Conflict and Reparations in Colombia

9 May 2015 - Saturday

In the mid-1960s, Colombia began sliding into civil war. The causes were complicated – a 1940s assassination ushered in a repressive anti-communist regime, which was soon challenged by the 1960s pro-communist tide in Latin America. Harsh government tactics against the movement led to the formation of violent rebel guerrilla groups (like FARC), so then the US intervened militarily in what it saw as another communist revolution. With the national government on its heels, rich Colombian landowners formed their own "paramilitary" groups for protection. In the chaos, both guerrillas and paramilitaries (especially the latter) turned to producing and selling cocaine for funding, which got the US even more involved.

It has been a slow-burning conflict ever since, but that hardly means it hasn't affected the country. Mistrust and frustration abound. In the 1980s more than 500 leaders of a leftist/communist political party were killed, including several presidential candidates, possibly by the government. Over 200,000 people, the majority civilians, have died over the years. And approximately 5 million people – 10% of Colombia's population – have been displaced from their homes, mostly ancestral farmland in rural areas, because of fear or threats from both guerrillas and paramilitaries. This means huge shantytown slums around the bigger cities, broken rural homes, suspicion within villages, the breaking of centuries of tradition, lost youth, and much more. Into this mess has stepped SembrandoPaz, the organization I am working for, trying to build peace by helping affected communities develop healthy dialogue and healthy political processes. My job specifically is to help youth (15-25 ish) get involved in that process through organizations, projects, and work.

The location of Sincelejo, on the northern
end of Colombia. The towns we work with
are north of here for an hour or two.

Given that background, we have an interesting situation here in Colombia which may or may not have wider application. I just sat through a series of three 3-hour workshops in a small community, conducted by a government-employed, university-educated architect who has devoted himself to teaching oppressed and indigenous communities about their rights. The major reason seems to be that the government has been remiss in its task of helping poor and oppressed communities. Several articles of the Colombian constitution and laws require support for these remote regions, especially in reparation for the decades of armed conflict that tore them apart. So this government employee and his organization have decided to go to these communities and help them take charge of their own reparation and advancement, teaching them about applicable laws and government programs. Their eventual hope, it seems, is that the communities will figure out things that they actually want, will organize, and will demand help from the government. Essentially, they want these communities to take the future into their own hands and not depend on distracted and slow-moving government officials.

My question is this: are we moving in the right direction? It took twelve years for a recent reparations plan to make its rounds through this area, and by the time it started to kick in the pertinent national laws had changed. The government might move slowly, but in legal matters (especially in complicated plans) it may still move faster than fractious communities. The towns can make their own proposals for what the government should do, but the government officials will only do it if it fits in their larger plan. The exception is when the majority of the community gets behind a simple, powerful idea and demands government action. Think of India: "One hundred thousand Englishmen cannot rule three hundred million Inidians if those Indians refuse to cooperate." Or the civil rights movement of the 1960s in the US. Or even the uprising here in this town in the mid-2000s, when they rose up against the harsh rule of an armed paramilitary group and liberated themselves. Those were simple, powerful ideas. But the complicated reparation plans which follow those conflicts, figuring out who gets which resources and how to reconstruct civil society – that's the long work of political entities. People can participate in town meetings and give feedback, of course, but communities simply do not have the time to sit in hours of meetings and fight over endless details of complex plans. That's why they elect representatives! And if those representatives do a poor job of meeting the needs or interests of the citizens, in a democracy they can theoretically be replaced. It's more difficult than that, of course, but the basic idea should work.

So what is the role of outside organizations, if the main work must be done within communities and their local political processes? I think the best outside help, and this includes national government, comes in (1) education, (2) administrative consulting, (3) basic civic structures, (4) a basic safety net to prevent absolute poverty, and (5) health consulting. I'm sure I missed a few things, and those would come out in further discussion, but the point is that getting the community to demand complex reparation plans is both outside the role of a community and unhelpful for their dependence on outside entities. We want self-sufficency, ultimately, in the interest of human dignity. These communities have open elections, full political enfranchisement, freedom from armed violence (largely) – the big demands are largely met, the kind that the civil rights movement fought for. Now the long, hard work of constructing a civil society begins, and it cannot be done at a national level. It must be done on the ground, by the people who will participate, in their own way and in their own time. And this is why the work of external community organizers worries me – the evolution of daily interactions and social power structures must come from within.

So let the Colombian government do what reparations it will, listening closely to feedback from communities. But our energy as outside actors should be spent creating the conditions for growth – removing obstacles (absolute poverty, lack of meeting space, lack of education) and providing outside experience (in administration, health, and more).