If violence were the solution to all of our problems, say
the leaders of the campesino movement now forming in the Montes de Maria,
Colombia, our problems would have been solved thirty years ago. A coalition of leaders representing almost 30
communities have decided to join together in a nonviolent collective effort to
draw together an effort to rebuild their region.
The Montes de Maria are famous both for the
fertility of the soil and the ferocity of the violence in the last fifteen
years. Unorganized criminal groups, the
guerrilla groups the FARC and ELN, and paramilitary groups fought for territory
in the region, catching the farming communities in the middle. The violence came to a peak in October 2000,
with the well-known massacre of Macayepo leaving 35 victims. To stand up for their rights as victims,
people must publically denounce the guilty groups and makes people targets of these
still-active, still-powerful armed groups.
Furthermore, community organizers work in a context where communities have
been divided and made distrustful by false promises of protection from illegal
armed groups and from the government. The
march has helped the communities begin to break down some of the stigmas
surrounding the region.
The campesino of the region are used to farming its steep
hills by hand, but have sustained themselves for the last 30 years from the
avocado harvests. Not only were the
communities devastated by massive sackings, burnings, murders, and displacement
in the late 1990s and early 2000s, but since they have returned to recuperate
their farms, their principal crop has fallen to disease. Almost all of the massive acreage of avocado
farms has died in the last few years. In
the face of such obstacles, they have realized that a unified, dignified and
nonviolent march is the best way to highlight both the generosity of spirit and
hardworking nature of the people in the mountains, and to ask for an integrated
governmental response to their plight as victims of the armed conflict and of
crop disease.
The communities say that the government’s policy on
reparations is not enough to meet their needs.
The Victims’ Law #1448 of 2011, establishes a ten year plan for
reparations, starting in targeted communities like Macayepo, where the violence
is better known. The leaders argue that
their needs are greater than mere targeted collective reparations. They seek integrated, transformative
reparations in the whole region, not just select communities. They also recognize that without the avocado,
there may well be a second displacement, this time because of economic violence.
They seek two integrated strategies for the
region- a return with dignity and institutional accompaniment that fulfills
their socio-economic rights and develops strategies to recover from the loss of
the avocado, and an integrated, transformative, and regional reparations
strategy.
In October of 2012, several community leaders began voicing
a common idea: a nonviolent collective action.
Made up of practicing Evangelicals, Seventh-Day Adventists,
Pentecostals, Catholics and secular community members, they are a diverse group
in religious beliefs, ethnicities, and life experiences. In October, they began to plan a march from
their municipal center, El Carmen de Bolivar, to the departmental capital,
Cartagena. On April 6, 2013, over a
thousand campesinos will gather to march for 5 days to a dialogue with local,
departmental, and national members of the government and members of various non-governmental
organizations.
They invite the national and international community to
participate, publicize, and support the communities of the mountain in their
nonviolent, collective effort to reclaim their rights and dignity.
