Events of 2010

http://www.hrw.org/world-report-2011/world-report-2011-colombia

Downloadable Resources:

World Report Chapter: Colombia



What is the cost of truth for families immobilised by Colombia’s violent past? In 2005, Colombia started gathering evidence about the horrific violence being carried out by illegal paramilitias. A highly controversial justice and peace process allowed paramilitary leaders to hand in their weapons and give themselves up voluntarily in exchange for reduced sentences. Impunity documents the hearings in which paramilitaries describe atrocities they have committed in detail as the families of their victims listen and watch on projected screens. Through a series of these testimonies, footage of paramilitary crimes, and interviews with victims and experts, the brutal history of paramilitary violence comes to light. Yet due to serious irregularities in the justice and peace process, many families express their fear that they will never know the truth surrounding the deaths of their loved ones, and that the perpetrators will escape punishment. In an era where many countries are tempted to sacrifice justice in the name of “peace”, what happens in Colombia will resonate beyond its borders.

A Q&A discussion with filmmakers Juan José Lozano and Hollman Morris will take place at both screenings.

Human Rights Watch has documented the serious flaws in the original Justice and Peace program and engaged in extensive advocacy work to strengthen investigations and ensure accountability for paramilitary abuses. Human Rights Watch’s most recent report on Colombia documented on-going and egregious abuses by armed groups made up largely of former members of the paramilitary organisations that had officially disbanded. http://www.hrw.org/americas/colombia

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Colombia\’s Dying Tribes – Unreported World

Colombian’s helpline for homeland (From the ‘Northern Scot’, published March 05, 2010)

A COLOMBIAN-born woman is raising money in Moray to help remedy a decades-long crisis in her homeland that she describes as “an invisible tragedy”.  

Fabiola Fuentes, who now lives in Forres, said many Colombian people have been subjected to violence and have suffered a long list of social and economic problems for more than 40 years.  It has resulted in thousands fleeing their homes, she said, to escape warring armed groups.  “What is happening in Colombia is an invisible tragedy because we have been labelled as a drug country. People in other countries cannot see what is really going on there,” Ms Fuentes said.  Ms Fuentes has lived in Moray for the past three years, having moved to England 10 years ago to find charities that would support poor communities back in Colombia.  She now runs courses in Moray on a technique known as Nonviolent Communication, which is geared towards helping people resolve conflict without violence. She then uses the money raised from hosting those sessions to help displaced people back in Colombia.  Last year, she travelled to the South American country twice to distribute the cash.  According to Ms Fuentes, the communities she works with in Colombia have faced “horrendous situations” and serious violations of their human rights.  “It includes the right to life, massacres, killings, forced displacement, rape, extortion and living in a threatening atmosphere in the areas where they have settled,” she continued.

The full article can be found online:  http://www.northern-scot.co.uk/news/fullstory.php/aid/9497/Colombian_s_helpline_for_homeland.html

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Non-violent communication workshop to be held at forres  (From the Press and Journal, Feb 26, 2010)

DISPLACED people in Colombia will benefit from a two-day peace course in Moray this weekend.

The workshop, called Non Violent Communication, is being led by Colombian-born Fabiola Fuentes, who now lives at Forres.  Non Violent Communication stems from a global network of people and communities committed to living and teaching the subject to resolve conflict and meet the needs of all people.  Ms Fuentes, 48, is a self-employed certified trainer who aims to raise awareness and funds to help displaced people in her homeland. She runs weekly workshops at her home at Beeches Cottage, Forres, and five weekend courses to help fund various projects in her home city of Valledupar, in north-east Colombia.  She said: “I came to Britain 10 years ago because I wanted to find charities and bring some money back to Colombia.” 

The full article can be found online at: http://www.pressandjournal.co.uk/Article.aspx/1622695?UserKey=#ixzz0hm8ghlg3

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Fabiola Fuentes is running Project Mingueo to bring hope and relief to the underprivileged communities of Valledupar; the project is being documented in our film ‘Where there is hope’ .

NB,  SLTD, STF

Un nuevo reporte de Human Rights Watch (Herederos de los paramilitares: la nueva cara de la violencia en Colombia),  basado en varios años de investigación de campo, anota que el incremento en los ‘sucesores’ de los grupos paramilitares ha coincidido con el aumento significativo en los índices de desplazamiento interno en Colombia desde el 2004 hasta el 2009.

El reporte documenta extendidos y serios abusos por parte de los grupos sucesores de la coalición paramilitar conocidos como las Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC. El reporte detalla como estos grupos sucesores regularmente cometen masacres, asesinatos, desplazamientos forzados, violaciones sexuales y extorsión y crean una atmósfera de amenaza en las comunidades que controlan. Como el reporte también anota, a menudo, estos grupos dirigen sus amenazas a los defensores de los derechos humanos, sindicalistas, víctimas de estos mismos grupos paramilitares que están en búsqueda de justicia y miembros de la comunidad que no obedecen sus órdenes.

El reporte de Human Rights Watch, el cual ve a estos grupos sucesores como ‘un resultado predecible de una desmovilización deficiente’, hace un llamado a las autoridades colombianas a responder de manera efectiva frente a los violentos grupos que están cometiendo abusos de derechos humanos a lo largo del país.

Vínculos al Reporte y al comunicado de prensa de Human Rights Watch:

 http://www.hrw.org/node/88065

 http://www.hrw.org/en/news/2010/02/03/colombia-hay-que-poner-fin-los-abusos-de-grupos-sucesores-de-los-paramilitares

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Internal Displacement and the rise of new paramilitary groups in Colombia

A new report from Human Rights Watch (‘Paramilitaries’ Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia‘), based on nearly two years of field research, notes that the rise of ‘successor’ paramilitary groups has coincided with a significant increase in the rates of internal displacement within Colombia from 2004 through 2007.

The report documents widespread and serious abuses by successor groups to the paramilitary coalition known as the United Self-Defense Forces of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC). The report details how successor groups regularly commit massacres, killings, forced displacement, rape, and extortion, and create a threatening atmosphere in the communities they control.  As the report goes on to note, often, these groups target human rights defenders, trade unionists, victims of the paramilitaries who are seeking justice, and community members who do not follow their orders.

The Human Rights Watch report, which sees the successor groups as a ‘predictable outcome of a flawed demobilization’, calls on the Colombian authorities to respond more effectively to these violent groups who are committing human rights abuses around the country.

Link to the Human Rights Watch report and the Human Rights Watch Press Release (CTRL + click to follow link):

 Paramilitaries’ Heirs: The New Face of Violence in Colombia

 Human rights watch Press Release

Colourful Christmas decorations, strung out across the track, flutter in the breeze.

We are greeted by smiles, laughter, openness and curiosity from the children, and, at times, a shyness from their parents.

Shelters and homes built out of scraps of wood and waste, nestle amongst more solid dwellings.

An overriding memory of the warmth of those smiles…

S T, N & SF.

(filmed shortly before Christmas, 2009, on the way to a meeting with the displaced community)

Es mi primera visita a Valledupar, capital del departamento del Cesar, Colombia, Suramérica. Llegué hace tan sólo unos días, cinco para ser más precisa. Más de cinco son las veces que he tenido la cobarde intención de escribir unas letras para intentar expresar las enredadas ecuaciones que matemáticamente se multiplican dentro de mi adormilado ser cada día que se pone el sol en esta calurosa ciudad del vallenato. Cobarde porque hasta la fecha de hoy no me he atrevido a buscar las fórmulas que me lleven a resolver el álgebra de mis sentimientos. Tanto aspecto numérico puede confundir  a la gran mayoría de lectores, especialmente cuando se pone en relación con la vertiente emocional. Sepan ustedes que no es mi intención confundirles. Lo que ocurre es que cuando uno no tiene claridad, tiende a transmitir una cierta confusión.

Veamos si puedo desenmascarar esta sucesión de capas que he venido vistiendo y, por qué no decir , luciendo incluso, a lo largo de mi vida.

Hablaba de mi cobardía y de mi confusión y aprovecho ahora la ocasión para confesar mis inmensas ganas de enfrentarme a la primera  de aclarar la segunda.

Escondida cobardía la mía porque no he tenido el valor da abrir esa cajita de los sentimientos que se encuentra enterrada bajo más de siete capas de mi piel quemada por el sol de Nabusimake*. No es fácil exponer a esta brisa que corre en las noches de Valledupar aquellas emociones y sentimientos que revolotean dentro de esa cajita. Cómo abrirla y dejar salir (y entrar) el dolor, el miedo, la desolación, la angustia y la desconfianza de la gente golpeada por la violencia, desplazada de sus tierras y arraigos, desposada de bienes muebles e inmuebles, desencajada y aturdida por la desgracia de pérdidas de familiares y amigos….etc. El ‘etcétera’ es tan interminable y tan doloroso que casi resulta banal transcribirlo.

Durante estos cinco días de mi estadía en estas tierras costeñas, mi parte emocional se ha enfrentado a un torrencial de sentimientos, aplacándolos una y otra vez, pues duele escuchar, de primera mano, la tragedia de un país desgarrado por la pérdida. Duele demasiado escuchar a alguien decir que no quiere regresar a sus tierras porque no desea morir; duele hasta los huesos escuchar a una hija narrar la muerte de su padre a manos de la violencia; duele hasta la última de mis células escuchar la descripción de un pueblo sembrado de muertos; duele asimilar un hecho (sin ningún derecho) que traspasa cual afilada daga a cada colombiano : todos y cada uno han sido tocados, rasgados, desgarrados por la violencia. Pero lo que más duele hasta lo más profundo del alma mía y de todo ser que se atreve a abrir la cajita es la ausencia absoluta del por qué, la búsqueda incierta de la palabra ‘entender’, la impotencia debilitada ya por la incomprensión, el desconsuelo de la sin razón, lo absurdo de la tragedia….suma y sigue, de nuevo la banalidad de un ridículo etc.

Y al final de esta reflexión personal me percato de un pequeño detalle, a mi no me salen las cuentas. En este conflicto personal y del país las matemáticas pierden su exactitud, las fórmulas se derriten a la sombra de un árbol de mango, las restas suman y las sumas restan y yo sostengo mi cajita en mi regazo, tímidamente abierta, dolorosamente pesada, sin entender muy bien por qué la violencia ha de ser un sustantivo contable. Suma y sigue.

Sin embargo salgo a la calle, al encuentro de esa X y de esa Y que dan forma a mi alterada ecuación, y me cruzo con la esperanza en cada esquina, saludándome con la amabilidad, cortesía y cariño que caracteriza al colombiano. Me sonríe generosamente al darme los buenos días, baila coqueta un vallenato en sus calles de color y de alegría, descansa plácidamente bajo un cielo blanco de estrellas, se cocina en cada sancocho, se toma en toda cantina que se precie, se solea en una hamaca, se pasea por las bulliciosas avenidas, se acuesta y se levanta cada mañana y le da gracias a la vida por su incondicional compañía.

A fin de cuentas, la esperanza en este país también suma y sigue.

S.F.

*Nabusimake – pueblo indígena en las remotas montañas de Sierra Nevada al suroeste de la cuidad de Valledupar.

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This is my first visit to Valledupar, capital of the department of Cesar, Colombia, South America.  I arrived only a few days ago, five to be more precise.  More than five, are the number of times that I have had the cowardly intention of writing a few lines, in order to try to express the complicated equations which mathematically multiply within my drowsy being, every day that I pass into the Sun in this warm city of vallenatos.  Cowardly because, until today, I have not been brave enough to search for the formulas that will help me to resolve the algebra of my own feelings.  Such a numerical aspect may well confuse the great majority of readers, especially when it is placed in relation to the emotional aspect.  You know that it is not my intention to confuse you.  But what happens is that when one does not have clarity, one tends to transmit a degree of confusion.

We will see if I can unpeel and throw off this succession of layers that has been covering me and present, why not say it, throughout my life.

I was speaking of my cowardice and confusion and I will now take advantage of the occasion to confess my immense desire to confront the former and clarify the latter.

Mine is a hidden cowardice because I haven’t had the courage to open this box of feelings that lies buried beneath more than seven layers of my skin, scorched by the Sun of Nabusimake.*  It isn’t easy to expose to the breeze that runs through the nights of Valledupar, these emotions and feelings that churn within the box.  How to open it and let escape (and enter) the pain, the fear, the desolation, the anguish and distrust of people beaten by ‘the violence’, displaced from their deep-rooted lands, dispossessed of buildings and furniture, dislocated and bewildered by the misfortune of losing family and friends….etc.  The ‘etcetera’ is so interminable and painful that it is almost trite to write it down.

During these five days of my stay in these coastal lands, my emotional side has confronted a torrent of feelings, subduing them again and again; it hurts to hear, first hand, the tragedy of a country torn apart by loss.  It hurts too much to hear someone say that they do not want to go back to their land because they are afraid of dying; it hurts me to my bones to hear a daughter tell of her father’s death at the hands of the violence; it hurts me to the last of my cells to hear the description of a country strewn with death; it hurts to take in the facts (without any right) that pierce every Colombian with a sharpened dagger: one and all have been touched, torn and broken by the violence.  But what hurts me the most, to the deepest part of my soul and being that dares to open the box, is the complete absence of any ‘why’, the uncertain search for the words ‘to understand’, the debilitated impotence on account of incomprehension, the despair of the lack of reason, the absurd of tragedy… and so it goes, again the banality of the ridiculous etc.

At the end of this personal reflection I notice a small detail – I can’t do sums.  In this personal conflict, as with that of the country, mathematics losses its exactness; formulas melt in the shadow of a mango tree, subtraction adds up and addition subtracts and I keep hold of my little box in my lap, timidly open, painfully heavy, without understanding very well why the violence has to be a countable noun.  So it goes.

Never the less, I go out into the street searching for the X and Y which give form to my altered equation, and I encounter hope on every corner, which greets me back with the kindness, courtesy, and warmth, which characterize Colombians.  Hope smiles at me generously, wishing me a ‘Good Day’, dancing a Vallenato coquettishly in the colourful and happy streets, resting calmly under a clear sky full of stars, cooking stews, drinking in and taking pride in every tavern, taking the sun in a hammock, strolling along noisy avenues, going to bed and getting up every morning and giving thanks to life for its unconditional company.

At the end of the day, hope in this country is a balance carried forward.

S.F.

*Nabusimake – an indigenous village in the remote Sierra Nevada mountains, to the southwest of the city of Valledupar.

There is hope there in the story of one woman, who, having been displaced several times and having suffered tragic personal loss, was about to move from a dilapidated squat into a new home with her family as we left – a very small, very basic and humble home, but a home, a permanent home.  She fought hard to get there and didn’t give up hope; she now shares her experience and hope with other displaced people, encouraging them, cajoling them, and inspiring them.

There is hope and tremendous enthusiasm in a group of teenagers who want to set up a venture to use the numerous mangos which are found everywhere in the city; juices and other mangos products could help finance students through College and finance other community projects.  There is hope and a wonderful energy in a group of determined (and humble, as they describe themselves) ladies, who want to set up a cultural association to help teach underprivileged young people Vallenato music and to give them a place to practice and perform – the high cost excludes them from entering the city’s famous Vallenato festival.

The warmth and hope of all these people inspire us.

N.

Neal Baker and Sandra Tabares make friends with the younger members of the rural community in 'La Vega', Valledupar

Muchas veces en la vida hay una gran diferencia entre lo que creemos que es y lo que realmente es.

La primera vez que oí acerca de la iniciativa del Proyecto Mingueo en Valledupar, tuve la idea de una historia para contar en un documental. Lo discutimos con el equipo y tenían una cierta forma. Trabajamos con la información y el material disponible antes de nuestro viaje y a pesar de que sabíamos que el encuentro con la realidad nos dictaría la pauta, estando aún en Londres armamos un plan de trabajo con aristas que nos servirían como guía en la tarea.

Durante estos días de encuentros y grabaciones las cosas han tomado un matiz inimaginable. El material con el cual contamos, las historias a las que hemos tenido acceso, pero sobre todo el sentimiento que envuelve la experiencia me ha dado una perspectiva distinta, más amplia y al mismo tiempo más compleja de las cosas.

Imagino que esa es una de las riquezas y al mismo tiempo de los retos del documental, el constante enfrentamiento con lo que realmente es y no con lo que esperamos y deseamos encontrarnos. Es la posibilidad de conexión con la vida, de ser un observador activo, de lidiar con los sentimientos que genera una realidad que se presenta cercana y al mismo tiempo ajena, de la distancia que genera tener una cámara de por medio y de tener la idea contar una historia atractiva y convincente.

Ahora que esta experiencia me ha dado la oportunidad de profundizar en los aspectos sociales, económicos y hasta políticos de un país en el que no vivo desde hace 8 años pero del cual nunca me he desligado, – sólo me he desinformado parcialmente – , siento que el invaluable material con el cual contamos es un laberinto seductor, pero laberinto al fin y al cabo. Sé que existen caminos, sé que los elementos disponibles son muy sólidos como material inicial de investigación y al mismo tiempo sé que tendré que mediar entre las historias, los personajes, las situaciones, mi entendimiento, los sentimientos tan personales y las razones por las cuales se hace un documental.

El trabajo de ahora en adelante no pinta fácil, pero si excitante. Y sé que la digestión será tal vez, mucho más enriquecedora que la experiencia en sí.

S.

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Many times in life there is a great difference between what we think is the case and what actually is the case.

The first time that I heard of the initiative to create the Mingueo Project in Valledupar, I saw the idea of a story to tell in a documentary film.  We discussed it within the team and it had a sort of form.  We worked with the information and material available before our trip, and, in spite of knowing that our encounter with reality would dictate the course, still being in London we put together a work plan within a framework which would serve us as a guide for the task.

During these past days of encounters and recordings in Valledupar, things have taken an unimaginable direction.  The material we now have, the stories which we have had access to, and, above all, the feelings which come from the experience, have given me a different, wider and more complex perspective of things.

I imagine that this is one of the riches and, at the same time, one of the challenges of documentary films – the constant battle between what really exists and what we were hoping or expecting to find.  It is the possibility of a connection with life, to be an active observer, to deal with the feelings which generate a reality which is at the same time both close and far off, of the distance generated through having a camera, and the idea of telling an appealing and convincing story.

Now that this experience has given me the opportunity to reflect more deeply on the social, economic, and even political aspects of a country in which I haven’t lived for eight years, but from which I have never been cut off, but about which I have become less well informed; I feel that the invaluable material which we now have is a seductive labyrinth, but still a labyrinth.  I know that paths exist, I know that the available elements are very solid for material at this research stage, and, at the same time, I know that I will have to mediate between the stories, the people, the situation, my understanding, the feelings so personal, and the reasons for making a documentary.

The work now ahead, although not easy, will be exciting.  And I know that its unravelling will be perhaps much more enriching than the actual experience.

S.