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Finding hope amid violence
Paul Shetler This is one of two stories about Colombia that MCC News Service is releasing this week. The other, "Canadian reflects on her journey to Colombia," highlights how being part of a delegation of Canadian and Colombian young adults changed MCC staff member Kendra Loewen.
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Maria's worn and weary face is turned meekly down as she speaks. Her dark eyes flick up to mine as she tells the story of how she came to be living in Cazuca, a community of displaced people on the outskirts of Bogotá. Six years ago she was a rural farmer, "with a good life," she says, before the troubles came to her town and family. One of Colombia’s many armed groups, she will not say which, killed her husband and forced her to flee in the night with her six children. Her thick calloused hands shake quietly as she talks. "When I got here with nothing, not knowing anyone, I sat down on a big rock and I cried. I prayed to God and I cried for everything that I lost." Maria was able to get a job working in a soup kitchen run by a Colombian Mennonite church development agency, Mencoldes. With the help of the agency's micro-finance project, she was able to slowly start patching life together on the steep and dusty hills of Cazuca, an area with few government services and where armed groups have a strong presence. Life is hard for Maria. The 48-year-old struggles to put food on the table, build a decent house, find education for her children and above all try to keep her family from being either victims or recruits in the armed conflict. The armed conflict is violent and on her doorstep daily. Recently, armed men stormed her house to kill her son, but left suddenly saying they would be back if the family didn't obey their next orders. Maria's story, tragically, is shared by the millions of other Colombians who have been victimized and displaced by years of violence. Colombia is caught in a decades-long civil war that has killed tens of thousands of people. Since 1985, approximately 3.5 million people in Colombia have been forced from their homes due to armed conflict. The Mennonite church in Colombia has responded to the conflict and its victims with the inspiring love and compassion of Christ, despite much personal danger. The church's efforts toward peace, economic development and ecumenical cooperation have made large strides in recent years, but continued success depends on maintaining the solidarity of the larger church in standing for peace, justice and dignity. MCC staff invite Mennonites in the United States and Canada to pray for peace in Colombia and to urge their lawmakers to designate more aid for the hurting people of Colombia and less for military support. "Eighty percent of the aid that goes to Colombia is used for military purposes and 20 percent is for social purposes," said Theo Sitther, a legislative associate in the MCC Washington Office. "We urge lawmakers to ask Congress to increase the percentage of social aid," money that goes toward health care, peace, education or other efforts to rebuild communities and people. MCC is working with the Colombian people through the development projects of the Mennonite church and its affiliate agencies like Justapaz, which is documenting human rights abuses against the churches, and Mencoldes, which is working to promote economic development and empowerment, particularly to the millions of people like Maria who have fled their homes. The MCC Washington Office is working to shift U.S. policy away from its continued support of military solutions in Colombia. The MCC United Nations Liaison Office has begun work at the international level to draw attention to the continued human rights abuses of all the armed actors in Colombia and the need for international solidarity and pressure through agencies like the new U.N. Human Rights Council to bring an end to impunity and continuing violence. The MCC Washington Office is also a co-sponsor of an October visit by Colombian church leaders Ricardo Esquivia (Mennonite Church), Bishop Nel Beltran (Episcopal Church), and Father Rafael Castillo (Catholic Church) to raise awareness among the church community in the United States. Colombia has the second largest population of internally displaced people in the world, after Sudan. This October, a report on internally displaced people is being presented to the Third Committee of the U.N. General Assembly, the committee that addresses social, humanitarian and cultural issues. "Many nongovernmental organizations are hoping this report will encourage more attention to the matter," said Sara Yoder, an intern in the MCC U.N. Liaison Office. "We hope people will pray for a turning of the collective consciousness of the U.N. toward the great concerns of Colombia." Our brothers and sisters in Colombia are working to live in the vision of our loving Christ, may we have the courage to do the same.
Paul Shetler served as an intern at the MCC U.N. Liaison Office. He is a student at Goshen College |
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