Hill Connections: Contemplation -Faith Reflections (No Place to Lay their Heads)

Since arriving in Colombia on July 18, 2006, our Christian Peacemaker Team Delegation has met with leaders of organizations and with families who have recounted numerous instances of human rights abuses. Among these is the tragic experience of people displaced from their homes. It is estimated that approximately three million Colombians have had to move from their homes because of death threats and other forms of violence committed by paramilitary, guerrilla, and state forces. The government reports a figure of less than half that amount.

Several personal encounters made the displacements very real for us. On our first day in Bogota, we heard from a family of four that had fled from their home in the Opon because of threats. Tearfully, the husband and father recounted how paramilitaries had killed several members of his family. After personally receiving death threats from paramilitaries, who accused him of working with guerrilla groups, he and his family fled to the city. However, threats continued even there and they had to leave again. The family hopes to leave the country to where extended family lives, but they have few resources, having left everything behind. Columbia, South America map

Another of our encounters occurred when our delegation toured Barranca. Our bus driver drove us down an unpaved, deeply rutted road to a barrio (neighborhood) called Valle Aura, where displaced families have constructed makeshift dwellings. The municipality provides little if any resources to the displaced and also has attempted to evict them. The bus driver brought us to the spot where his twenty-year old son was killed by paramilitaries. Because of this, he and his family had to move once again, and it was thirteen years before he was able to return to the city.

At a public action sponsored by the union workers of Coca-Cola, we learned that in 2005 forty-eight workers and their families were displaced due to human rights violations of members of the union. In another moving encounter, a young man told of the discrimination and displacement of gay, lesbian, and transgendered persons by both church and society. He cannot go out at night and has to move every three months.

The gospels tell us of Joseph warned in a dream to flee with Mary in order to protect Jesus from King Herod's massacre of the children. Mary, Joseph and Jesus in flight So it is with so many Colombians who must leave everything to preserve their lives. A complex socio-political and international economic system is at the root of the violence in Colombia. Often, paramilitary and/or private security forces perpetrate threats and intimidations that can escalate into killings. In this manner, agribusinesses push campesinos off their land. Mining companies eliminate small-scale miners. Union organizers are targeted and killed. Church workers and human rights workers are deemed to be collaborators with guerrilla groups. Multinational corporations engage private security forces to protect their assets and enforce their objectives against local populations. These are among the reasons why so many Colombians find that, like the Son of Man, they have no place to lay their heads.