IMAGE: CNS photo/Henry Romero, Reuters
By David Agren
BOGOTA,
Colombia (CNS) — Milena Cardenas was 6 years old when rebels of the M-19 guerrilla
group seized the Colombian Supreme Court in 1985. The army counterattacked and more
than 100 lives were lost, including 12 of the 25 judges. Eleven cafeteria
employees also disappeared; Cardenas’ mother was among them.
Cardenas’
family has searched for answers ever since. Her mother’s death or whereabouts
was not confirmed until 2015, when the authorities say her remains were found
buried in a Bogota cemetery — in the grave of another person. Cardenas expressed
skepticism with the finding: She says a video shows her mother being ushered
out of the building in 1985 by soldiers.
“It
was the modus operandi of the time: Confuse persons’ identities, turn over the
wrong remains, take other corpses to common graves,” Cardenas said at the
Augustinian-founded St. Thomas Aquinas University in Bogota, where she is taking a
Caritas-sponsored course for strengthening civil society groups.
“Since
the state manipulates things to cover up its actions, the struggle for truth
and justice has to come from the families or the victims themselves,” added
Cardenas, part of a collective known as “Costurero de la Memoria.” “They never
investigate, they only blame guerrillas, they never admit their part in any
matters.”
Pope
Francis arrives Sept. 6 in Colombia for a five-day visit, during which he is
expected to address issues such as the implementation of the National Peace
Accords, the discrimination suffered by marginalized populations and the plight
of victims of violence and their families.
The
pope will celebrate Mass with 6,000 victims of violence Sept. 8 in Villavicencio,
where he is expected to promote reconciliation after five decades of conflict
in Colombia, which has left 220,000 dead, according to the government, 7
million displaced people and millions of victims of violence.
Colombia
is attempting to reconcile a difficult past of guerrilla movements, paramilitaries
and state actors such as soldiers inflicting disappearances, death and the dispossession of lands on large swaths of the population.
Those
impacted include leftist and union leaders — who continue being killed —
campesinos, indigenous and Afro-Colombians, and cases called “false
positives,” in which soldiers executed civilians, who were then presented as
guerrillas killed in combat.
Activists
such as those in “Costurero de la Memoria” (“Sewing for Memory”) —
so named for its members sewing blankets to memorialize victims and attempts
at keeping memories of past atrocities alive in a country at times wanting to
turn the page — say those seen as problematic for people in power are still
targeted, while cases are often not investigated. Members of the collective,
meanwhile, say their work can be dangerous, so sewing offers a more-subtle
approach to activism.
“I
belong to a national oversight committee of victims and social organizations.
Even there people are being threatened, because they show that the government
is behind all of these deaths,” said Marina Salazar, whose Afro-Colombian
family was thrown off its land when she was a child.
Families
often form social organizations to protest, push politicians and investigators
for action and fight for justice. The results are often discouraging, while the
response from the authorities only provokes more pain, because the slayings of
activists are often passed off as common crimes, or crimes of passion,
activists say.
Colombia
passed the Victims and Land Restitution Law in 2011. The law provides victims
with financial compensation and returns land to displaced Colombians, among other
measures. The peace accord reached last year between the government and the Revolutionary
Armed Forces of Colombia guerrillas also calls on the FARC, as they are known,
to contribute to reparations, for public apologies to be issued and the
establishment of a truth commission.
The
FARC is unpopular in Colombia, and people want them to show contrition, “but
they were not the only victimizers,” Adam Isacson, senior associate for defense oversight
at the Washington Office on Latin America.
“It
would be nice if the pope said all victimizers should do the same —
paramilitaries and their supporters in the private sector as well as members of
the military,” Isacson said.
Victims
in Colombia are raising their voices as the reconciliation process proceeds. Members
of the collective are completing an 80-hour course sponsored by Caritas on
building capacity and strengthening the ability to push for their rights. But convincing
the public that victims were not complicit in the crimes committed against them
and that the process of victimization is structural remains difficult.
“The
population has to wake up a little to the strategy, ‘If you disagree with me, I’ll
get rid of you,” said Claudia Chona, a member of the collective. “The
state continues saying these are isolated cases. People don’t realize this is structural.
A country like this cannot have peace.”
Members
of the collective express hopes the pope’s visit will turn attention to their
plight, while lending support for the peace accord — which many conservatives,
including Catholics, oppose. Most of all they want “justice and truth”
rather than an agreement that simply pacifies troubled parts of the country and
opens space in politics for those previously excluded.
“(The
authorities) want there to be an act of reconciliation,” said Lilia Yaya,
whose father, murdered in 1989, was a union leader regional boss with a
persecuted left-wing party, the Patriotic Union. “Victims say … ‘We want
justice and truth. That the truth of what happened in the county be known.'”
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