Finding a Peaceful and Just Community

The Teusaquillo region of Bogota where we are staying reminds me a bit of a European village.  There is something about the layout of the streets, the buildings and the small parks which have a town square kind of feel to them.  It was pleasant to walk between our hotel and several different meetings in this part of town amid the rushing cars, buses and motorcycles.  

Now, in the distance, this evening, I hear birds I do not know loudly chirping and church bells ringing above the gentle rushing sound of distant traffic and the rumble and honking of closer cars.

Today was a series of meetings with different people connected with the Teusaquillo Mennonite Church.  The thread that ran through this was the Moment of Peace that the church has every Wednesday at midday.  The last time we were in Colombia three years ago, we were able to attend two of those gatherings.   The Moment of Peace is a gathering for Colombians displaced by violence who have found their way to Bogota.  It begins with a Bible study.  Often there are people who share about their experience of displacement, followed by a simple, inexpensive meal.  Always, people from the church’s Peace and Justice Committee are around to listen to people’s stories and to perhaps help them think about options.  Occasionally they will find people who have to continue to displace numerous times, and so they may walk with them in their process to come to Canada under the refugee assistance program.

We met three people from the Peace and Justice Committee today in addition to Peter Stucky, the long time pastor of the church and Jennifer Chappell Deckert, who is the MCC staff person who works with displacement issues. The most important thing that I heard today is the displacement because of violence and conflict is continuing to happen in Colombia.  In fact in the first half of this year, nearly 90,000 Colombians were newly displaced within the country.  That is a rate that is similar to peak displacement in the early part of this century.  

It is clear that the problem of displacement is not going away.  What is changing is the way governments are responding to the displacement.  From the Colombian government’s perspective, while we were hearing that they are putting some good legislation in place for land restitution, they are also taking the power away from some victims to claim reparation.  The right wing paramilitary groups were disbanded a few years ago, and there was a program to reintegrate them into society.  It seems however that for the most part, they remained active and have continued to work for large land owners or perhaps even the Colombian military.  However, since they were officially disbanded, they became less centralized and more difficult to control.  They were also now seen not as political actors but rather criminal gangs.  Victims of criminal gangs do not have the same rights for reparation as victims of right wing paramilitary groups.  

We also heard about the ongoing efforts of Justapaz, an organization partly funded by MCC, to documents the displacement and the violence.  We looked at their fifth report called, Prophetical Call: Colombian Protestant Churches Document their Suffering and their Hope.  Our colleague Orlando, emphasized the importance of collecting and telling these stories. He had just come from his first visit to El Salvador since he left there more than 30 years ago.   He said that he realized on this trip that the stories of disappearances there had been lost and that was tragic.  The stories need to be collected because it gives them power and in a strange way, they give people hope—hope that they are not alone.

It is significant that the church is involved in this work.  Not many churches in this place are involved in working with naming human rights violations and offering comfort and support to displaced people.

The most difficult and in some ways inspiring meetings we had today was hearing first hand one of these stories, told by a couple who came to meet us.  They has been dealing with threats and displacements since the early 1990s.  At some point a few years ago they stumbled onto the Moment for Peace meetings, and it has changed their lives.  The Peace and Justice committee has helped them think through how they can find some measure of safety, but it has also walked with them through the process of applying as refugees to Canada.  Beyond that though it has given them a community, and they in turn have given back to that community as much as they can as well.  As I listened to their story, it seemed to me that that community, and the faith they found there is more important than anything else. 

One-eighth of the way around the world

Sometimes we talk metaphorically about going half way around the world for some reason.  Physically, I have only gone an eighth of the way around the world today.  Thursday morning I woke up at about 50 degrees north of the equator.  About 16 or so hours later, I went to bed at about four and a half degrees north.

Metaphorically, I am not sure how far from home I am yet.  I have mostly interacted with Ed Wiebe whom I have travelled with from Winnipeg and other people in transit. On Friday morning that will change. 

Here we go again...

A little more than three years ago, when I was still fairly new in my job as Mennonite Central Committee Manitoba refugee program coordinator, I went on a learning tour with my six MCC refugee network colleagues to Colombia.  One of the things that helped me process the experience was to spend some time, usually at the end of each day, trying to write a blog entry.

This summer we in MCC started planning another trip there.

In preparation for my trip there this week, I have been looking back at what I wrote on this blog three years ago. It reminded me what an important part of my experience this was, so I plan to pick up this blog where I left off back then.


A number of things will be different this time:

• I will have only two travelling companions from Canada this time.  Ed Wiebe, who is MCC Canada's refugee program coordinator has many years of experience working with refugees from all over the world.  We will travel together from here in Winnipeg.  In Bogota, we will meet our colleague Orlando Vasquez, who is Program Director for MCC Alberta.  He is currently travelling in Central America on other MCC business. 
• In addition to travelling to Colombia to learn about Internally Displaced Colombians, we will also be travelling to Ecuador to learn about Colombian refugees in Quito.
• A major difference has to do with the Canadian immigration regulator changes which will mean that Colombians will no longer be able apply for immigration under the "Source Country Class" of Canada's refugee program.  That is the main reason for this trip: to think together with MCC staff there and Mennonite Churches who have been working with IDPs and refugees about the way forward.

What has not changed is that Colombians are still being displaced by conflict.  

I invite you to follow me on this journey as I try and make sense of what I am seeing and hearing.

Here we are at a restaurant three years ago on in the beautiful city of Catagena.  Ed Wiebe is on the left, that's me in the middle (obscuring our Ontario colleague Moses Moni), Elaine Harder (Saskatchewan) and Orlando Vasquez.  No tropical weather this time!