| |
Contributions from
the Column
InWEnt Forum
Peace lessons for Colombi
Early warning systems: useless without social action
Meeting local needs
03/2006 |
|
[ Conflict management ]
Peace can be learned
Colombia has been in a state of civil war for more than 50 years. The human rights situation is dreadful. InWEnt courses convey fundmentals for building a peaceful society.
[ By Norbert Ahrens and Rita Walraf ]
Buenaventura rarely makes headlines in Germany. But in April last year, Colombia’s biggest Pacific port did just that. Even the German media carried reports on the murder of 13 young people. They had been found shot dead. Among the badly abused corpses were relatives of soccer star Adolfo Valencia, who once played for Bayern Munich. Afterwards, the 300,000-soul city slipped back out of the news. Prior to that incident, dozens of civilians had become victims of similar crimes – crimes that observers attributed to right-wing paramilitaries and left-wing guerrillas fighting for control of the city. Buenaventura is a key port for the shipping drugs made in Colombia.
The “monopoly on the legitimate use of physical force”, as Max Weber defined the state, has been broken for decades in Colombia. Civil war has raged in this Latin American country for more than 50 years. Violence occurs daily in many places, and is escalating as a result of paramilitary, guerrilla, army, police, drug mafia and plain criminal action. In the past 15 years, violence has claimed a yearly average of 20,000 – 25,000 lives.
The human rights situation is dreadful. For Colombian males aged 15 to 45, the most common cause of death by far is murder. Only around four percent of homicide cases get to court. And less than one in five that do so leads ends in a legal conviction. Even those guilty of atrocities normally get off scot-free; conviction and a prison sentences are the rare exception.
The decades of violence have left a mark on Colombians. And not only on those directly affected by armed conflict. Others, too, show a growing readiness to use force. Even in minor conflicts – such as family rows – violence is increasingly common. Amanda Bravo, a sociologist and psychologist in Bogotá, reports children smuggling knives into school hidden in their schoolbooks. According to Catalina Amador from Santa Marta, fights between youngsters frequently end with the threat: “¡Te voy a matar!” (“I’m going to kill you!”). Candelaria Sepúlveda from Cartagena knows another version: “¡Te mandamos una moto!” (“We’re going to send a motorbike after you!”). Killers in Colombia often shoot their victims from motorcycles.
These statements were made at a seminar on peace education staged by InWEnt in Buenaventura. It was during the four days it ran that the 13 youngsters died. In such cases, the local media speak of “unknown” or “unidentified” perpetrators. Víctor Riascos has his own thoughts on the matter. The human rights representative of Buenaventura’s archbishop is accustomed to being greeted by friends with the words: “So you’re still alive”.
Ubiquitous fear
Riascos, who lives in a poor district of Buenaventura, is convinced that the paramilitaries are behind most of the murders. However, there are hardly ever any witnesses. Archbishop Héctor Epalza explains: “People here are incredibly afraid of becoming the next victim themselves. That is why there are no witnesses.” People would swear that they saw or heard nothing rather than voice even the slightest suspicion of a killer’s identity. Therefore, serious crimes are committed with almost absolute impunity. “What we have to contend with is an impenetrable web of fear, silence and exemption from prosecution,” the cleric comments. “And the soil in which it grows is the extreme poverty of many Colombians.”
The new Justice and Peace Act, for which Colombia’s President Álvaro Uribe sought international backing on visits to Spain (to no avail) and the United States (with more success), targets mainly the paramilitaries. The idea is that, after disarming, they should be reintegrated into civilian life. But no matter how welcome the prospect of them laying down their weapons, the thought of them being reintegrated into society without punishment is an uncomfortable one. According to nearly all human rights organisations and experts, the paramilitaries are responsible for the indiscriminate slaughter of young people and some horrific massacres.
In some parts of Colombia, being young, male and poor is almost a death sentence in itself. This is the group the paramilitaries suspect of harbouring potential supporters of the guerrillas. In Buenaventura, moreover, more than 90 percent of the population are of African origin. Víctor Riascos, himself an Afro-Colombian, talks about the “ethnicisation of poverty and persecution”.
Pedagogical tools
Riascos’s view is shared by child care worker María Miyela, who works with Afro-Colombian youngsters. Violence has driven families out of rural areas. They now live in the slum belt on the city fringes, where they feel a bit safer. Miyela is member of a group of concerned citizens that founded “Escuelas Rurales” (rural schools), where children not only learn to read, write and do maths but are also taught their basic human and civil rights. This is done not through traditional classroom instruction but through enacting plays and a variety of other activities.
“InWEnt seminars have been very, very important for my work,” Miyela says. “I upgraded my skills in a relatively short time and now do my work with much more self-confidence.” Today, she says, she is aware of more dimensions of the problems and knows where to get information if new questions crop up. But the seminar she attended was important to her in another way too: “It may sound odd but it was in those courses that I first started to accept myself as a Black woman. I know now that I have something to say, that I can contribute to the creation of a peaceful society.”
With no hint of pathos, Mieyela expresses her conviction that “education and training are the gateway to freedom for our remote and abandoned community”. She is living proof that there are still forces in Colombian civil society capable of opposing violence. The task of arousing and strengthening those forces is addressed by the seminars offered by InWEnt. In three-part courses on peace education, multipliers in the education sector learn how to react to violent tendencies. InWEnt offers such courses specifically in countries that look back on long internal conflicts or civil wars (El Salvador, Nicaragua, Guatemala, Honduras) or are still haunted by them (Colombia and parts of Mexico). Education for peace sensitises children, teenagers and adults to the various forms of violence and strengthens the communication and social skills needed to solve conflicts peacefully.
Minorities particularly affected
War and violence leave deep scars in society. In Colombia, those who suffer most from the armed conflicts are ethnic minorities, women and children. Four percent of Colombians have African roots. They live mostly on the Pacific and Caribbean coasts. On frequent occasions, Afro-American and indigenous communities get caught between the fronts. Experts put the number of people internally displaced at around three million, 70 percent of them women and children. Children who grow up in such environments almost automatically reproduce the violence they experience. That is where InWEnt comes in.
Although governments and civil society in all six countries have set up agencies, education programmes and initiatives to help create a culture of peace, there is a lack of the practical experience and methodological knowledge needed to implement modern concepts such as mediation – in schools, say, or in non-governmental organisations active in youth and adult education. The seminars show teachers how role play can be used to get a fruitful discussion going in class on weapons brought to school. Among the most popular capacity-building events are “Forumtheater” workshops, which focus on a form of role play where spectators can intervene and suggest solutions. Requiring no elaborate preparation, this method even works in small village communities. InWEnt offers support here and an opportunity for organisations to engage in a regional exchange. It also advises on issues such as human rights education, gender, interculturality and memory work – both face-to-face and online through a joint working group at Global Campus 21, the InWEnt alumni portal.
Norbert Ahrens
is a freelance radio and print media journalist.
nor_ahr@yahoo.de
Rita Walraf
is a senior project manager
in the Education and Training
division at InWEnt.
rita.walraf@inwent.org
|
