Heroe

The first time I met my hero she was indistinguishable really.  One of a dozen dusty, carefree children congregated like a school of fish on the edge of town as they dreamed up their next adventure.  Buenos Aires seemed to be one of the best places on earth to be a kid, a small, quiet riverside town where they were free to be queens and kings of their own destiny and a whole jungle out back to explore.

The only reason she became singled out from the crowd, highlighted as unique among the mob of Indiana Jones’, came to me as a warning: “that one over there, the angelic, sweet, little girl with the springy curls and big smile?  She’s a handful.  Give her a foot and she’ll take a mile”.

Jimena sure is a handful; a handful of spunk, spirit, and joy.  She’s nine years old and she wants to be a doctor when she grows up.  She wants to help people who have heart problems.  Her toothy grin and the way she snuggles up under my arm and into my heart leaves me no doubt that she’ll save many lives.  She’s already saved mine.

When I met her for the second time she was living in Las Pavas with her two older sisters and her parents.  If Buenos Aires is the best place to grow up, Las Pavas might be one of the worst.  As the daughter of a subsistence farmer in the Colombian context, Jimena carries a bull’s-eye on her back while she tries to avoid the daily darts of hunger, harassment, gun shots, illness, and rape.  The 123 families of Las Pavas are part of a national struggle for land rights, up against a government more interested in foreign investment and capitalism than human rights and food security.  The Colombian authorities on a regional, state, and even national level have turned their backs on the people of Las Pavas, allowing a large-scale palm oil company to appropriate the land for palm plantations, a lucrative cash crop for export.

Amidst the atmosphere thick with tension, frustration, and desperation, Jimena is a source of light.  The curls on her head reflect the buoyancy of her soul and the wind in her sails; the energy that moves her is contagious.  Her curiosity is insatiable and in her rush to get all of her questions out she’ll often mix up her R’s with her L’s.  We enjoy swinging upside down in hammocks and cheating at dominos.

I don’t want to give the wrong impression.  Jimena isn’t immune to the violence she has to face daily.  She calls the palm company security guards names, and she tells me she wants to throw rocks at them.  Her smile disappears and her body tenses with fear when she recounts the threats of rape she receives when she walks an hour to Buenos Aires for school.

It’s no easy lifestyle.  But her family has chosen to live in the midst of conflict, giving up amenities like running water and electricity, in order to defend their right to the land and Jimena will not give up.  So why should I?

Together and Alone

What do you say when there’s no words to say it?

What do you write when there’s nothing to say?

You hold hands, you hug tightly, you gaze into the distance in silence, together and alone.

And it is enough.

But what do you do when you are a half day’s journey away with only thoughts and memories to bind your souls?

How can one who comes and goes sympathize with one who stays; with one who has no place to go?

With violence staring at her across the fence.

It will never be enough.

Sleep when the baby sleeps

We are a small team at the moment.  Pierre, Stewart, and I are holding down the fort while Caldwell is at home but once Caldwell arrives back in Barranca Stewart leaves for six months.  If all goes as planned we’ll have another full time member on board come July but she’ll be going for language training in August, just as I leave for my first stint in the North.  So yeah, we’re a little short on warm bodies here.

And to top it off, we have had an international delegation here the past two weeks who fly out on Wednesday, and both Las Pavas and El Garzal are in crisis and are asking for more permanent accompaniment.  Hence why I haven’t been able to write very often.

Two weeks ago the Las Pavas community was shot at again while bringing the tractor onto their land, and a couple of days later Tito, a community member and good friend of mine, was beat up badly, sustaining blows to the head and body and cuts from machetes.  He was taken to a hospital a couple of hours by canoe and received 9 stitches on his knee.  When the delegation met with him in Las Pavas this week he was on his way to get a CAT scan because he’d been having several dizzy spells.  The community’s lawyer is graciously paying for his health care out of her pocket.

I had planned to be on that trip to Las Pavas to see Tito and help out with the delegation.  I was not able to go because we had an emergency call to El Garzal because of threats occurring in the area.

I don’t even want to get into the administrative aspects of all this.

My honeymoon stage here in Colombia may be coming to an end although not quite unexpected as all of my energy these past two months have been met with the grim faces of my teammates saying, “yeah, but there’s only 3 of us”.  I just smiled and continued on in good spirits.  Well my friends, I’ve finally come to the realization along with probably quite a few other women after their honeymoon: there’s a baby on the way and it’s going to be the death of me (and a little less cute, little more political, violent, and complex and unfortunately won’t be pacified with food, sleep, or a clean diaper).

What to do?  Sleep when the baby sleeps.

Open Letter to Mr. Stephen Harper

Dear Stephen Harper,

My name is Hannah Redekop, a 24-year-old Canadian citizen, living and working in Colombia with Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), as an international observer for human rights, striving for justice and peace in a country torn by a 50-year civil war.

I want to tell you about Las Pavas, a farming community in rural Colombia.  I want to tell you about their displacement over the past 10 years and the human rights abuses that continue to happen to this day at the mercy of Aportes San Isidro, a palm oil company.  I want to tell you this because Canada has recently become Free Trade partners with Colombia, and while Canada imports millions of palm oil products (palm oil is found in a large percentage of every day products) we are perpetuating these abuses against humanity.

I want to tell you about Don Efraín and his son Tito, two hard-working farmers who are struggling to survive on their land because the palm company’s security agency has stolen their fences, knocked down their house, threatened their lives and even shot at them while they carry out daily tasks on the farm and attempt to survive, living under a couple of sticks with a garbage bag roof and a pot hung over coals, with supper that consists of a boiled yucca or banana.

I want to tell you about Rubiela, a 37-year-old mother of five, who lives daily under threats from the company against her and her family’s lives as well as threats of rape towards her three girls, aged fourteen, thirteen, and nine.  Rubiela sends her husband off to work the farm with a boiled banana and a fried egg, nothing of real substance for a man who works 14-hour days under equatorial sun.  Despite his hard work, Wladymir’s fields of yucca crops have been poisoned and uprooted; his unripe bananas chopped down and left to rot.  Rubiela would go help him in the fields but fears leaving the house unattended in the shadow of the palm company’s pattern of destruction.

I want to tell you that I was there when the community, preparing to put a thatch roof on the new ranch house, arrived to find the piles of palm branches burned in gasoline.  I was there when they cut down new branches and as they drove the load onto their land the security men came out each armed with pistols and they shot out the tire of the tractor with a shotgun.

I want to tell you about how the police showed up an hour later but ruled in favour of the palm company, despite evidence and proof that the company is acting illegally.

I want to tell you all this but I think I would be wasting my time.

Because before you care about Colombians, you have to care about Canada.  But apparently Canada isn’t all that important to you either, Mr. Harper.

If you cared about Canada, we wouldn’t be worried about the environmental damage of the tar sands or the fact that you have shut down many institutions that cared for and protected our fresh water bodies.

If you cared about Canada you wouldn’t have preferred to welcome pandas to the Toronto Zoo instead of welcoming the Nishiyuu youth who had walked 1600 km to Ottawa to bring attention to the indigenous issues you refuse to recognize.

If you cared about Canada, you wouldn’t be muzzling scientists, librarians, or artists, or censoring alternative media and trying to control the CBC.

What is it you want, not-so-honourable Mr. Stephen Harper?

If it’s money, just take it and leave.  There’s already a scandal out that $3.1 billion is missing from your “Harper Government” regime.  We’re Canadians, we’ll forgive you if you take a little bit more.  But just go.

Canada needs a leader who cares about her people and also about the people who are affected by Canada’s actions.  Colombia needs international leaders who care about the impunity granted to large business owners at the expense of subsistence farmers.  I need a leader who cares.  So please leave.

Kindly,

Hannah Redekop, Rubiela, Don Efrain, Tito, and the other Las Pavas community members.

Tito’s rancho destroyed by the palm company

Tito on his farm

Don Efrain on his land

Why can’t we all be good?

I have a problem; I tend to only see the good in people. I believe that people want to and strive to be good. Now you might not see that as a problem and no, it’s not necessarily a bad thing, but it means that I put a lot of trust and faith in a person to act for the good of others (especially when they are in uniform, but that might be a larger societal issue). Thus, when a person does not use the power given to them to act justly, I get confused. And frustrated. And irritated. And angry.

This week I had to deal with the police. So, quick summary, Colombian police are corrupt. Done. Okay. Well, wait. No. Not okay. Trigger Hannah’s ‘people are inherently good’ problem. Exception #1: Not when it comes to money. Or stupidity, but let’s stick with money.

I know little about law enforcement, and even less about the Colombian National Police, but my basic understanding is that when a crime is committed the offender is to reconcile their offense, and in today’s world that usually involves a punishment such as prison. Simple right? Great.

On Wednesday I witnessed a crime. Members of the community of Las Pavas were bringing palm branches to their farm so that they could build a communal ranch to protect themselves from the elements while they work. Noteworthy is the fact that they were bringing newly cut palm branches because upon arriving to where they had previously cut palm they found the piles in ashes, evidence of another crime. Also of importance is that the tractor loaded with palm had to enter by a secondary route since the palm oil company, Aportes San Isidro, is currently controlling traffic along the public road which services the main entrance to the farm, another illegal act.

So when the community entered the vicinity of the farm, about five armed security guards approached the tractor on horseback and by foot, shooting out the tire with a shotgun.

An hour later the police arrive. Three officers come to take a look at the tractor. I asked them for their names, and one introduced himself as Jairo Hernandez while I caught the last part of his name – rrera – on his uniform before he pulled his shoulder strap to cover it up. When I asked to see his name badge he refused to show me. When they wondered why I needed their names I told them that I wanted to keep them accountable so that the person who committed the crime would also be held accountable. I mentioned that although I have a limited understanding of the law I assume that if we can agree that there has been a crime committed, which we did agree upon, the police do not rest until that person is caught. And while these officers stood studying the bullet hole in the tractor tire, the man we all saw shoot out the tire was wandering around his house 100m away. Well, they informed me that they have no authority to act and are waiting to hear orders from their superior. Awesome.

After a couple hours, and at least 20 officers perched on the gate smoking cigarettes and sharing youtube videos on their phones, a decision has been made that the tractor will not be used to transport building materials to the farm until the inspector can come the following day to sort out the problem. So the community is left with their hands tied while the company continues to control the main road and carry on with their palm harvest. I noted to the officers that despite a crime having been committed today by the palm company, it is apparent that all that has been done is punish the victims by further restricting their movement. They had no comment.

On Thursday morning the inspector arrived, and after carrying out his impartial duties of speaking with both parties he declared that the man had shot the tire of the tractor out of self-defense for fear of his co-worker being run over, and that the tractor may be used only up until the fence until further decisions could be made about the land dispute. The inspector did not view any of the pictures and videos, which clearly show that all men are armed and one jumped in front of the tractor running along with it until the other fired his shotgun into the tire.

The sergeant of the region had also arrived on Thursday and after bragging about his extensive involvement with the situation in Las Pavas and how well he is dealing with it he decided to try to woo me with pictures of his dog and stories of his own farm where he fishes and where I am always welcome to come visit. When I refused to make nice and pressured him on the officer from the previous day who refused me his name, an officer who is apparently under his jurisdiction, he offered no response.

By Thursday afternoon the inspector had left and the officers were still perched on the fence killing time. All security guards were free to carry on with their daily tasks of controlling the main road and threatening the community members with rape and death.

In all of our conversations with the legal authority when we questioned their integrity or drew light on the impunity that they afford the palm company, they cowered away with no answer. The injustice here is so obvious and their reaction to our questions shows that they are well aware. But they refuse to make it right. Sometimes, for reasons of money, pride, or a need to protect and feed your family, the good doesn’t win out.

Meanwhile, I’m going to have to be more skeptical about the intentions of people; I cannot blindly trust that people will see the black and white injustices that I see. But at the same time I refuse to believe that we do not have a conscience. People are good. And even if we make mistakes, there is a way to be good again.