NEW THREATS AGAINST THE PEACE COMMUNITY
Recently some news made us all jump up from our office seats in front of our mini-mac. José Obdulio Gaviria, a former aide to ex-Colombian-president Álvaro Uribe Vélez, hosts what is — luckily — a not widely-viewed cable TV show called Cablenoticias, together with Jaime Arturo Restrepo, the president of the association of civil victims of the guerrillas. On January 6, they accused several members of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó of being guerrilla leaders and threats to the country.
It was not the first time such harassment has happened. Since the enormous international outcry after the massacre of eight people, including three children, in 2005, massacres against the Peace Community have stopped. The risk of another international response like the one in 2005, which resulted in the six-month suspension of a portion of U.S. military aid to Colombia, has led, it seems, the Colombian government and its paramilitary allies to believe that massacres are not worth the political cost.
This does not mean, however, that Peace Community members are no longer at risk. There are still selective assassinations and continuous threats from the local public forces as well as from other armed groups. On December 11, for example, the police reportedly stopped, interrogated, and insulted a community member at a roadblock. During the community’s pilgrimage in Bogota on November 2, some police officers went to the place where they were staying and told the porter that they were hosting guerrillas, according to the community. This leads to a general environment of fear on the part of community members and a reluctance to travel far from their homes.
Nonetheless, the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó continues steadfast in its principles of neutrality and in its conflict with the Colombian state over its ability to maintain that neutrality and independence.
In recent years we have seen multiple examples of media attempts to strip the community of its credibility and support network by accusing it of collaboration with the guerrillas. Specifically targeting community leaders with these accusations, the accusers put the community and especially the leaders at risk given the regularity of targeted assassinations against those accused of guerrilla collaboration.
These accusations have been published in local, national and even international media — such as an op-ed by Mary Anastasia O’Grady in the Wall Street Journal in December 2009. A similar article in June 2009, in the Dutch magazine Vrij Nederland even led the Netherlands’ Foreign Ministry to temporarily question the community’s neutrality.
Accusations such as Gaviria’s always fill us with indignation, especially those of us who know personally the accused individuals. FOR volunteers have lived alongside the Peace Community and their members, and have had the chance to get to know their wonderful character and their commitment to nonviolence and neutrality. We know that the accusations are unfounded, and we know how much it affects their personal security.
... und ausserdem: Ich komm aller voraussicht nach wieder auf heimatlichen Boden. Diesesmal sogar 2 Monate (April & Mai) ... yipppeeehhh!!!!
