trust in) the people prefered to themselves run up the mountain to rescue th[imagebrowser id=1]e guy from bleeding to death and bring him down to the hospital in a hammock. Because of the military placed arround the region they needed us to accompany them to guard their emergengy-run, and keep the armed actors from stopping them and asking to many questions which could mean the death of the injured.
This was one of the things that happened in the last (2) weeks during me being in La Union. At the moment I´m in Medellin (2nd biggest town in Colombia) for an other accompaniment of a Colombian organisation working with "campesinos" (= farmers) to help them from beeing displaced through threats of armed actors.
Water, Energy and the Displacement Factor
by Marion E. Hiptmair
I joined the FOR team in La Unión, San José de Apartadó in the beginning of November. After only a few weeks, because of logistical circumstances, I got the chance to join a FOR accompaniment trip in northeastern Antioquia, along the Porce River. "Great!" I thought, without knowing a lot about how tough this journey would be.
The number of displaced people in Colombia is high, second worldwide only to Sudan. In the case of Colombia, Colombia has a lot of natural resources to offer, and one of its valuable resources is water. Through that, much of Colombia's energy is produced in big hydroelectric plants. This energy is not considered renewable, as these plants have an enormous effect on in the ecology and population of this region and of Colombia. A hydroelectric plant of this size needs a lot of space and the flow, size and density of the river changes. These changes very often lead to displacement, not just in Colombia.
In this case, Medellín Public Enterprises plan to build a new hydroelectric plant "Porce IV" along the Porce River, a project worth US$ 800 million. The eminent domains of the region are organized and the implementation of the 400 megawatt plant is foreseen for 2015. This construction affects several small villages along the river and will cause the displacement of about 1500 families, some of them already displaced by the construction of the Porce III plant.
People in this region are mostly gold miners and "chaluperos" (transporting goods and people with their motor canoes or "chalupas"). To secure social justice for themselves with the construction of Porce IV, local people organized themselves, assisted by the Antioquía Peasant Association (ACA). FOR has accompanied the ACA, an organization that supports farmers through workshops, investigations and organization in their fight against injustice, since 2005.
Our adventurous accompaniment started in Medellin. We went in a camioneta (pick-up truck) to Amalfi, a small village in northeastern Antioquia and one of the places affected by the construction of Porce IV. From Amalfi we continued in a camion (small truck) where we sat in the open back with excellent view on the stars of Colombia. When we finally arrived in "La Vega de Naranjal" we filled our still empty stomachs with a delicious Colombian meal. In Colombia, meals in general always include some kind of meat, rice, beans, patacon (mashed and fried plantain), plus the famous agua panela (sweet sugar cane in water) ... mmmhhmm ... After this dinner and a whole day of traveling, military controls, and talking, we fell totally exhausted into our beds.
At 5:30 am some people from the village came into the guest house and woke us with a nice breakfast of tinto (sweet black coffee) and freshly-made buñelos (fried dough balls). After this refreshment we set out on a 3 hour walk to Los Trozos, from where we continued in chalupas along the Porce River to Zaragoza, where a big community meeting would take place. The trip in the chalupa was an adventurous rafting ride through this region wonderful nature. We saw colorful birds, monkeys swinging through the trees and many marvelous plants. Once we arrived in Zaragoza, we all were quite surprised, as it was much bigger and hotter than we had expected. After a refreshing shower we went on to the community meeting. To inform people of our presence we were invited to give a short presentation of FOR and its work in Colombia. The evening and the next day were full of meetings, until ultimately we left in the afternoon with a colectivo (shared taxi) and a bus back to Medellín.
People we met at this accompaniment were great and really appreciated our presence. We were invited to so much food and tinto, that we hardly could have eaten more. Several people told us about the positive effect of international accompaniment, saying that they felt much more secure and could express themselves more openly.
I hope this was an interesting little insight into my work here in Colombia > I´m trying to publish a web-blog, but as you can imagine with little and slow internet-access, any internet-activity becomes something very rare. But as soon as my blog is filled with content I´ll send you the link, which will then hopefully clarify some of your questions.
Let me know how you are doing!
All, all the best,
Marion.
