In the domestic departure lounge of the Bogotá airport, there is a big sign in English that reads, “Colombia: The only risk is wanting to stay.” That seemed ironic considering the reason we had come to Colombia was to learn more why people must leave Colombia.
I have found it helpful on this trip to remind myself that people being displaced is not so much the problem in and of itself but rather a symptom of a problem. Here in Colombia, those problems are often related to land and that can be associated with mining or farming—legal or illegal crops.
We have talked a bit already about farm land use. This morning we learned a bit about Canadian mining interests in the country. Colombia has some mineral resources—gold, oil, coal—and a number of Canadian companies are involved in mining here. It seems also that in the late part of the 1990s the Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA) worked with some companies to rewrite the Colombian mining laws so that they the royalties paid to the Colombian treasure was much lower.
It is no coincidence that three-quarters of the displaced peoples come from these resource rich areas. Both guerrilla and paramilitary groups use the resources as a source of income if they can. In addition to that paramilitary groups move into mining areas to move people out and also they are suspected to make sure that union activity does not start up.
So if the displaced people we have met in Bogota and who come to Canada are a symptom of a problem, how do we get at the root of the problem? We spent part of the morning with Rebbecca Bartel, MCC’s Latin America and Caribbean policy analyst who has an office here in Bogota at Justapaz. We talked about ways that she could get us information about issues and what we could do with that information.
Lunch was with Paul Stucky, who talked to us about Justapaz’s work at creating “Sanctuaries of Peace” among the churches. He also talked about the importance of support and the phrase “psychosocial support” which has come up a lot as we have made the rounds here in Colombia came up.
After lunch our road trip began. We picked up our luggage from the hotel and went to the airport to catch our flight to Monteria. The flight that took a little over an hour would have taken about eighteen hours by road if all went well according to Bonnie Klassen.
In Monteria we were to meet a group of Mennonite pastors from churches in the area. After living with the relatively cool climate of Bogota, the tropical heat of Monteria was quite a change. The situation that the pastors faced was also quite different.
Mugasa and I have had a running conversation about what we see on the surface and what we hear is beneath it. Even here away from the capital, the streets are paved, the electricity and phones and water all work (though we have been warned not to drink it), and yet millions of people are being displaced from their land. This evening as we met with the pastors of this region and we got another glimpse of the situation.
They had a surprisingly polished presentation for us. They had a powerpoint presentation on what the churches were up to complete with a mission and vision statement, an outline of what their major work is: a shelter for family members of hospital patients, and HIV/AIDS education program and a soup kitchen among other things.
What was significant though is that they have resettled five communities of approximately 50 families each who have been displaced by either violence or by a hydroelectric dam (which was supported by CIDA funds). Bonnie asked them to tell us why they have done this. One of the pastors said, when the first group of displaced people came to them in 1997, they didn’t really care about the conflict. He said they were not prepared in terms of resources, or attitude or theology. Having 300 hundred homeless people on their church doorstep changed them. It wasn’t easy, but with money from a variety of sources they have helped these five communities build new houses in a new location.
The most moving story however, was from a pastor from another region who was there. About two weeks earlier he received a phone call from a person in the paramilitary saying if he did not leave town, he would be killed. They decide the threat was only against the pastor and not them so he left his wife and children behind. This is often the pattern. A person will leave the area and check with family back there to see if it will be safe to come back.
It seems that there is still a risk for many in staying in their home.
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