People’s Forum in Colombia 2009 — Witness for Justice : Projects @ PEACE for LIFE

Peace for Life (PfL) is calling for its Second People’s Forum to be held in Bogotá, Colombia, in March 2009 on the theme “Without Fear of Empire: Global People’s Resistance”. PfL since its establishment in 2004 has identified empire-building as the single, most formidable force today impeding the realization of fundamental ethical values of justice, equality, human dignity, human rights and integrity of creation. Recently the various working groups PfL in conversation with individuals and movement representatives from Colombia have discerned that PfL’s vision and call for resisting empire, and creating alternative worlds to it, will best be served by convening the People’s Forum in Colombia.

As in the First People’s Forum (the inaugural forum held in Davao City, Philippines, in 2004) the Second People’s Forum will be undertaken in partnership with a local group, a consortium, made up of Colombian NGOs both secular and faith-based, coordinated by Proyecto Justicia y Vida, a Bogotá based centre engaged in the promotion of justice and defence of human rights.

The People’s Forum is a regular event primarily envisioned as a space, a tribunal where stories about people’s struggles are expressed and aspirations are articulated; it also functions as PfL’s equivalent of a general assembly. It is both a political and cultural event and an arena for discourses and debates, for analyses and opinions; and a seat for reaffirmation of our common humanity, dedication to justice and respect for life.

1. The People’s Struggle in Colombia Today

The people of Colombia are living the nightmare of over 40 years of civil war, as guerrilla groups have waged an ongoing struggle against Colombian governments, and as the present government seizes upon the conflict in order to serve the interests of elite groups in the country and of transnational empire and capital. This is an internal and complex conflict, indeed, but it is one that is exacerbated, maintained, and, in many ways, created by, the external interests of U.S. global empire.

Millions of Colombian people are displaced internally by this conflict. Numerous military, paramilitary groups, and “self-defence” units for large landowning elites afflict non-combatant civilians, especially in the rural areas. Guerrilla groups have made their contributions to the agony of present-day Colombia, violating human rights, and causing popular displacement, but independent analysts the world over, such as a recent joint study, Call To Investigate, by Amnesty International and Fellowship of Reconciliation, emphasize that the majority of abuses and their systemic occurrence are the result of military, paramilitary and various “self-defence” groups that are supported by the government and the corporate interests it serves.

The present-day agony of the Colombia citizenry—made up of Spanish, Afro-Colombian and First Nations origins—includes the following dimensions of suffering:

the displacement of millions of civilians, creating a sea of internal refugees, estimated by various sources to range between 1.8 and 3 million persons, and includes thousands also forced to flee to neighbouring Venezuela, Ecuador and Panama;
dispossession of thousands of rural poor, including indigenous peoples, from their land by government-connected military, paramilitary and self-defence groups, and by guerrilla actions also;
creation of a burgeoning urban population that strains to accommodate newly landless people and refugees,
the defoliation of rural peoples’ land and of the ecological habitat by government spraying, allegedly to fight “drug trafficking” served by rural growers of coca and/or opium;
under the guise of disarming and destroying the paramilitaries, the people now see numerous reconstruction of these forces often within the official military itself (documented abuses committed by paramilitaries have been reduced lately, while abuses by the military itself have increased dramatically),
President Alvaro Uribe, himself descended from Colombia’s landowner elite, Harvard and Oxford trained, and the only South American head of state to support George W. Bush’s invasion of Iraq, has since 2005 engaged in warlike brinkmanship with neighbouring Venezuela and Ecuador, thus exposing Colombians to the threat of ever greater war;
loss of many of the country’s most valuable popular leaders (trade unionists, teachers, grassroots organizers, human rights observers, pastors) who are deemed to stand in the way of government interests (more than 2,000 labour union members have been killed since 1991),
worsening economic conditions due to disparities in the structure of wealth and income distribution in the country (although it is the fifth largest economy in Latin America, 50 % of its people live in poverty, 20 % in “absolute poverty,”
death from assassination stalks all, but especially the poor and their advocates (over 35,000 non-combatants have been killed in Columbia in the last decade alone). According to even a U.S. War College study, the rate of killing in Colombia exceeds the amount of ethnic cleansing that went on after the break-up of Yugoslavia.1

All of this has been worsened since the inauguration in 2001 of President Bush’s “war on terror”, with President Uribe’s support.

2. Colombia in the Geopolitics of U.S. Global Empire

As the fifth largest economy in Latin America, Colombia borders five countries of strategic importance to the U.S. (Panama, Peru, Ecuador, Brazil and Venezuela). It is a crucial region for U.S. imperial world domination, since the axis of domination of the U.S. in Latin America and the Caribbean has, historically, been a crucial column in the imperial palace of U.S. global empire, and at times the foundation for its global domination.

Although poverty levels are high, and violence continues to plague the populace, U.S. big business continues to praise the “growth” of the economy, which has been powered by severe structural adjustment plans overseen by the U.S.-dominated International Monetary Fund, and especially punishing of the poor.

“Plan Colombia,” developed during the Clinton regime includes now a drive of the Republicans to enact Neoliberalism’s much-desired Free Trade Agreement (FTA) with Colombia. This would have the effect of stripping Colombia of its own sovereign control over the country’s resources, handing them over to powerful investor communities of the North.

Colombia is also especially strategic for U.S. imperial interests, in that it is a government allied with the U.S., in opposition to Hugo Chavez’s work in Venezuela. Chavez’s Venezuela may constitute the most significant bulwark for Latin America’s growing regional autonomy from the U.S. Colombia is crucial for U.S. attempts to shipwreck Venezuelan people’s Bolivarian revolution in Latin America, which has been inspiring in throwing down the gauntlet to U.S. domination.

For these strategic reasons, and many more, the U.S has since 2000 invested almost 5 billion dollars funding right-wing governments that have been directly linked to the killing of trade unionists, human rights workers and campesinos (rural workers of the land). The paramilitaries are trained and directed by the Colombian military and their U.S. military advisors. In fact, recent studies by Amnesty International and the Fellowship for Reconciliation document that the highest occurrence of human rights abuses occur in areas where U.S. trained Colombian military are operating.

3. The Empire as Pax Americana-Israelica

Palestinian activist and Columbia University professor, Edward Said, once named the empire with which we struggle not as Pax Americana, so frequently heard, but as Pax Americana-Israelica, the imposed, unjust “peace” by allied U.S. and Israeli interests. Sometimes in Israel/Palestine, Israel’s own imperial support for the U.S. is masked by its language of being “tiny Israel” under threat from Palestinian “terrorists” and “surrounded by Arab nations.” Consequently, Israel’s illegal occupation of Palestine, and its regime of violence, the 40 years of Nakba (catastrophe) suffered by Palestinians, tends, understandably, to get the lion’s share of attention.

The fact is, however, that Israel has also been a supporter of U.S. global empire around the world, and for years, and perhaps nowhere more obviously so than in Latin America where Israel has been the emperor’s sorcerer, consistently conjuring and creating ever-new draconian strategies of security, surveillance and counter-insurgency warfare. Recent reports from Colombian press are debating the significant role of Israeli military advisors, in combating guerrilla insurgency, interrogating captured insurgents and supplying them with training and equipment. “Israel is now Colombia’s top weapons supplier,” and many of the most recent Israeli advisors, including senior generals, and other ranking officers “were hired under a reported US$10 million contract by the Colombian Defence Ministry…” Israel’s involvement has been documented in Colombia since at least 1987.2

II. OBJECTIVES

To frame a shared understanding of the current stage of the US global hegemonic project, especially the continuing militarisation and imposition of neoliberal economic globalisation processes, as it manifests in Latin America, paying particular attention to the religious, ideological and socio-cultural frameworks and value systems within which the US Empire pursues its imperial objectives
To analyse and assess recent developments in Latin America—the rise of progressive popular movements, regional integration outside the rubric of US domination, election to office of progressive nationalist leaders—within the purview of the overall struggle for social justice and liberation from the clutches of empire
To understand the conflict in Colombia from various perspectives and deliberate on how the international community, particularly the ecumenical movement, can help promote a peace processes that addresses the roots of conflict
To deliberate on the question of liberation movements/struggles in Latin America in the framing of peace discourses and alternative visions that will help set the stage for faith communities’ engagement in the task of peace building and challenging the current hegemonic order.
To expand and strengthen Peace for Life as a movement where people grounded in the churches and social movements converge, gather strength and build on the transformative power of the faith to press on with the struggle against global hegemony.
To assess and review the urgent tasks of Peace for Life formulated in the first people’s forums in the context of the challenges and opportunities facing the global peace movement and ecumenical and interfaith peace initiatives, specifically in the convergence of social justice and anti-war agendas and strategies.
To express Peace for Life’s solidarity with Colombian peoples as a way to support a struggle that Colombians wage for themselves, but which is also for a whole world groaning under the weight of empire’s work on every continent.

III. PROGRAMME COMPONENTS

Pre-Forum events
As in the first People’s Forum, the second will aim to undertake pre-forum events that will allow participants, particularly the international delegates, to have a close interaction with local communities and victims as well as dialogues with organised groups that share a common vision with PfL.

Pre-forum activities will commence on the 17th of March 2009.

Forum Proper
The forum proper will have the following components:

Opening Ceremonies – The formal opening will be marked by an interfaith and multi-cultural event featuring rituals, inspirational talk, sharing of stories, music, dance, performances and other creative activities.
Thematic Inputs and Plenary Discussions
Thematic Workshops
Organisational Workshops
Reports and Plenary Discussions
Closing Sessions

IV. FORUM PARTICIPANTS AND HOSTING

All the members of the PfL Forum are invited to participate in People’s Forum along with individuals who are deeply involved in the issues to be discussed or those interested to get involved in the future. PfL takes the responsibility of inviting international participants.

The Colombian consortium of NGOs coordinated by Proyecto Justicia y Vida is responsible for inviting and gathering mainly participants from Colombia and other Latin American countries, based on criteria previously agreed on.

Hosting (food and accommodation of participants) will be provided by the Colombian Consortium, for which a grant from the United Church of Canada (UCC) is being requested. Additional funds may also be used to subsidise travel expenses of Latin American participants outside of Colombia.

1 Gabriel Marcella and Donald Schulz, “Colombia’s Three Wars: U.S. Strategy at the Crossroads,” March 5, 1999, U.S. Army War College Report, Strategic Studies Institute, page 3 (accessed: June 28, 2008).

2 John C K Daly “Colombia, Israel and Rogue Mercenaries,” International Relations and Security Network, March 9, 2007 (accessed: June 28, 2008), page 1.

2nd PfL People’s Forum set for March ‘09 in Colombia