Our friend Anne's constant delving into the Colombian 'legal' system in her crusade to get some kind of retribution for our murdered boys, has caused her to come across many other cases of heartbreaking injustice. Here she reports on just one of them:
"The case of Gerardo Ariza Alvarez is all too common in Colombia. He is 26, an ordinary young man from a poor background and has just been condemned to seven years in a high security jail for 'rebellion,' that is, for being a member of the FARC guerrilla force. But he never was. His brother Ismael was, however, and he once left a bag with guns in it at Gerardo's flat in Bogota without telling him. Then Ismael was arrested, turned in by an informant, and Gerardo came home later that day to find his flat had been ransacked, by thieves he thought.
Later the security police arrived and arrested him. His brother took full responsibility and was sentenced to 4 years in jail and will therefore be out before Gerardo, who got seven years because he didn't 'confess'. Ismael told the judge many times that his brother had nothing to do with the FARC, but Colombian judges have quotas to fill these days: as many guerrillas as possible must be condemned whether they are guerrillas or not, because the President, Alvaro Uribe thinks that the more people killed and jailed, the quicker 'peace' will come to this desperate country - 'the peace of the grave' as the saying goes here. The present climate has created paranoia amongst judges that they'll be seen as guerrilla collaborators if they free people wrongly accused of sedition. And of course, Uribe has to fulfil his quota to George Bush, or he won't get his pocket money.
I have just been to visit Gerardo at the inhumane 'high security' jail of Combita, his first visit in five months - he is unusual in that he isn't a member of a large extended family and so no-one visits him. At first I couldn't understand his relative cheerfulness considering the awful news he' d just received of his long sentence. But as we talked in the roasting temperature of high-altitude sunshine during my brief visit, I began to realize why he didn't feel as depressed or as furious as I was feeling: he is surrounded day and night by men who've been sentenced to 30, 40, 50, 60 years in there - that would give you a different perspective on time inside alright. And his conditions have been so bad for so long that he was just grateful to get a two-hour visit.
Why am I sure he is innocent? Firstly because captured FARC guerrillas say they are FARC guerrillas, they don't plead innocent as they consider time spent in prison as an inevitable and honourable part of the struggle. Also all the other prisoners who know Gerardo say he is innocent - conversations about fellow prisoners' reasons for being inside are very frank, sometimes even admiring, as in: 'Do you see such and such over there? Well, he hijacked that plane/kidnapped that president's brother/killed that politician.' There is no pretence about their own innocence or anyone else's.
Gerardo's case will be appealed of course, but that could take a year and at best would only lead to a lighter sentence. His lawyer is from a collective who don't charge fees but what is needed is pressure from outside for justice in cases like this: if anyone reading this has experience in this area, I would be really glad to hear about it. In Colombia, the illegal and immoral practices that are being passed off as law are seriously on the increase. Gerardo is only one victim amongst tens of thousands, but he just happens to be one that I know. The situation is creating deep despair and anger amongst ordinary people and no-one knows what to do. The corrupt state legal system reacts with violence against its critics, so people just give up. I am trying not to sink into the same despair, so this letter is really an S.O.S."
Anne received the following account from a very reliable source - a radical priest. A man from an area invaded by paramilitary soldiers ('paras ') had his house taken over by them, and their leader used his phone all the time. The phone was a bit rickety and you could hear what the person on the other end was saying. The man heard this leader talk to the local army chief who said: 'I need six 'positives' by tomorrow,' and the para leader said 'OK'. The man was worried about what this meant and dared to ask. The leader said, 'He needs six dead paramilitaries as he has to turn in reports of so many dead paras per month.' This is to prove to US and EU liberals that the rightwing Colombian government is doing something about the paramilitary forces - which they are: they encourage them.
The horrified man said, 'Surely you're not going to kill your own?' and the leader answered: 'Yeah, sure, no problem - what we usually do is kill some of the latest arrivals as they've only come for the money anyway.' This refers to poor campesinos who join anything and anyone just for a wage.
A few days later, there was a report of 'Six Dead Paras'.
The new recruits for the army battalions that are going into the hardcore Guerrilla areas are very unlikely to get out alive. They have to sign a contract that says if they are killed, their families will not be informed. Then there will be no compensation for their deaths. They are given a biggish lump sum to make this 'palatable'. Many families ask what happened to their sons who don't come back and some are told 'they deserted to the guerrilla forces'.
Anne writes: this is all so extreme, it sounds made-up, but these stories were told to me quietly in a non-dramatic way that made them sound credible. It puts our own tragedy into proportion..
Some areas of the countryside become deserted through people fleeing when the paramilitaries come in. A lady from Tame, Arauca, told how her region was run more or less decently by the guerrilla forces for countless years. Then two years ago, the paramilitaries took over, along with the army. Now bodies of 'collaborators' appear by the dozen on the streets. This woman has lost uncles, aunts and cousins. Her father, an old man, lives there on his farm. He heard he was on the paramilitary death list. So he went to the Army HQ and said, 'Right, I know I'm on your list, so if you want to kill me, then kill me here and now as I am not going anywhere, this is my home.' Strangely, he has been left alone. That was a year ago.
Taxi drivers are not noted for their revolutionary or leftwing opinions, yet here is an anecdote from Anne reporting on the conversation with her driver on the way home from her prison visit:
Taxi-driver: "We've the worst reputation in the world for being guerrillas, paramilitaries, drug-traffickers, thieves, but this is the worst ever."
"What?" I asked, thinking he was telling me a joke.
"Uribe offering to send Colombian troops to Iraq of course!"
He was really upset about it and said he hoped that if the Iraqis blew up something in Colombia in retaliation, that they would choose Uribe's palace.
To get this kind of anti-Uribe diatribe unsolicited from a taxi driver is really unusual: they would normally sound you out first to see what 'colour' you were.
This IS a Colombian joke presently doing the rounds:
The President of Colombia and his chauffeur are driving along a country road when suddenly they run over a pig, killing it instantly.
Uribe says to his chauffeur: go into the farm and explain what happened.
One hour later, the chauffeur comes out reeling, with a cigar in one hand, a bottle of wine in the other and his clothes in disarray.
"Whatever happened?" asks the President.
"Well, the farmer gave me the wine, his wife gave me the cigar and his beautiful daughter made love to me passionately."
"Good God, what on earth did you say to them?"
"I just said, 'I am the President's chauffeur and I've just killed the pig.'"
Recently a member of our community became so difficult, we sent him away. He is now back with us and tells this story of yet 'another Colombia' :
"Dear Everyone: I'm a 57 year old somewhat mad Scotsman . I found myself working recently in a mental hospital cum farm in the province of Santander, Northern Colombia. The organizers were all very right wing conservative Catholics and along with the noises of bedlam in the background, the religious atmosphere was somewhat intense .. The founder of the clinic taught that anybody who proposed or practised birth control was a political agent of Europe come to subvert the purity of the Catholic faith through their 'birth control missionaries'. I was informed without any batting of eyelids that overpopulation doesn't exist and that war, disease and famine 'would suffice' to maintain the population in check. It was also implied and occasionally directly stated that the difference between rich and poor does not exist, though I read one article by their founder which oddly enough gave a brilliant analysis of Colombia's problems in terms of class conflict, but instead of coming to some socialist conclusion about the need for revolution talked of the need for the regeneration of the bourgeoisie through the mysteries of the Catholic Mass.
The women who ran the place would have nothing to do with women's liberation because it would curtail the power of the priests, but one woman, a communist turned Catholic, did give a huge snort of derision at somebody reading the passage in Genesis about Eve being formed from Adam's rib.
Proudly displayed on their wall was a large picture of the 'House of the Inquisition' in Cartagena. At night, standing on the balcony in the middle of a thunderstorm, lightning flashing all around, the picture of the Inquisition being lit up and in the background a mixture of the murmur of voices reciting the liturgy, the occasional screams of some of the inmates and somebody playing "When the Saints Go Marching In" on an electronic organ.. I started to wonder what century I was in and thought it was time to go home." Alex
"Ere long, the most valuable of all arts will be the art of deriving a
comfortable subsistence from the smallest area of soil. No community where
every member possesses the art can ever be the victim of oppression in any of
its forms. Such a community will be alike independent of crowned kings, money
kings and land kings."
Abraham Lincoln
Our community has been invited to take part in what we consider one of the most significant projects to arise recently in Colombia: in the North there is a peasant community in San Jose de Apartado who set themselves up as 'neutral territory', sick to death of all the killings in the very dirty civil war, and the way that both guerrilla and paramilitary forces use local peasant communities as servants and storekeepers, murdering wantonly when it suits them.
President Uribe has had it in for this group ever since his time as Governor of Antioquia, the province where San Jose is situated: Uribe was a founder of the paramilitary movement and did not appreciate the local peasants resisting - over 150 of them were killed for it. Now he has come out with one of his diatribes, saying the people of the San Jose 'Peace Community' are guerrilla supporters as they won't let the army into their area.
Through contacts who have known of our work in the countryside for many years, we were invited to attend a meeting to discuss the setting up of a peasant 'University'. Anne went along and has this to report:
16th June 2004: I spent a few hours with two campesinos (peasant farmers) from San Jose this morning talking about the 'University' idea. It is very interesting and we should definitely get involved. They are quite radical, anti-capitalist, and are trying to get together a loose organization of people's leaders from all over the country, with no offices or overheads, to do courses with the aim of getting people to become self-sufficient in food. The first course will be in August and they have asked us to teach theatre in the evenings, and also I said I would be most interested in taking over the menu while I was there to make sure they eat decent food (the Colombian diet of all classes is unbelievably bad: well, so is the Irish.). They were delighted and said I must make a list of the things I'd like brought from their farms or even planted ahead of time for the event! I told them I didn 't want anything to do with anything technical or theoretical and they liked that. They have deliberately chosen for the course an area where there is no electricity so there will be fewer distractions.
20th June 2004: Today I went for a meeting with a radical priest and four peasant activists about their 'country University'. I came out of it with a splitting headache because of the amount of information delivered - not just about the actual course but about Colombia, the war, the planet.
Their idea is to gather 20 community leaders for one month from 'resistance communities' who all agree that the only way to resist the war and outside interference is to grow and eat their own food without chemicals. This is preparation for serious war: many of these communities already suffer frequent blockades by the army and paras to starve them out. There were so many horror stories.the leaders of a black community in the Choco would like to learn about how to dry foodstuffs that they can keep in a sack so that they can grab it and run into the jungle at a moment's notice when the paras appear, so that they don't starve so quickly.
There were moments of laughter too, as when one man read a list of chemicals he wanted to make some kind of supposedly harmless anti-bug sprays, and Gloria Cuartas, one of the leading women, said the Army would love to confiscate that, and I said, 'Yeah, great, another bomb-making workshop by an Irishwoman'. (The reference here is to the three Irishmen accused of making bombs for the FARC - now all Irish in Colombia are considered dodgy characters).
The hamlet where the course is to take place is in difficult territory, the local peasant from there said we must not hang around in Apartado, the capital, as the army and paras are there. Gloria, who is a plucky tiny thing, said, 'All the more reason to make our presence felt.' I agreed, but then they said that two foreign aid workers were lifted there and expelled and that everywhere foreigners are being chucked out of Colombia for going into war zones, so that is obviously partly what my most recent visa hassles were about.
I was a bit worried at the beginning of the meeting that it was all going to be pseudo-'technical' and dry, but Javier, the priest, and Gloria are very much against that. I said please could we spend the minimum of time each day talking theory and the maximum in action and this met with agreement. Then Gloria said we must have workshops about men and women's roles in the resistance. She's great crack. I said we'd need therapeutic groups about the problems that arise and make people leave communities, and this was agreed for each evening.
There was a lot of talk about 'planification' which seemed to mean where will we build the compost heaps. I said that if we have a whole group of leaders there for a month, what an opportunity to brainwash them about humanure and could we please build compost-toilets first! This was agreed upon, to my surprise. They would also like our girls to go and sing there - but take note, girls, it's very hot, being only 800 metres above sea level. Throughout the meeting, the 'Atlantis experience' was mentioned again and again as something near-holy. How the hell am I going to live up to that?!
18-year-old Katie's Story:
"Cecilia, a friend of ours who works as a teacher in a small village far up in the mountains of the Province of Cauca (South Colombia) called El Meson, had bought one of our CDs some time back. I remember once she asked me if she could teach our songs to her students and of course I said Yes. Months later, she invited me to go and sing in El Meson .. Cecilia uses our songs in her classes as 'environmental and social education'. Our CD was also played on the local radio station.
When I went there and sang, I couldn't believe that everyone knew all the songs from beginning to end! Sometimes I would just play the guitar while they sang, and I can't explain what that feels like. In between songs, people would ask all sorts of questions, so I ended up telling them everything about our lifestyle and all our history in Colombia. Sometimes I felt strange because they treated me as if I was some sort of Goddess. A man said, "You are one of the best things that have happened to us. You have filled us with hope and opened our eyes." And they all said, over and over again: "Please come back."
I was told before going there that in that village every time a stranger went there, it would rain. I paid little attention to this, but from the minute the bus arrived, it started raining. well, a little more than rain, there were hail stones, continuous lightning and thunder; a bolt of lightning struck very near the house I was staying in and exploded a transformer and the electricity went off (it was night time). It continued raining for a couple of hours and the people waited for me in a school room until it stopped and they could bring the sound system. I couldn't believe these people were gathered specially to listen to me. They had no microphone stand, so two kids held the microphones for me while singing loudly in my ear with me, and telling me which song to sing next.
Then after the singing came the autographs. I don't really see the point in this, but they seem to and wouldn't let me go until I had written something for each child, not to mention taking a photo of me with each of them too.
All I can say is it's lovely to know that people have really listened to what we
say and taken it in, and if it fills them with hope and helps them in any way,
I'm glad because that's our purpose. - Love, Katie"
You used to run, barefoot and naked through the jungle With tussled hair blowing in the breeze, singing. You had the fresh winds and pure water And all that you needed from the natural world- Happiness and freedom, an ideal world.. Then one day, this wasn't enough for you. You wanted more. You wanted to prove That you were Superior .. And you began to kill, to destroy Everything around you. (Chorus) But look now, my brother What has become of you And look where you are headed Just stop for one moment and think: Is this what you want to do? Now I see you, so tense and rigid With your short well-groomed hair Well-dressed and perfumed Going to your office in your car And there you imprison yourself all day long To sit at your computer . You have forgotten what Life is You have forgotten your Dreams You think only of work and money You have no freedom, little happiness You have forgotten your natural world. (Repeat Chorus)
As a result of Katie's singing visit, 16 teachers from that mountain village school travelled the almost two day journey to our farm. They were from a tribe of Indians called the 'Paez'. Here is Ned's account of their visit:
"Cecilia brought the teachers from the agro-ecological school where she works, officially to 'learn about organic gardening'. They finished building a sugar-cane press for us, fixed our strimmer, cleared up all the garden paths, brought horse manure from the higher fields on horse-back! and had lots of fun. I concentrated on making them nice food as I think that is one thing I can teach them: how to eat vegetables, as they already know how to grow them and have an organic garden and compost heap. They brought their children and their own cook, who announced she wasn't going to do any cooking as she's having a break! They play music and are teaching us the Colombian folk dance called the 'cumbia'. We are putting on one of our plays for them. Their witch doctor is here as well. Most of them are content to sleep on the main room floor in a long line and refuse my offer of separate beds.
They say they had the guerrilla in their area and then the paras for a while and got sick of the killing and their boys being attracted by carrying a gun and going with them, so they got together and politely asked the guerrilla and paras to keep away, which they have done!
PS: I was crossing the footbridge over the river and saw two of our local Indian kids throwing something very solemnly into the water: their used-up school exercise books. I asked them why they didn't use them to light the fire and they said, 'If you do that, you'll never learn to read and write.' I went on my way a little wiser." Ned
"Dear Jenny, The people I work with have a wonderfully open mentality and are disposed to learn how to live better, and from all the comments I've heard since we came to your farm, I know that they have reflected a great deal on your way of life, the way you work the earth and treat the animals, your art and attitude to Nature. This pleases me greatly as I love to be able, through knowing your community, to show the possibility of a better quality of life .
My own family carry on blindly unfortunately, slaves to the concept of 'comfort', trapped in materialism and consumerism, their only goal to collect a load of professional titles and to live in a superficial, empty world. It's their decision. I am so glad I met you all and through you found the true value of life. With all my love, Cecilia."
What an incredible irony that a group of Europeans, who historically stole from the 'Indians' of South America their natural way of life, should now be seen as messengers to bring it back to them, wading through the Coca Cola bottles and degraded lifestyles to do so..
"..animals shall not be measured by Man. In a world older and more complete
than ours, they move finished and complete, gifted with extensions of the senses
we have lost or never attained, living by voices we shall never hear. They are
not brethren; they are not underlings; they are other nations, caught with
ourselves in the net of life and time, fellow prisoners of the splendour and
travail of the earth."
Henry Beston, quoted in the vegan magazine 'New Leaves'
My daughter Alice fights staunchly on our farm to combat hateful attitudes towards animals wherever she meets them. Unfortunately, this fierce caring sometimes brings out the worst in macho attitudes: her Colombian father-in-law, for example, boasts of how he used to skin sheep alive . Alice reports that Colombians always say to her: 'God gave us the animals to eat,' whereupon she retorts: 'No, he put them here for us to care for them.' To which they answer: 'Ah well, then, it's the work of the Devil in us that makes us kill them.' I doubt if we've actually made a convert to vegetarianism yet, but the way we live with and love and don't kill our domestic animals certainly makes an impression and people always comment on it with awe. For us, there is no separation between how humans treat animals and how we treat one another.
"Mankind's true moral test consists of its attitudes towards those who are at
its mercy: animals."
Milan Kundera (a Czech writer)
"If slaughterhouses had glass walls, everyone would be vegetarian."
Paul and Linda McCartney
A Personal Introduction to the War in Iraq
"We kill when we close our eyes to poverty, affliction or infamy. We kill when,
because it is easier, we countenance or pretend to approve of atrophied social,
political, educational and religious institutions instead of resolutely
combating them."
Hermann Hesse
"To sin by silence when they should protest makes cowards of men."
Abraham Lincoln
A friend called Kate in England has sent me this account of her own introduction
to the anti-war movement:
"I honestly can't tell you what it did to me to sit a few metres from the runway at Fairford having to watch helplessly while one after another B52 took off over my head with cluster bombs hanging off the underneath like bunches of grapes, so close I thought I must almost be able to reach up and touch them.
"During the protest, we used to go into the local pub to defrost from time to time and there was a TV there showing 'live' the bombs being dropped on people in Iraq - then just a little turn of the head and we could watch out of the window the bombers climbing up and over the village carrying the bombs, it was really indescribable.
"I never slept for weeks. One hundred and twenty two fully bomb-laden flights.. and nothing we could do to stop them. I had a recurring nightmare for months after Fairford and still do sometimes. I am walking away from my house when I hear a bomber closing in. My kids are inside and I start to run towards the house to reach them. I don't get there in time and the house explodes into a huge pile of bricks and flames in front of me and I'm deafened. I dig by hand for my kids and eventually I start to find body parts.
"In my nightmare, sometimes I am an Afghani mother . and sometimes an Iraqi.
"I'm no fantasist and I'm not naïve, but I really do believe that all of us who
are trying to change will win. Just a case of keeping each other afloat when
the going gets rough.. Lots of love, Kate."
"See, I believe in the power of the people. I truly do. I do."
George Bush 6th March 2001
"This country, with its institutions, belongs to the people who inhabit it.
Whenever they shall grow weary of the existing government, they can exercise
their constitutional right of amending it, or their revolutionary right to
dismember or overthrow it."
Abraham Lincoln
"The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed - and thus
clamorous to be led to safety - by menacing it with an endless series of
hobgoblins, all of them imaginary."
H. L. Mencken
"When the tyrant has disposed of foreign enemies by conquest or treaty, and
there is nothing more to fear from them, then he is always stirring up some war
or other in order that the people may require a leader."
Plato
"There may still be two superpowers on the Planet: the US and world public
opinion."
New York Times
These Green Letters from Colombia are compiled by Jenny James and appear erratically every few weeks or months.
We are contactable by email: jennyjames@softhome.net.
Our website is: http://www.afan.org.uk where you can read all back copies of the Green Letters.
Books about our community are available on: http://www.deunantbooks.com.
And for news of our 'Peace Boat' project go to: http://www.thesupplydepot.co.uk/AtlantisAdventure.html.
The Atlantis girls ' CD of environmental, peace and social songs - mainly in Spanish but with a written literal translation into English - is available by writing to Jenny above.
Jenny and her daughter Louise are at present visiting political and personal contacts all over the British Isles and are available for talks - and singing - about Colombia.