Humainologie creative dialogue on nonviolence in Colombia tomorrow Wednesday October 27

“What hurts the victim most is not the cruelty of the oppressor, but the silence of the bystander.” - Elie Wiesel “The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.” - Ralph Waldo Emerson “I always wanted to be somebody, but now I realize I should have been more specific.” - Lily Tomlin How do you make sense of your own life? Here is Anthony Hopkins (who will be 84 on December 31 this year) commenting on the meaning of life https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=omtirf5l0Lw and I would say “Yes, and” to all that, and then refer to the Ralph Waldo Emerson quote above. I have been incredibly lucky to connect again and again with people whose lives and work illustrate Ralph Waldo Emerson’s point. Unlike Anthony Hopkins, most of them are not rich or famous. Wealth and fame have little or nothing to do with what Emerson refers to. Mikaela Sollinger is a very recent connection, thanks to Manuel Rozental, whom I have been fortunate to know for many years. With this email, I want to say that many of you who will receive it are like Mikaela and Manuel: I see in your life and your work the varieties of purpose to which Emerson made reference. I want to thank all of you for being part of my life. Mikaela and Manuel have not been silent bystanders in Colombia. Tomorrow, Wednesday October 27, we will have a golden opportunity to explore, with Mikaela’s leadership, how we might support her work in Colombia. Our creative dialogue begins at 6:30 PM Calgary time, and I think that will be 7:30 PM in Bogota. (Mikaela, Manuel, please check.) Here is the Zoom link provided by Shinobu: Topic: Humainologie creative dialogue Time: October 27, 2021 06:30 PM Mountain Time (US and Canada) Every week on Wed, until Oct 27, 2021, 8 occurrence(s) Join Zoom Meeting https://us02web.zoom.us/j/83728528644?pwd=VmxxbDRSdHoxbU1Jam5rYnlPbnB0UT09 Meeting ID: 837 2852 8644 Passcode: 12345 Again, I have herewith appended my synopsis of the book Democracy and Displacement in Colombia’s Civil War. Arthur Book: (Abbey Steele) Democracy and Displacement in Colombia’s Civil War (2017) “In this book, I distinguish political cleansing from other forms of displacement and set out to explain when and where armed groups attempt political cleansing,” writes the author in an orientation to the book. Three different types of targeting are delineated; it is the third type that is designed to produce political cleansing. The first type is selective targeting of individuals. The second is indiscriminate targeting (e.g., of an entire city). The third type is collective targeting, which may be directed for example against a specific ethnic group or against a neighborhood that voted for a particular party. Abbey Steele is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Amsterdam who arrived in Colombia for the first time in 2002 and carried out her research for the book over the next few years. Her book helps understand how violent conflict arises and persists. She interviews displaced persons in Colombia and gains access to cluttered archives in the region called Urabá in Northwest Colombia. Her findings in this region of Colombia shed light upon displacements in other parts of the world (she mentions many examples in context) and also on how targeted populations have defended themselves against violence. She finds that it can significantly diminish the risk of violence from paramilitaries if the community in danger has connections with outside support: “Connections with external support networks also help bolster community members’ resolve. Indigenous communities with pre-existing institutions and external supporters, and a handful of peace communities have managed to create the rare conditions needed to avoid political cleansing.” Successful resistance to collective targeting also depends upon “coordination to keep a minimum core of the targeted group from leaving, so that the interdependent risk among households is relatively lower than moving elsewhere.” Chapter 1, “Characterizing and Explaining Wartime Displacement,” notes that voter records can provide armed groups with information about whom to target. “Colombia’s experience suggests that careful attention to electoral rules and institutions are necessary to prevent such a backlash.” Chapters 2 and 3 provide historical background. In the 1930s there had been some progress with land redistribution. In the 1940s, rural peasants had found a champion in Jorge Eliécer Gaitán, “a renegade Liberal who promoted economic redistribution and increased political participation…” His growing support split the Liberal party, leading to the election of Conservative Mariano Ospina in 1946 with only 41% of the vote. Then on April 9, 1948, Gaitán was assassinated in Bogotá. His supporters rioted in the capital. This ignited “La Violencia,” a Conservative backlash to the progressive changes of the 30s and 40s. More than half a million Colombians were displaced, moving into far-flung areas of new colonization, some of which were not even incorporated into the political entity of Colombia until the 1990s. Chapter 3, “The Contemporary Civil War in Colombia, 1986-2012,” describes the ascendancy of FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and the expansion of the counterinsurgent paramilitaries. In an effort to reduce the violence, elections were extended to the local level. Between 1986 and 1990, fiscal and budgetary authority for education, health, and other public goods was given to municipalities. The perverse result was more violence! “Municipalities became attractive targets for armed groups because of the transfers and royalties they received and because the state was unable to provide security to them.” Soon the vast profits to be made in the cocaine trade, the rise of the Medellín cartel, and the Cali cartel’s corruption of national politics exacerbated the situation in Colombia. In Chapter 5, the author focuses on the town of San José de Apartadó and surrounding hamlets. The voting records revealed that in the 1990s many people had voted for the leftist UP, affiliated with FARC, and had been targeted both by the paramilitaries and the military. Death threats led to displacement of about 90 families, who were housed in the municipal coliseum in town. While they were there, some of the families decided to establish a “peace community.” “In March 1997, the peace community was officially created. It declared neutrality, meaning that the community would not interact with any armed actor, including the state.” That did not stop the violence against the peace community, but it did lead to survival of the community on the land despite ongoing threats. By one count, 180 community members were killed over about a decade, more than three-quarters of the deaths attributed to the paramilitaries and the army. Amnesty International reported 170 killed between 1997 and 2008. “In terms of external support, the community maintains close relationships with international NGOs, particularly the Fellowship of Reconciliation (FOR) and Peace Brigades International. These organizations provide volunteers who live in or make regular visits to the community and denounce violence against its members to a wide network of activists.” FARC and the military may be more susceptible to international pressure than the paramilitaries. “Colombian army generals I interviewed complained that any time the military attempted to enter the zone, international advocacy organizations lobbied the Colombian government to pressure the military to withdraw.” In her Conclusion, the author states: “Political cleansing becomes an option available to armed groups when collective identities are linked to one side of the war or another. As a result, the policymakers and the international community should avoid triggering such shifts to the extent possible.” She advises that “local-level elections for representatives of neighborhoods or small communities should be avoided in civil war settings because they allow armed groups to make a connection between where people live and how they vote.” Also, elections become more dangerous during a civil war when there is participation of political parties linked to an active armed group. The author even goes so far as to write this: “Given that the risk of such violence increases as elections approach the normative goals of representation and participation, it raises the question whether or not holding elections during ongoing civil wars is worth it at all.” Displacement provoked by insurgents results in flight to areas controlled by the state. Displacement provoked by the state drives the targeted population away from such areas and they may flee the state altogether. Such “expulsion” may lead to the spread of violence across borders. If those fleeing state violence seek areas within the state but outside government control, that “segregation” will also affect subsequent events. In Colombia, both these patterns have occurred in the past, but more recently a third pattern, “integration” into the major population centers, has been the dominant pattern. A more detailed summary of the civil war in Colombia is available here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colombian_conflict and that article includes the Abbey Steele book under “Further Reading.” The Abbey Steele book may not be for the general reader because of its massive data and detail. However, it is that data and detail that provide the solid foundation for her very important conclusions.