Sunday
in Colombia By
Curt Wands
The
Peace of Wild Things
When
despair grows in me
and I wake in the middle of the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children's lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake
rests in his beauty on the water, and the great heron feeds.
I come into the peace of wild things
who do not tax their lives with forethought
of grief. I come into the presence of still water.
And I feel above me the day-blind stars
waiting for their light. For a time
I rest in the grace of the world, and am free
- Wendell Berry
Sunday,
March 21, 2004
As
if the world were a contrast of black and white I stumble
my way through this day. The dramatic hope of those who struggle
to bring about profound societal change here contrasts moments
later with the human wreckage, the “collateral damage”
of this 40-year war.
It was still early this Sunday morning when Cabo wept for
the first time since I have known him. Cabo is a large, rough
looking man with a face wrinkled, consistently unshaven with
two or more days of stubble. He looks like the man of the
river and coast that he is. His accent is thick from this
region, the letters “S” and “R” often
forgotten as something as unnecessary as the extra parts in
the back of the boats he pilots. He sobs as he relates the
pain of losing his son to one of the army’s paramilitary
units here. On December 29, his 23-year-old son was hit by
a guerrilla fragmentation grenade. He lived until January
10, but Cabo didn’t find out until a week later than
that. “If only I had made more money so that he didn’t
have to join,” was his frequent refrain. There was little
more to do than listen as he attempts to, in his words, “desahogarse”
(to un-drown.)
After being with Cabo, I leave the Catholic parish building
where I am temporarily installed. I leave just as the “Youth,
Builders of Peace” group was organizing a day of events.
“Alicia ,” who I worked with a year ago organized
the day of games and events, designed to keep going youth
projects they hope will give alternatives to the war. With
over 11,000 child-soldiers (defined as under 15 years old)
in this country , this is a crucial, though almost Sisyphus-like
task. Most of the youth attending today are among this city’s
inhabitants that have been displaced from their lowland river
villages.
Community
building a dugout canoe
Curt with child in community
When
I walk out in the 80 degree haze of this lowland Colombian
city this morning I pass over 100 soldiers in various parts
of town. Apparently today there is a more notable effort than
others. Within two hours they had over 30 youths, male and
female, detained. Some perhaps have documents that didn’t
quite fit; some walked out of their shacks of homes without
remembering to bring their Identification card, forgetting
that early Sunday morning strolls are no excuse. The vision
I just saw this morning is a small part of the average of
334 detentions a day by the government providing just a glimpse
of the lie that human rights here are at an acceptable level.
As incredible as it may seem, U.S. Secretary of State Colin
Powell certified the Human Rights situation in Colombia to
be acceptable in January allowing tens of millions of dollars
more to that government.
Continuing in my day, I took a short bus trip, arriving to
meet with my old friend “Jose ” who is working
at a Catholic church that has been abandoned for the past
two decades. The priest has been here for only 1 ½
months. He shows me around the grounds of the church courtyard,
bringing me to a 10 foot by 6 foot hole dug, deep by his instructions,
for the purpose of a garbage dump. He whispers to me that
the men digging the hole discovered over 20 skeletons, evidence
of part of a mass grave from the killings that ocurred almost
20 years ago. “I can’t go public or to the prosecutors
office” he adds matter-of-factly. The inability of the
judicial system to do anything, combined with the paramilitary
domination of the political offices locally would make this
a suicidal step. He now plans on planting a meditation garden
on this site.
In Robin Kirk’s book , More Terrible Than Death:
Massacres, Drugs and America’s War in Colombia,
the title is one that rings of hopelessness, but upon reading
the full quote by Josué Giraldo Cardona this hopelessness
is turned 180 degrees. He stated, “To give up on hope
for change in Colombia is more terrible than death.”
Though he was later killed by the paramilitary with local
government collaboration, his life was full of hope and support
for victims of the violence here.
So, why, many have asked would I be here at this point? It
is definitely due to a calling. I believe that the same hope
that Josué expressed, what Martin Luther King, Jr.
lived, what Mahatma Gandhi professed, and what we must live
out is the non-violent option for profound social change.
It gives tremendous hope to those who suffer from U.S. policies
to see that we as people from the U.S. provide a different
option and are willing to risk with them. Moreover, as a person
of faith, I believe that the precepts of defense of the poor,
the oppressed, the widow and the orphan are as necessary today
as ever. In this, we have much to celebrate and live together
with the vast majority of our Colombian sisters and brothers.
The health promoters, youth leaders, human rights workers,
teachers, organizers, and constructors of a new Colombia risk
on a daily basis to build instead of destroy, to heal instead
of kill.
I compare that to the medications we have for the zone I work
in. Most of the health promoters are volunteer and work without
charge. Of course in a country where the average income is
barely $5.00 U.S. a day (and in this region probably only
a third of that) the ability to pay for medications, or to
have a “sustainable” health project is negligible.
There is no money visible from the U.S. government for health
care in this region.
Within the next few days I return up the Atrato River. I find
it difficult to return to the news of the “Puerto Lleras”
community that I had accompanied in their flight last Eastertime.
The community has now fled, for a fifth time, and is fractured
with their people living in three differing villages on the
Atrato River. I wonder whether I will be able to find the
young boy with seizures whose medicine is about to run out,
or the insulin dependent diabetic or the elderly man with
high blood pressure. As with all the communities in this area,
the work to combat these chronic illnesses as well as the
endemic malaria and parasites, the attempt to make water drinkable
are difficult enough in a time of peace. It is made almost
impossible by the overwhelming military presence and economic
blockade of this dense jungle region. But we must try. One
must ask, “If this were my family, what would I want
done to support them?” And of course they are our family.
So it is still Sunday, still a day of rest for most people
in this country, except for men like the soldier standing
50 feet from my window from where I write from. His finger
rests easily on the trigger of his M-16 rifle, folding metal
stock model. I can hardly believe I have come to learn the
weaponry of war as much as I have. I have come to know the
wounds provoked by crescendo hole of expanding bullets, the
internal damage and brokenness provoked by tumbling bullets.
My most recently reviewed medical text “Save Lives,
Save Limbs” details the varied ways to teach village
health workers to treat amputations or chest wounds from a
fragmentation mine vs. a blast mine. The over 100,000 mines
found in all but 2 departments of this country lead to a death
of a child every three days. It is impressive what over $2,000,000
a day from U.S. tax dollars can purchase in armament.
But, back to Sunday evening. I have yet to talk with one of
the French accompaniers about what we will do tomorrow with
the news that three young women (all under age 17) have been
diagnosed with HIV while working as sex workers. From some
source, the news has become public. If something isn’t
done they will probably not be alive soon the French accompanier
has informed me. Not from AIDS, but rather because the paramilitary
provide “social cleansing” of street children
and those suspected of crimes, or in this case of expendable
young women known to have HIV.
And then, to prepare for Monday…
Curt
Wands is a Quaker, a Physician Assistant, and a non-violent
activist working to train village health workers and midwives
in the Urabá region of northwest Colombia through Concern-America
and in collaboration with the Social/Pastoral office of the
Catholic Church. He was most recently a resident of Berkeley,
California. To hear more about his experiences in Colombia,
visit http://home.igc.org/~cwands/.
Suggested ways of support:
- Contact your political representative and request that ALL
military aid to Colombia be ended
- Provide funds (tax deductible) to the Colombia Project of
Concern America. Or for a list of medical supplies being collected
contact: Concern America, PO Box 1790, Santa Ana, CA 92702;
Tel: 714-953-8575; concern@earthlink.net
- Consider work with non-governmental and human rights agencies
in the direct work in Colombia, or in countries with similary
needs, or within the U.S. contact: Human Rights Watch/ Americas
www.hrw.org, Witness for
Peace www.witnessforpeace.org,
Concern America www.concernamerica.org,
Fellowship of Reconciliation www.forusa.org,
Amnesty International www.amnesty.org,
Latin America Working Group www.lawg.org
- Work to close the School of the America’s / WHISC:
www.soaw.org
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