I apologize in advance for the unusual length of this Green Letter, but I feel that for anyone interested in the incredibly complicated situation in Colombia, this material, already vastly condensed, just has to be aired.
Nearly four years after the murders of our two 18 year old boys, Tristan and Javier, our 'urban representative' Anne has embarked on a new and rocky climb into the obscure fortress of the Colombian legal system having made the shocking discovery that the case had actually gone backwards and that the only two of the murderers who are actually in prison might even be released 'for lack of evidence.'
Our determined efforts not to be bullied or dispirited by the extraordinary threats and obstacles strewn in the path of anyone who tries to get justice in Colombia are taking us ever deeper into a mindboggling labryrinth. In daily emails from Bogota, Anne struggles to make sense of the latest logic-shattering information she has been delivered, whilst we struggle to make sense of what she is reporting to us and to provide some solidity, advice and support with our reactions. I will now try and bridge the gap between the Northern and Southern worlds by attempting to describe some of what Anne has discovered.
"It's the action that's important. You have to do the right thing. It may not be in your power, may not be in your time, that there'll be any fruit. But that doesn't mean you stop doing the right thing. You may never know what results come from your action. But if you do nothing, there will be no results." Gandhi
The first news that hit us was that Gonzalo, the steely FARC commander who ordered the deaths of our boys, had been arrested several months ago when he went to Bogota for a medical operation and someone 'grassed' on him - the Government offers huge monetary rewards on TV to anyone who gives information leading to the capture of high ranking guerrilla fighters. Yet when Anne offered herself to the Public Prosecutor in Bogota as someone able to testify against Gonzalo, astonishingly she was told that it was 'impossible to find him', that they didn't know what prison he was in! Needless to say, Anne is not one to take No for an answer, especially when confronted with such outrageous nonsense, but to date her indignant enquiries have borne no fruit.
Then there is the question of the murder by poisoning of Julio and Baudelina, peasant foster parents of Tristan's half brother, the last people Tristan and Javier visited before they were killed. This old couple had been helping us with information about the murderers and in spite of our pleas to them that they should leave the region as they were in obvious danger, their rural rootedness made them stay stubbornly on their lovely coffee farm, and for this they died. Their case was officially declared a double 'suicide' and when we discovered this outrageous cover-up, Anne was told she couldn't protest as she was not a blood relative. She is equally not accepting this ruling but is struggling to find a way round it.
The next big jolt was when we were informed that we had to engage a private lawyer - this after four years of believing that the Government was automatically seeing the case through to its conclusion and being constantly assured that the Public Prosecutor's office were working diligently on it. As leftwing foreigners having suffered the ultimate tragedy at the hands of the supposedly leftwing guerrilla militia, trying to get justice for our slaughtered loved ones under an extreme rightwing, US controlled, pro-paramilitary government, one could be forgiven for expecting just a little interest or cooperation in the prosecution of the murderers of our young ones. Instead of which, we meet obstruction at every turn, and as Anne always declares at every opportunity to any official she comes up against .. if Europeans with the mental, emotional, political and practical resources and experience that we have meet with brick walls at every turn, how can simple peasants ever hope to get even a foot in the door? Our experience is showing us why one is only ever met with a shrug of hopelessness from any ordinary Colombian when the subject of attempting to get justice from the 'legal system' for any atrocity comes up.
Many friends of Anne's in Bogota tried to help her find a good lawyer who would be willing to take on our case. One woman, a lawyer herself, rang around various NGOs (Non-Governmental Organizations) dealing with legal matters, but as all of them are leftwing, they refused to take on a case which meant prosecuting guerrilla militia. As Anne wrote, "I need a lawyer to get my hands on the case papers and see what the Defence of the murderers has been up to, and also to re-open the unspeakable horror of Julio and Baudelina's murders so easily ignored by the Fiscalia (Public Prosecutor). The fact that they are relegated to a file on a dusty shelf because they were 'only' old campesinos (peasant farmers) gets to me more than I can say.'
I suggested that Anne go for advice to the family of Ingrid Betancourt, a leftwing presidential candidate in the last Colombian elections who was kidnapped by the FARC and has been in custody ever since. Anne reports that she met a woman involved in the campaign to free Ingrid and that she was extremely helpful and rang several people who might be able to help on the legal level, as well as pushing the Fiscalia. She spent 40 minutes on the phone ringing lawyers and Human Rights and government people and introducing Anne to them on the phone. For all such favours, Anne does astrological charts for people. Later Anne discovered that the attitude of the Fiscalia towards her had improved. And eventually she found an excellent independent leftwing lawyer willing to take on the case against the killers and as we have no money is willing to do the work for as many astrology charts as he wants for all his friends and family! (Try picturing that with a London barrister..!)
Meanwhile, a former neighbour of ours in the area where our boys were slaughtered, who has been helping us incognito from the very beginning, and who used to be aligned with the Communist Party, but has now turned away in disgust (many of his friends and neighbours were murdered by the same gang), has gone over to the Paramilitaries. We have watched the process of this man's swing to 'the enemy' going on for several years now, at first in shock and disbelief, later with reluctant comprehension, as we experienced first of all the FARC renege on all promises to control the trigger-happy elements of their militia, not just in our region but all over Colombia, then observed how our friend put his trust in the Colombian Army, finally turning from their utter inefficiency and lack of will to bring justice to the countryside, and walking into the arms of the paramilitaries. Thus we have now seen with our own eyes how the growth of this rightwing peasant army occurs and are rendered mute as far as any political moralizing is concerned as we have failed to detect any discernible difference between their activities and those of the FARC in the area where tragedy attacked our tribe.
One day Anne met our helper, who not only has been risking his life and that of his family for three years now to bring justice to us and other victims in his area, but has already had a young nephew murdered for giving information. They met at the Fiscal's office to see about protection for him and his sons in exchange for testifying. The Fiscal had said she was interested in all he had seen and would evaluate what it was 'worth' to the case and how much danger it would put him in! BUT the witness has to testify first, sign the testimony, which is then and forever part of the case and available to the Defence, i.e. to the murderers and the large well-armed Guerrilla Army behind them! .. before being told whether or not he 'qualifies' for protection. Anne writes: "I exploded and said it was all mad, that we'd leave and that X couldn't possibly take the risk. Then the Fiscal did a Colombian U-turn and said that she could 'guarantee' protection. I said she had to get resettlement elsewhere for the whole family who are in terrible danger."
The Fiscal's attitude to our witness had at first been hateful: that he is a professional informer only out for the money. Anne writes: "When we trouped into her office, at first the atmosphere was tense because he felt angry as she was trying on the professional lawyer bit, making everything seem impossible and complicated. He listened politely then asked her to listen to him and gave one of his eloquent speeches about how he and his family couldn't bear any more killings and intimidation from the FARC, all they want to do is farm peacefully and the money has nothing to do with it except inasmuch as they need to eat as they cannot now work on their farms due to having worked with the Army to get two of the murderers into jail. He never attacked her directly but he sure shut her up."
"The Fiscal is criminally careless: an old man had been testifying, obviously on behalf of the Guerrilla, that 'nothing ever happens in Hoya Grande (where the murders took place) and that it was all talk.' To which she answered very aptly 'Ah, so that's alright then, I'll take all my friends there and we'll have a party as it's so safe'. The old fellow had the decency to blush. BUT then, unbelievably, the Fiscal gave him a letter to take to the one man who could act as a witness to our boys being tied up and taken away by the FARC, begging him to come forward and testify. I told her she had ruined any chance that the witness would ever speak up by giving the letter to such an untrustworthy messenger, not to mention most likely signing his death warrant. And THEN I had to explain to her why it was dangerous, she's that thick. Urban Colombians are totally out of touch with the situation of the poor in the countryside. As one person from Hoya Grande said to me, 'If they established a military base here, then we might be able to testify!'" (This was a sarcastic political joke as Hoya Grande is a tiny hamlet in the middle of a mountainous notorious guerrilla area where the Army rarely dare tread.)
Anne's utter frustration at getting any kind of efficient action from the Colombian State agencies led her eventually to discover a body called the Comision de Juristas where she spoke to two very good women lawyers. They want our case to go to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and they would do all the legal advisory work. It would be a case against the Colombian State itself, not against the FARC. It is a very long-term project, taking anything from two to four years and the idea is to denounce the fact that justice is very hard to come by in Colombia! Anne writes:
"They are really enthusiastic about taking on our case because it shows the fact that the Fiscalia (Public Prosecutor) doesn't do anything even when the case is against its supposed enemy, the FARC Guerrilla army. They said I shouldn't tell anyone I'm doing it as it's dangerous to take cases against the State! And also that the FARC would be angry that a case involving them goes international as it means the Fiscalia will be more likely to seriously prosecute them." Commenting on this, Anne writes: "Of course, the keeping quiet bit is impossible. I have so far told everyone I know except the Fiscal and I will tell her eventually as in the end the case is not so much against her personally as against the System itself As for 'danger from the State,' I think the greatest danger is the brain-damage caused by the mind-boggling madness of it all."
Anne has a long list of 'homework' to prepare for our case to go on to the next stage, which is to send it to the international court in Washington. She was told that the advantages of taking this course of action are 1) that it immediately makes the Colombian institutions move a bit faster and 2) that it's one more drop in the ocean of what needs to be done to heave Colombia out of its present morass. Anne also reports that this group of lawyers passionately agreed when she commented that something has to be done from a leftwing perspective about the fact that the FARC do not control their own lower ranks.
The same lawyers confirmed what we already knew regarding 'Government protection schemes' for witnesses: namely, that they are entirely unreliable, in fact she was told by her own male lawyer that 'most people end up more endangered under 'protection' than without it.' Anne comments: 'There is a general feeling off him and off the Comision women that they are relieved to find a case like ours where someone is willing to speak out. Whatever the reason, they show a lot of interest. I asked our new lawyer if cases taken to the international court have any effect in Colombia, and he said it is one of the few things that do have an effect. The first case taken to them was that of those awful chainsaw massacres in Trujillo several years ago when the state would do nothing in spite of well over a hundred people being killed horribly by the paras. The victims' families got 'compensation' eventually.'
I asked Anne why she thought the State is so obstructive and inefficient in what
should be an utterly straightforward case like ours. Her reply: "I don't think
the state acts like this because they want endless massacres, in fact I don't
think there is any deep meaningful 'why' in all this mess. I think it is just
the usual Colombian mess, exacerbated by cushy lazy people in comfortable jobs,
very well paid and with plenty of security as long as they don't do too well in
an investigation against the Government or the Paras. I think it is as low as
that. I wish I could believe in some kind of political plot to it all, but I
don't. I would also say that one of the main things is deep mistrust and
intrigues between all the different sections of the law. They all hate each
other and don't cooperate.'
(Becky is Tristan's mother)
Three days after getting home from Colombia in February, I dream I am desperately looking for Tristan. I go frantically through a town looking in bars, cafes and public places. I can't find him but keep finding blonde girls with long hair (Louise, Alice and Katie, my half-sisters).
After getting very exhausted, I eventually let it sink in, that he is dead.
Then the night my mum, Jenny, came from Colombia to Ireland to join me, I awoke at 3 a.m. with violent womb pains. I never normally get such pains. I stayed awake for over two hours. The next morning, the first of Anne's letters about the murder case came through.
The night before that, I had the following dream about Tris:
I am in a huge house doing the washing up, the sink is overflowing with things
to be cleaned. Everything is covered with beetroot (blood). My arms are
covered right up to my elbows in the same red beetroot juice . Then I am
looking for Tristan. I find him in a tent, he is about 12 years old and he
can't get up as he is being violently sick, and is puking up 'beetroot'. I tell
him to move further down the tent which is like a long dark tunnel. I get in
with him and put a sleeping bag over us for protection and wrap my body around
him. He lays his head on my shoulder and I tell him I will never leave him.
Last year, a new baby boy was born into our family, to Alice, Tristan's aunt, now aged 20.
Baby Jack often looks a lot like Tris. Louise describes a hair-raising incident which occurred with the baby recently:
"I was sorting out every last detail of my room and had a huge pile of photos on
a low shelf. The baby (10 months old) came and started messing with them but in
a calm way, so I just let him. After a minute or two, he came crawling very
fast to the other side of the room to me. He was laughing very loud and had a
photo in his hand. He stretched his arm out as if to show me the photo. When I
saw it, my hair stood on end. It was the one of Tristan and Javier's skeletons
in the dark cave pit where they were found, which the Fiscalia had given us. I
swear there must have been about 50 photos to choose from and lots of other
papers and bits and pieces, and I always put that photo at the bottom of the
pile as I hate looking at it.. What all this means I don't know, but I don't
believe it was just a coincidence. I hugged the baby and cried and he stayed
very still for half a minute, before going back to the pile of photos. Maybe
the baby is simply psychic and has started to show it without even knowing what
he is doing, who knows."
Louise and I were staying at a friend's house in Cali. She has a little boy of 5. One day she started talking about him and said he was a bit 'weird' - that since he could speak he keeps talking about his 'family in the mountains'. He says he has another family and has names for each of his relatives. These names are no way Colombian and sound more like German to me. Where could a little boy who has never been out of Colombia get these names? One day he said he had just come back from Mexico, visiting his 'family'. He said he had been to 'el Parque de los Chinos' - the Park of the Chinese. His family laughed at him, but then a friend of theirs who had been in Mexico recently said, 'the boy is not so crazy, there is a Parque de los Chinos in Mexico.' The family say there is no way the little boy could know about this park, which not even they knew existed.
Since the boy was four, he has had this obsession for blonde women, not girls, but fully grown women. One day a blonde lady was passing and he said, 'This is the woman of my dreams.' He is frightened of black people. In Cali over half the population is black, they are the norm in that very hot town!.... I do not know what to believe, but it gave me the shivers to meet and hear about this little boy.
"It was February 9th. I was coming home to the farm from Belen when from a distance I saw some soldiers lying on the grass. When I got closer, one of them stopped me and asked the usual questions, Where are you going and Why do you live here. I answered all his questions and he told me they were looking for a boy who had been kidnapped and that incidentally they had found a 'spy'.
"I didn't know what he was talking about and they let me go on. But when I got to Mario's house (Mario is Alice's partner, father of baby Jack mentioned above), I got a fright, there were around 40 soldiers there, and a lot of our neighbours too. And I saw Eber (a local man) sitting in the dog's bed with a frightened face on him. I politely asked Mario's father what the hell was going on, but he tried to hush me up. Then Mario told me that the Army had arrived at the local coop. store and were checking everyone out and Eber ran away into the bush and tried to get away, but the soldiers caught him.
"Then they had gone to Mario's father's house. It was 7.0 p.m. and he was making supper. When he looked up at the door, there was a soldier standing there with his machine gun pointing at him. Mario's dad said Hello and the soldier asked him to sell him coffee and cheeses and to lend them a piece of rope. He lent them one. Then he heard someone calling him over and over again. He looked and saw Eber sitting there with his hands and feet tied up. Mario's father wanted to give him some food, but he wasn't allowed to. Some of the soldiers slept on the floor and they put Eber to sleep in the dogs' bed outside with just one blanket (nights are very cold in the mountains).
"Next day everyone came to see what had happened and to try and talk the soldiers out of taking Eber away. I told a soldier that he had a wife and kids and had to look after them. The soldier replied that the day before when they got him, everybody acted like they didn't know him and if someone had said something then, they would have let him go and that now they believed the Guerrilla had sent all the people down to speak for him.
"Eber's father asked me to talk to the soldiers because they have more respect for an Irish girl than a Colombian peasant woman. I felt a bit strange but I tried talking to them. But they were just so happy with themselves that they had caught someone and didn't want to listen to anything. The soldier who had caught him told me that he was going to retire after that as he would get paid loads for catching a Guerrilla.
"Around 11 a.m., they took him to Belen walking (a very long way!) and just as they were about to leave, Eber came up to me and shook my hand and looked at me, tears were nearly coming out of his eyes, and he looked really scared. I knew he wanted me to say something to them, so I asked them where they were taking him to and when were they going to let him go? The soldier was very friendly and said they were going to phone the Fiscalia and if he had a record, he would be put in jail.
"So they went to Belen. I felt really horrible because some of our neighbours were just laughing and talking rubbish. I felt the same the time Pacho was killed, the man I found dead in the road about two years ago. So I felt I had to do something. I talked to his family and they were all lazy about it and didn't want to do anything. I just wanted to talk to the army and make sure they treated him well and just so he knew he had our support. So I followed them to Belen and when I got there I talked to the Captain. He was very nice and said that they were going to let him go that night or the next day. I was allowed to talk to him and he thanked me for showing my face. I gave him a bollocking for getting himself into trouble and said anyway I agreed with the politics of the Guerrilla but I didn't like the way they stole cars and food. He accepted my criticism.
"A few days later I went to Belen and the soldiers said they regretted letting
him go because someone had told them he was a miliciano (Guerrilla militia man).
I saw him later ad he told me that when they first got him, they wanted him to
put on an Army uniform, but he refused because sometimes soldiers do that and
then they shoot the person and say 'he was a Guerrillero'. Because he refused
to wear their uniform, the sergeant beat him up.."
It is well known that the United States is paying huge sums of money to support the Colombian military under their 'Plan Colombia'. Whatever the crimes of the guerrilla armies, the civil war will never end until there is some kind of social justice in Colombia. And meanwhile people such as Tristan and Javier and tens of thousands like them caught up on both sides of the war will continue to die.
I will end with a quote taken from Nexus magazine of November 2003, by an American, James McCanney:
".the rest of the world is advancing far beyond the US in consciousness and in progress as a human species. .as a civilian population, we have to grab hold of this country and turn it around because, literally, the whole rest of the world depends on it. We are at a stage right now that is equivalent to 1939 in Hitler's Germany.
"They did not turn that country around, and if we don't turn this country around, we're going to be in a far bigger world problem than World War Two ever was.."
Our email address is: atlantiscol@hotmail.com, or atlantisfoundation@eircom.net
Correspondence and questions are welcomed. I am at present in Ireland living on our sailing ship which is soon to take part in various political campaigns worldwide, and can be contacted or visited there. Jenny James, Atlantis Ecological Community, Baltimore, Co. Cork, Ireland.