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I recently watched an episode of a Brazilian documentary television series called ‘Pasagem Para’ ,or, ‘Voyages To’ in English, this series gives viewers the opportunity to visit different countries and to find out about different people and aspects of the location which is visited, with a narrative dialogue provided by journalist Luis Nachbin.

During seven years of the series the documentary has travelled to different locations in over twenty countries in Asia, Africa, Europe and the American continent, I watched episode 115 which was a voyage to San Jose de Apartadó a Community of Peace in Colombia.

San Jose de Apartadó is a small village located in the region of Uraba, approximately 12 km from the city of Apartado, Antioquia, and is near the Serrana del Abibe, bordering Cordoba.where peasants from neighboring areas sold avocados, cocoa beans and other products.

San Jose is comprised of 28 hamlets and has a population of nearly 3000. The land is apt for raising cattle and for cultivating corn, cocoa, avocado, yucca, plantains, rice and coffee, the village has organized a cooperative called BALSAMAR to market and process cocoa beans.

The film starts as Luis enters the village and the camera focuses on the notice board at the entrance to the village which reads as follows:

The Community freely declares its commitment:

To participate in community work efforts;

To say no to injustice and impunity;

To not participate directly nor indirectly in the war;

To not carry weapons;

To not be manipulated by, or, give information to any of the parties in the conflict.

The narrator Luis Nachbin reveals the story of the development of San Jose de Apartado as a Communty of Peace through the words of Jesus Emilio, the current Co-ordinator of the community, Matriarch, Brigida Gonzalez who was one of the original founders of the community and 7 year old Tatiana Borja.

Since its foundation in 1970, San Jose had been characterized by its inhabitants struggle for better living conditions in a zone that has lacked the presence of institutions of the State. The guerrilla entered in the region in the 1980s and steadily gained force, due to State’s absence.

In the beginning, the inhabitants had to walk 12 Km to Apartado to purchase food, which they had to carry on their backs. With the Patriotic Union, a political party support they were able to organise themselves to make road improvements, to build schools and health centers, to employ teachers, and health promoters,

The army and rightwing paramilitary groups the Colombian army believed the town was under the control of FARC guerrillas and considered the population of San Joseand the surrounding hamlets to be collaborators with the FARC guerrillas, in the 1990s the conflict escalated and the civilian population suffered the consequences and the attacks from both sides.

In September of 1996, a group of armed men accompanied by civilians entered San Jose and forced the leaders of the Communal Action Council and of the Women’s Committee out of their homes and assassinated them.

Following this first massacre, the majority of the inhabitants of San Jose abandoned their residences for fear of another attack; the few who remained went to hide in the mountains at night to sleep, in order to avoid being victims of the paramilitaries who acted together with the army.

That is how the population lived until 1997, when one day at six o’clock in the morning, a group of 40 paramilitaries arrived, They made all the inhabitants of the town go to the main sport plaza and, after threatening them, they proceeded to tie up several persons who were found dead one day later on the road that leads to Apartado.

In February 1997, the paramilitaries came in and ordered everyone to leave, shutting down the market, forbidding the selling of food except for small amounts, and accusing the villagers of running a supply post for the guerrillas. To make their point, the paramilitaries dragged out of their homes the 4 elected board members of the cooperative, and killed them, and threw their bodies into a shallow grave.

From this moment, the paramilitaries took absolute control of the road that led from San Jose to Apartado. Their presence on the road was permanent; they controlled the entrance of food to the town, they continuously stopped the vehicles that passed through and checked the people’s identification documents, with a list in hand. They proceeded to assassinate anyone who appeared on the list, or anyone else who appeared suspicious. All this produced terror, death and hunger among the civilian population. The few inhabitants that had remained in San Jose had to flee the village, since the situation had turned more difficult still for the peasants who found ourselves in the hamlets.

The community responded on March 23, which was Palm Sunday, after high mass, the inhabitants of San Jose and its rural settlements declared themselves a Comunidad de Paz, or Community of Peace, in front of a delegation which included members of Pax Christi International, the Dutch Parliament, the Diocese of Apartado, Justicia y Paz, CINEP and the Mayor of Apartadó Gloria Cuartas. The idea of a Comunidad de Paz was born from the context of terror and death.

On March 23, 1997, the villagers declared themselves the peace Community of San Jose de Apartado with the hope that the armed actors would respect this and that they would not have to abandon their lands. Pax Christi, the Diocese of Apartado, Cinep, the Commission of Justice and Peace, and the media were all present at the ceremony.

The civilian population committed itself :

Not to participate in the war in direct or indirect form;

Not to carry arms;

Not to manipulate or give information to any of the parties involved in armed conflict;

Not to ask any of the parties to solve conflicts;

Each one commits him/herself to search for a peaceful solution and to a dialogue for solving the conflict of the country.

The Community stated that this was an alternative of the civilian population to express resistance, to seek autonomy, a dignified life and a peaceful expression of opposition to the status quo.

The community is a novelty in Colombia because it redefines popular power focusing on exercising fundamental rights as citizens in a democracy and breaks the dynamics of war and injustice, creating a space to survive. Since it declared itself a Comunidad de Paz, San Jose has seen the death of 35 members, 33 were executed by paramilitaries and 2 were executed by FARC guerillas.

Since 1997 the peasants of the hamlets of the village of San Jose de Apartado began to work with an idea of Monsenor Isaias Duarte Cancino, the Bishop of Apartado at the time, to create a neutral zone in which the civilian population would be respected. We began to have workshops with CINEP, the Inter-congregational Commission for Justice and Peace, and some community leaders and we discussed the idea of declaring San Jose a neutral zone.

Despite the fact that the current President of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe Velez who was then the Governor of Antioquia, had used the term neutrality as his own in order to involve the civilian population in the conflict. The villagers all agreed that they had to reclaim the idea, because the policy of Uribe Velez consisted in declaring by decree in territories dominated by paramilitaries or in which the army remained present. The policy was dangerous and lacked credibility among the population, for whom the meaning of neutrality is different, they decided, to remain neutral towards all the armed actors in the conflict.

Following the declaration, on the March 28, army troops and paramilitaries came to the hamlets of Arenas, La Union, Las Nieves and El Guineo and, after assassinating several peasants and entering into combat with the guerrilla, they submitted the zone to heavy bombardments. The peasants were ordered to leave the hamlets under the threat that, if they did not leave within two to five days, the ‘head choppers’ would come.

There were two people from the Inter-congregational Commission of Justice and Peace present when this exodus occurred and many, made the decision to stay. During this time, the inhabitants of the outlying hamlets came up with another alternative: If the armed groups would not let them develop their initiative in the hamlets, they would begin to struggle from San Jose and organize themselves into a true Peace Community. That is how their struggle began for an alternative in the midst of a war against the civilian population.

It was not an easy process, At first, the government did not recognize them as forcibly displaced persons and, for this reason, they did not have access to food nor health care nor education. Moreover, they were controlled by the paramilitary checkpoint that existed for nine months on the only route that lead from Apartado to San Jose, and at which army soldiers were frequently seen together with the paramilitaries. At this paramilitary checkpoint, occassionally set up just one kilometer away from a military base, more than 30 peasants were assassinated. They continuously received threats from the army, who accused them of being a community nest of guerrillas, and the only presence of the State was the militarization of their village.

The guerrillas, on the other hand, targeted the community for its decision to not sell them food nor collaborate with them in any way. This cost the lives of several community leaders, including Ramiro Correa, member of the community’s Internal Council, who the FARC guerrilla assassinated on October 6, 1997. These were clear violations of International Humanitarian Law that guarantees protection for the persons who do not participate in the hostilities.

On the night of April 4, 1999 paramilitaries attacked San Jose, in flagrant violation of our laws against the presence of any armed group within the town. They murdered Anibal Jimenez, a community leader and member of the Internal Council, Gabriel Graciano, a 16-year old boy and member of the Community, and Daniel Pino, a campesino who lived in San Jose. The paramilitaries also critically wounded two men and a women with grenades that were thrown at them. In spite of the repression, however, the villagers determined to continue in our process of neutrality, since they believed it to be the only way to resist in the midst of war.

The basic principles and the organizational process of the Peace Community were that to belong to the San Jose de Apartado Peace Community process, each person must participate in workshops that explain to them the essence of the process and the community norms that they should respect. Each community member freely and voluntarily made the decision to assume the position of neutrality as a form of resistance to the war, and to abide by the following norms:

To participate in community work efforts

To say NO to injustice and impunity

To not participate directly nor indirectly in the war

To not carry weapons

To not manipulate nor give information to any of the parties in the conflict.

They must all commit themselves to the search for a peaceful and negotiated solution to the conflicts in Colombia. These commitments are inscribed on their Peace Community identification cards, which show the symbol of our land, the same symbol that appears on their flag.

Each individual assumes certain commitments in their respective activities; for example, if they are a merchant and are a part of the Peace Community process, they cannot sell to any armed actor: guerrilla, paramilitaries or army. This is also the case with the drivers who cover the route to Apartado, who attend the community workshops and commit to not transporting any armed actor in the vehicle, since it places in danger all the persons who use public transportation.

Even though the community has gained some respect on the part of the armed actors, they have still continued to commit abuses against the community. Each time that the guerrillas, paramilitaries or army commit a violation or an abuse against persons that make up part of the process of the Peace Community, they file a complaint before the national and international agencies of control and protection for human rights. The Peace Community also makes pronouncements against any violent action that affects the civilian population, even when it involves those who do not make up part of their peace process, since they consider it to be an unjust situation about which they cannot keep silent.

The peace process was organized into various groups and committees in which the members can participate. All members of the Peace Community committed themselves to working in community, this dynamic allowed them to put into practice the principles of solidarity and union, since one no longer thinks just of their own interests but of the community.

The community established committees to organise Community health, education, work, sports, culture, formation, and the women’s committees. These committees also have their coordinators, who are in charge of distributing the aid that arrives to the communities, be it tools for the working groups or food baskets for the families.

Internal Council is the highest authority of the Peace Community and is in charge of coordinating activities and resolving conflicts through dialogue. The Internal Council is conformed by eight persons with distinct functions: Coordinator General, Vice-coordinator, Treasurer, Fiscal, and Secretary. Every six months, the members the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado elect the members of the Internal Council as well as the coordinators in a free and voluntary election.

In March of 1998, 240 persons started to return to the hamlet of La Union. They made a visit to Bogota, and the national government committed itself to supporting our return by providing health brigades, by contributing to the reconstruction of the houses that were destroyed, by sending food every 12 days during the first six months, and by reimbursing the funds used for a productive project valued at 82 million pesos. The Government did not fulfill any of its promises.

The ultimate objective of the Peace Community is for all the members to be able to return to their hamlets from which they were forcibly displaced.

Unfortunately due to the ongoing military presence the documentary also featured comments by Major Jairo Rojas, who commands the Colombian army who are still based in the village and there was no possibility of any representation from the FARC.

Pasagem Para (Voyage to) documentary films are produced by Canal Futura, and are available to download by bittorrent from futura tech .

To find out more about how you can support San Jose de Apartado,           the Community of Peace here

This entry was posted on Saturday, January 2nd, 2010 at 5:47 pm and is filed under Colombia, Latin America. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.