Influence and Political Visibility of Victims of Violence

Victims of violence are widespread across Colombia and it is the work of this initiative that ensures their voices are heard. Action is taken to publicise their experiences and represent them in obtaining truth and justice.

Description

The initiative lasted one year, from February 2005 to February 2006; in August 2006 it was extended to two other cities with another financial backer. The project cooperated with organisations – or with organisational processes affecting victims of the conflict – that were working to agglomerate victims’ grievances and interests and take action on them. It also aimed to assist these organisations by increasing their cohesion with other processes, as an organisation can be strengthened through interaction with others.

This project operated on a model best summed up by the hypothesis that “if the organisations and organisational processes that are used by victims of violence are reinforced; then the victims will have a bigger political impact and a louder voice in demanding their rights.”

Aims / Objectives

• Make organisations for victims of violence in the municipalities of Corozal, Cartagena and Floridablanca more visible;
• Strengthen the institutional capacity and response of victims’ organisations to make them visible and active in public and inter-institutional settings; in particular to strengthen their actions regarding truth, justice and reparation;
• Affect the definition of local public and political agendas concerning truth, justice and reparation;
• Reach agreement on the actions required to secure reparation for the victims of conflict, and take those actions;
• Include the victims’ organisations in discussions of local, regional, and national proposals affecting them; and
• Guarantee sustainability by accepting and acknowledging that victims and victims’ organisations have useful knowledge, practices, and experiences.

How it is Articulated

To strengthen the organisations we led workshops in each area to establish a process to help develop the capacity of social organisations to establish what needs to be done and how to go about doing it; to manage, identify and prepare projects; and to influence state and non-state actors.

We also conducted interviews with the victims and regional organisations; offered legal advice and consultancy to regional organisations and helped them to make connections with one another; led thematic training on subjects like truth, justice and reparation; engaged in participative planning; encouraged the recollection of life stories; aided the healing of victims’ memories and shared their stories to help others and direct institutional actions; supported victims’ mobilization around human rights; and conducted workshops to analyse issues such as transnational justice and victims' human rights.

Achievements / Learning Points

The project was able to strengthen the organisational capacity and responses of victims’ organisations and to make them more visible. This better enabled them to act in public and inter-institutional settings with a strong position towards truth, justice, and reparation.

We feel proud of the articulation with the National Coordination of Displaced People in Sucre and the regional coordination of the Women for Peace Initiative.

All the organisations recognise that they have established a more trustworthy arena for interaction as a result of this project.

The victims of violence in Colombia are spread all over the country; some of the organisations which represent the victims’ have ideological discourses bound by their class consciousness. They occupy different spaces in the social scale defined by their access to resources and relation to the state. Amongst the victims, there are people and communities whose condition as victims is overshadowed by the extreme poverty that they live in.

The work we did and the many life stories we collected showed different forms of violence. What makes a displaced person a victim is not the loss of their territory, rather it is direct exposure to violence which forces them to flee to save their lives, leaving behind all their possessions. After their flight, they must move to marginal zones, which increases their poverty and sense of hopelessness.

Increasing the visibility and political impact of victims of violence is a long term challenge. It is important to understand the wider context of the state that Colombia is in – armed conflict, much poverty and exclusion, fragile social processes, the Free Trade Agreement, and other ongoing factors – as this makes it far from easy to retain the initiative in accompanying, advising, and strengthening the organisations and local processes of victims of violence.

The future of reconciliation and reparation as tools with which to end the violence depends on the outcomes of the victims’ organisations’ actions and how these groups develop and participate in the two processes. We found strengthening organisations’ positions and processes in these areas especially challenging in the department of Bolivar, but feel glad that at least we brought the various key groups together.

Geographical Area of Operation

Corozal-Sucre; Floridablanca-Santander, Cartagena-Bolívaran, Ciudad Bolívar-Bogotá.

Funding Resources

$77.000.000 Colombian pesos, around £ 17,010.527

Organisations Involved

Cartagena

Asociación de Campesinos Desplazados de Nelson Mandela - Caminos (2002-2005)
Address: Neighborhood Nelson Mandela, sector La Primavera Mz. 1 lote 1
Tel: ++ 57 312 6011157

Asociación Nacional de Ayuda Solidaria Andas - Bolívar (1994-2005)
Address: CUT Bolívar plazoleta Telecom
Tel: ++ 57 315 3349189

Fundación Visión Verde (2004-2005)
Address: Barrio Villahermosa, sector El Carmen Lote 1-49
Tel: ++ 57 310 7149000

Asociación Nacional de Desplazados de Colombia - Andescol/Cartagena
Address: Centro comercial La Galería Local 34 – Servicopias; Plazoleta Telecom
Tel: ++ 57 311 4135643

Asociación de Desplazados de Colombia - Asodec (2004-2005)
Address: Barrio Nelson Mandela, sector Las Vegas MV, L12
Tel: ++ 57 311 4029366 / 310 7433089

Asociación Humanitaria para los Desplazados de Bolívar - Ashudebol
Address: Barrio Nelson Mandela, sector Las Vegas
Tel: ++ 57 311 4248551

Asociación Bolivarense de Desplazados - La Victoria (1999-2005)
Address: San Pedro Mártir, sector Progreso
Cra. 68 A #003-F113
Tel: ++ 57 315 7212687 / 310 6579275

Asociación de Desplazados de La Boquilla - Asoboquilla
Address: La Boquilla Cra. 1 # 94-51.
Tel: ++ 57 315 5563188 / 311 6771062

Asociación de Desplazados de La Loma de Peyé - Adelpe (1999-2005)
Address: Cra 30 Cll 52-53 La María
Tel: ++ 57 315 7110185

Cooperativa de Desplazados La Unión (2005)
Address: San José de los Campanos
Tel: ++ 57 310 7132150

Asociación de Desplazados Afrodescendientes - Afrodes Cartagena (1999-2005)
Address: Olaya, next to the Casa de Justicia of Chiquinquirá
Tel: ++ 57 310 6467294 / 3157219370

Corporación Ecos (2001-2005)

Stories

Verdum, the ghost town...

Verdum was a tiny town on the banks of the road that goes from Ovejas to Carmen. There were two hundred houses, some made of brick and zinc, and others from palm and bahareque. Families had their own small-holdings. There was electricity, water, primary and secondary school and health centre. All of us were very united. We celebrated the holiday honouring Santa Catalina, we shared communion and baptisms and a man called Chico Alvarez supported the parties with horse races.

There was a very kind woman that helped everyone in the village. Her name was Reina Monterrosa. She was the first to be killed. They took her out of her house and shot her repeatedly, allegedly because she helped those people. Verdum became a ghost town. The houses were destroyed and people ran away from violence.

I told my husband we should go to Carvajal. We stayed there for two years. We bought a small piece of land and grew tobacco, but after a while we also had to run away from violence there. That was the point when we decided to leave for El Carmen and, like before, go to another place, this time to Corozal. Now we have many unfulfilled needs. We don’t have a proper work: my husband is a man of seventy two years who sells sweets in the Softball Stadium. He earns almost nothing. We have a child who goes to school and sometimes there isn’t enough money for the textbooks.

Everything burned…… even the memories

In the year 1998 I was living in a village called San Pablo, that also goes by the name of Totogol, near La Victoria and Brisas del Mar in Morroa. In my small-holding I lived with Francisco Jose Lambrano Portro, who was my partner until he died of a heart attack. We had a son whose name was Daniel. Jose already had three other sons. Our livelihood was agriculture and breeding animals. We had a palm house, some crops, six cows, one donkey, pigs, chickens, ducks and turkeys. Jose travelled by donkey on the weekends to the town to sell our harvest. Sometimes he left at four or five o'clock in the morning.

We were a small community. Our neighbours were very kind and we got along well. We didn’t have a health centre, water, or electricity. My kids went to the school Brisas del Mar, which was very far away. I had great love for my land, my animals and crops because we were living in peace.

Time went by and somebody told the neighbour to leave. But he didn’t obey. He continued to live there with his wife and five kids. Then one night some hooded men entered his house and killed him. They shot him many times in front of his family. Already wounded, he tried to hide in his room, but it was useless. Eight days after this event, my neighbours had to take me away in a hammock to the nearest town because I was having an abortion.

I couldn’t sleep. I heard foot steps all night, but my partner was always telling me to calm down, that nothing would happen. Until one day, months later, he came from the crops and told me: “some hooded men riding horses hit me. They told me to go away, that I have eight days to leave town”. I started to cry. I dressed up the kids and went to some relatives in Corozal. He stayed alone. “I will not leave from here, not even if they kill me”, he said. However, one of his brothers convinced him and they went to Villa Maria in Sincelejo. The next day they burned the neighbour’s house and ours. Everything was burned: even the animals and our happy memories.