Hearing Voices: The Displaced in Colombia Speak against Violence

  by Alexandra Buck  

September 27, 2008

 

"We have been made invisible and abandoned by the Colombian state," one indigenous leader from Putumayo told our delegation in Bogota. His particular community of indigenous people is one of 18 confronting imminent extinction.

Along with Afro-Colombians, indigenous people are those most affected by the half-century violent conflict in Colombia. The voices of poor indigenous and Afro-Colombian communities are drowned by the political-economic megaprojects of the government. The United States is contributing to the devastation by funding the militaristic Plan Colombia and forwarding the US-Colombia Free Trade Agreement, currently facing Congress.

I just returned from Colombia on a two-week delegation with the Presbyterian Church of Colombia, partner church to the Presbyterian Church (USA). We visited displaced communities from various areas of the country. I was overwhelmed in this short time with the catastrophic human rights violations in cases of displacement, massacres, and impunity.

The US Free Trade Agreement with Colombia will increase economic inequality and force even more poor, small landholders off their land, the majority of whom are indigenous and Afro-Colombian. There are already nearly 4 million internally displaced people in Colombia, second only to Sudan.

Despite what seems a hopeless situation, the indigenous and Afro-Colombian people persevere. They keep speaking, believing that through all who hear, "through all of you, our voice makes an echo in this world." I heard, you heard, and now you can make someone else hear. Make a call to your representative to speak about injustices in Colombia. Make a difference.

What to say? http://capwiz.com/pcusa/callalert/index.tt?alertid=11025706