As if the world were a contrast of black and white I stumble my way through this day.  The dramatic hope of those who struggle to bring about profound societal change here contrasts moments later with the human wreckage, the “collateral damage” of this 40-year war. 

It was still early this Sunday morning when Cabo wept for the first time since I have known him.  Cabo is a large, rough looking man with a face wrinkled, consistently unshaven with two or more days of stubble.  He looks like the man of the river and coast that he is.  His accent is thick from this region, the letters “S” and “R” often forgotten as something as unnecessary as the extra parts in the back of the boats he pilots.  He sobs as he relates the pain of losing his son to one of the army’s paramilitary units here.  On December 29, his 23-year-old son was hit by a guerrilla fragmentation grenade.  He lived until January 10, but Cabo didn’t find out until a week later than that.  “If only I had made more money so that he didn’t have to join,” was his frequent refrain.  There was little more to do than listen as he attempts to, in his words, “desahogarse” (to un-drown.)

After being with Cabo, I leave the Catholic parish building where I am temporarily installed.  I leave just as the “Youth, Builders of Peace” group was organizing a day of events.  “Alicia[1],” who I worked with a year ago organized the day of games and events, designed to keep going youth projects they hope will give alternatives to the war.  With over 11,000 child-soldiers (defined as under 15 years old) in this country[2], this is a crucial, though almost Sisyphus-like task.  Most of the youth attending today are among this city’s inhabitants that have been displaced from their lowland river villages.[3] 

When I walk out in the 80 degree haze of this lowland Colombian city this morning I pass over 100 soldiers in various parts of town.  Apparently today there is a more notable effort than others.  Within two hours they had over 30 youths, male and female, detained.  Some perhaps have documents that didn’t quite fit; some walked out of their shacks of homes without remembering to bring their Identification card, forgetting that early Sunday morning strolls are no excuse.  The vision I just saw this morning is a small part of the average of 334 detentions a day by the government providing just a glimpse of the lie that human rights here are at an acceptable level.  As incredible as it may seem, U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell certified the Human Rights situation in Colombia to be acceptable in January allowing tens of millions of dollars more to that government. 

Continuing in my day, I took a short bus trip, arriving to meet with my old friend “Jose[4]” who is working at a Catholic church that has been abandoned for the past two decades.  The priest has been here for only 1 ½ months.  He shows me around the grounds of the church courtyard, bringing me to a 10 foot by 6 foot hole dug, deep by his instructions, for the purpose of a garbage dump.  He whispers to me that the men digging the hole discovered over 20 skeletons, evidence of part of a mass grave from the killings that ocurred almost 20 years ago.  “I can’t go public or to the prosecutors office” he adds matter-of-factly.  The inability of the judicial system to do anything, combined with the paramilitary domination of the political offices locally would make this a suicidal step.  He now plans on planting a meditation garden on this site.

In Robin Kirk’s book[5], More Terrible Than Death: Massacres, Drugs and America’s War in Colombia, the title is one that rings of hopelessness, but upon reading the full quote by Josué Giraldo Cardona this hopelessness is turned 180 degrees.  He stated, “To give up on hope for change in Colombia is more terrible than death.”  Though he was later killed by the paramilitary with local government collaboration, his life was full of hope and support for victims of the violence here. 

So, why, many have asked would I be here at this point?  It is definitely due to a calling.  I believe that the same hope that Josué expressed, what Martin Luther King, Jr. lived, what Mahatma Gandhi professed, and what we must live out is the non-violent option for profound social change.  It gives tremendous hope to those who suffer from U.S. policies to see that we as people from the U.S. provide a different option and are willing to risk with them.  Moreover, as a person of faith, I believe that the precepts of defense of the poor, the oppressed, the widow and the orphan are as necessary today as ever.  In this, we have much to celebrate and live together with the vast majority of our Colombian sisters and brothers.  The health promoters, youth leaders, human rights workers, teachers, organizers, and constructors of a new Colombia risk on a daily basis to build instead of destroy, to heal instead of kill.

I compare that to the medications we have for the zone I work in.  Most of the health promoters are volunteer and work without charge.  Of course in a country where the average income is barely $5.00 U.S. a day (and in this region probably only a third of that) the ability to pay for medications, or to have a “sustainable” health project is negligible.  There is no money visible from the U.S. government for health care in this region. 

Within the next few days I return up the Atrato River.  I find it difficult to return to the news of the “Puerto Lleras” community that I had accompanied in their flight last Eastertime.  The community has now fled, for a fifth time, and is fractured with their people living in three differing villages on the Atrato River.  I wonder whether I will be able to find the young boy with seizures whose medicine is about to run out, or the insulin dependent diabetic or the elderly man with high blood pressure.  As with all the communities in this area, the work to combat these chronic illnesses as well as the endemic malaria and parasites, the attempt to make water drinkable are difficult enough in a time of peace.  It is made almost impossible by the overwhelming military presence and economic blockade of this dense jungle region.  But we must try.  One must ask, “If this were my family, what would I want done to support them?”  And of course they are our family. 

So it is still Sunday, still a day of rest for most people in this country, except for men like the soldier standing 50 feet from my window from where I write from.  His finger rests easily on the trigger of his M-16 rifle, folding metal stock model.  I can hardly believe I have come to learn the weaponry of war as much as I have.  I have come to know the wounds provoked by crescendo hole of expanding bullets, the internal damage and brokenness provoked by tumbling bullets.  My most recently reviewed medical text “Save Lives, Save Limbs” details the varied ways to teach village health workers to treat amputations or chest wounds from a fragmentation mine vs. a blast mine.  The over 100,000 mines found in all but 2 departments of this country lead to a death of a child every three days.[6]  It is impressive what over $2,000,000 a day from U.S. tax dollars can purchase in armament. 

But, back to Sunday evening.  I have yet to talk with one of the French accompaniers about what we will do tomorrow with the news that three young women (all under age 17) have been diagnosed with HIV while working as sex workers.  From some source, the news has become public.  If something isn’t done they will probably not be alive soon the French accompanier has informed me.  Not from AIDS, but rather because the paramilitary provide “social cleansing” of street children and those suspected of crimes, or in this case of expendable young women known to have HIV. 

And then, to prepare for Monday…

Curt Wands is a Quaker, a Physician Assistant, and a non-violent activist working to train village health workers and midwives in the Urabá region of northwest Colombia through Concern-America and in collaboration with the Social/Pastoral office of the Catholic Church.  He was most recently a resident of Berkeley, California.

Suggested ways of support:

-         Contact your political representative and request that ALL military aid to Colombia be ended

-         Provide funds (tax deductible) to the Colombia Project of Concern America.  Or for a list of medical supplies being collected contact:

o       Concern America, PO Box 1790, Santa Ana, CA 92702; Tel: 714-953-8575;  concern@earthlink.net

-         Consider work with non-governmental and human rights agencies in the direct work in Colombia, or in countries with similary needs, or within the U.S. contact: Human Rights Watch/ Americas www.hrw.org, Witness for Peace www.witnessforpeace.org, Concern America www.concernamerica.org, Fellowship of Reconciliation www.forusa.org, Amnesty International www.amnesty.org, Latin America Working Group,

-         Work to close the School of the America’s / WHISC: www.soaw.org

Curt Wands

Sunday, March 21, 2004

Apartadó, Antioquia; Colombia, South America

Tel:      Home: (57)(4) 826-6099   Office: (57) (4) 828-0844     Fax: (57)(4) 828-4786

Email: cwands@igc.org