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  Colombian 'Peace Communities' Issue Call for Help
Posted by FoM on August 23, 2001 at 10:28:30 PT
By Yadira Ferrer  
Source: Common Dreams 

justice Around 5,000 peasant farmers in Colombia who returned to their land after being displaced by the decades- old civil war are asking the government for protection from the continuing harassment by right-wing paramilitaries and leftist rebels.

The so-called peace communities set up in the western department of Chocó, on the border with Panama, are urging authorities to help them avoid having to once again flee their communities, as they did back in 1997.

Since early this year, the leftist Armed Revolutionary Forces of Colombia (FARC), the main guerrilla group, has been attempting to move into the area where the peace communities are located.

In the meantime, the paramilitary umbrella, the United Self- Defense Forces of Colombia (AUC), is trying to maintain control over the Atrato River, along which the peace communities were set up, in order to keep the insurgents from using the river as a supply route.

The rules governing the peace communities, which emerged out of an agreement with the government, prohibit members from participating in the war in any way, and from giving information or supplies to any of the armed factions, including the army. However, neither the FARC nor the AUC have respected their neutrality.

The irregular armed groups ``kill members of our communities'' and do not allow them to move around freely, a leader of one of the peace communities, who came to Bogota to knock on the doors of the government, told IPS. He also complained that the residents were subjected to thorough searches at army checkpoints.

The delegate asked not to be identified, because that could cost him his life. ``Our situation is very difficult: we are caught between a rock and a hard place. You live in a state of nerves day and night, because you could be killed at any time.''

In recent months, the FARC has allegedly killed 18 members of the peace communities, while the paramilitaries purportedly murdered 21. Three others are still missing (one reportedly at the hands of the FARC).

``In good faith, we have lived up to our commitment and our decision not to get involved with the armed groups. But the armed factions force us into things,'' said another member of the peace communities. ``They ask us for water. We tell them we cannot give them any - but we are staring down the barrel of a gun, which tells us `hand it over or die'.''

The two delegates were in the capital to demand that the government fulfill the terms of the accord that paved the way for the farmers to return to their land. In the agreement, the government pledged to protect the peace communities and provide security, as well as a stronger presence of civilian authorities in the area, in order to guarantee development and social investment.

``We don't want to be displaced again, or to become `the forgotten ones' of Colombia,'' one of the representatives of the peace communities added.

More than 10,000 small farmers, most of them from black communities in the strategically located, biologically rich municipalities of Riosucio and Carmen del Darién, were forced by the violence to abandon their lands four years ago.

Some took refuge in the banana-export port city of Turbon or the town of Pavarandó in the department of Antioquia. Others crossed the border into Panama.

In October of that year, 5,000 displaced persons who had fled to Pavarandó decided to return to their land in the department of Chocó, where they set up the San Francisco de Asís, Natividad de María and Nuestra Señora del Carmen peace communities, to try to piece together their lives in the midst of the conflict.

The risks faced by the peace communities are very serious, said Catholic priest Alejando Angulo, the director of the Jesuit-run Centre for Popular Research (CINEP), which has been providing support for the returning peasant farmers.

``The dispute over that territory is very intense, and these unarmed communities are exposed to the risk of forced or voluntary displacement,'' Angulo told IPS.

``They have no chance of enduring,'' he added.

Organized in large groups, they are trying - ``on their own initiative, and at their own risk'' - to engage in dialogue with the various armed factions, said the priest.

As Angulo sees it, a ``certain level of indifference'' by the state to the serious problems faced by the peace communities has compounded the army's inability to respond simultaneously at every point where local communities are facing threats.

In short, the situation is a consequence of ``the weakness of the state,'' he maintained.

Members of CINEP have also felt the pressure of armed groups in the Atrato River area, although ``not with the same frequency nor with the same severity with which the population is treated,'' said Angulo. ''We are identified as part of the Church, which wins us some respect.''

In May, President Andrés Pastrana visited the peace communities, where he delivered collective title deeds, making them the formal owners of the land. But the lack of security has not allowed the farmers to get out and work their property.

``We are calling on the state to give us the security we need to work our land; we are frustrated by the lack of security. The president handed us our land titles, and 15 days later [the armed groups] began to violently force us off our property,'' said the delegates visiting Bogota.

The two men said members of the paramilitary groups were forcing them off their property in order to implement their own agribusiness project: to plant 40,000 hectares of African palm trees. ``The government must clearly define who the land belongs to. Is it ours? Or who are we taking care of it for?'' they wondered.

``We have issued a call for the international community to show solidarity with our efforts, and to exert pressure on the Colombian state to clearly commit itself to protecting our rights,'' said the peasant farmers, who explained that they had sent a letter to United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson.

Newshawk: dddd
Source: Common Dreams (ME)
Author: Yadira Ferrer
Published: Thursday, August 23, 2001
Copyright: 1997-2001 Common Dreams
Contact: editor@commondreams.org
Website: http://www.commondreams.org/

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