Colombia asks US to help 'disappeared' activist

Alarmed by the kidnapping of a well-known peace activist in Colombia on Oct. 15, international aid and refugee rights groups are urging the world community to ask the Colombian government to take action against the paramilitaries involved in the incident. "The international community can lead key officials in the Colombian government to prevent further harm to community leaders," said Kathryn Wolford, president of Lutheran World Relief (LWR), a US-based international humanitarian group. According to LWR, Orlando Valencia, a leader of the Afro-Colombian peace community of Curvarado was "disappeared" by gunmen apparently belonging to Colombia's right-wing paramilitary. The term "disappeared" is used in the context of the Colombian conflict because often people are taken from their homes, places of work or communities–and never heard from again, explained LWR. The incident took place on Oct. 15 when Valencia was traveling with some local and international peace activists, the relief group said, adding that he had been invited to speak at the Partner for Peace Conference to be held in Chicago the weekend of Oct. 22. "I was so excited to meet him at the conference," Phillip Cryan, LWR's coordinator for its peace project in Colombia, said. "He is from one of the most established peace communities in Colombia." Reports from the strife-torn Andean country indicate that every day countless innocent civilians, including peace workers like Valencia, continue to suffer from violence as a result of the ongoing armed clashes between right-wing paramilitaries, leftist guerrillas and the Colombian army. Spanning over four decades, the armed conflict in Colombia has claimed tens of thousands of human lives and forced more than a million people to leave their ancestral homes. More than 50 peace communities, like Curvarado, have declared their neutrality and asked that all armed groups stay out of their settlements and respect their right as civilians to not become embroiled in conflict. Many such communities are comprised of formerly displaced people living on fenced-in communal land, with homes built closely together for added security. They often lack access to electricity, running water, schools, health centers and other amenities. "It's by far the biggest humanitarian catastrophe of the Western hemisphere, and yet the plight of these people remains a largely untold story," Jan Egeland, the United Nations chief for humanitarian affairs, recently told a forum on Colombia's displaced people. "We have to shed light on the forgotten emergency of Colombia. The way it is now it cannot continue," he added. "We are not doing enough. We need to do more." Some Colombia watchers hold the government in Bogota mainly responsible for the massive displacement of the civilian population as the authorities are increasingly relying on military action to deal with the leftist rebels rather than negotiating peace with them. "The new strategy has drawn more civilians into the conflict," says Victor Arango, a Latin American and Caribbean specialist with the UN Development Program. "While the army has regained control of large parts of national territory, it has also affected civilian lives and freedoms," he adds, noting that Afro-Colombians and indigenous people are the poorest and most affected by the conflict. Arango links much of the massive displacement to the army's fight against insurgent groups and drug trafficking. "The reason why there is eviction and displacement is that certain people want to occupy indigenous people's land," Albastella Barreto, director of the Foundation Paz Y Bien in Cali, told the forum on Colombia. Most of the displaced people are small landowners, and after they have fled, the areas are developed or used for illegal cultivation, she explained. Barreto, a Franciscan nun who has helped thousands of displaced people, said that in many cases the Colombian army had threatened farmers' families, ordering them to leave their land, and accusing them of siding with the leftist guerrillas. "The government is just following a military attitude with a focus on reducing the enemy–and the enemy of the state is the guerrilla, not the paramilitaries," she added. The Colombian government has been encouraging the return of displaced people to their villages, but Refugees International, a US-based group that is actively participating in humanitarian efforts in Colombia, says the official policy is not working because of the involvement of the military in relief efforts. "The Colombian army is taking a questionable role in the return of the displaced," says Andrea Lari, a refugee advocate with the group who recently spent three months in Colombia. The return was supposed to be led by the Social Solidarity Network, the government agency responsible for helping the displaced, not the military, she added. Colombia is the third largest recipient of US foreign aid, after Israel and Egypt–mostly through the so-called Plan Colombia, to which Washington has allocated $1.8 billion. Its stated goals are social and economic revitalization, ending the armed conflict, and combating the drug trade, which has entailed controversial aerial spraying of the farms of peasants who grow coca crops in insurgent or paramilitary-occupied areas. Lutheran World Relief says they are extremely concerned about the life of Valencia, the peace activist, because many of those caught up in the conflict as he apparently was are feared to be murdered by their captors. The group is urging the US government to use its influence in Bogota to ensure their colleague's well-being and liberty. "Our immediate advocacy on his behalf could mean the difference between life and death," said LWR's Wolford.