COLOMBIA: A Peace Ambassador Curries Support in Europe

By Tito Drago Reprint | | Print |

Tito Drago

MADRID, Apr 22 1997 (IPS) - Ana Teresa Bernal, coordinator of a Colombian citizens peace movement returned home Tuesday after a support-raising tour of the European Union, which concentrated on the Netherlands, Belgium and Spain.

“We have the strength of being weak, we are unarmed and do not want weapons, but we have the will to achieve peace for our country,” this ‘ambassador of peace’ told IPS.

Bernal is coordinator of the National Network for Peace Initiatives and against War (Redepaz), which emerged in Colombia in 1993, representing 350 civil society organisations.

She took up the cause for peace when she personally came face to face with the violence ten years ago.

The campaigner had come into some money and travelled into the interior of the country with a business proposal for a client. However, when she arrived the client refused to answer the door even though he was obviously at home.

Bernal had been confused and angry, and had returned to Bogata intensely annoyed at the wasted journey.

The next day she read in the papers that both the client and his wife had been murdered.

At the time of her visit, the man had been negotiating with a his wife’s kidnappers in an effort to arrange her freedom in exchange for him. When he finally met with the abductors, both he and his wife were shot dead for not paying the ransom.

Since then Bernal has fought ardently for peace, raising the support of other citizens in the conviction that only active pressure from the civil society can stop the violence and encourage equitable and just development.

Violence has been gaining ground across the board in recent years, with guerrillas, the armed forces, paramilitaries and drug dealers all becoming more active, she said.

However, all these groups together still form a minority and the Colombian people who want peace are beginning to organise themselves better, and their numbers are rapidly growing.

Through an agreement made with the electoral body of Colombia, Redepaz will be holding a poll of voters at the October 26 municipal elections asking them to vote yes or no to the statement; “We want a non-violent solution to the conflict.”

This campaign, known as the “Citizen Mandate,” is being organised jointly by Redepaz, the non government Pais Libre (Free Country) group and the United Nations Childrens Fund (UNICEF).

In a country of 36 million people, Redepaz is hoping some 10 million voters will take up the call for peace.

And there is a good precedent: for a year ago a similar vote was arranged, where 2.7 million children clearly came out against violence as a way of resolving conflicts.

According to Bernal, this child vote showed that many parents and teachers are already promoting the cause of peace, and it is precisely this sort of citizen pressure for peace which is capable of ending the violence.

For the root of the violence has some social causes.

“Thirteen million of the country’s 36 million people are living in absolute poverty, according to the United Nations measures,” she said.

Here the rich hold all the power and they were never interested in peace, “for only the business class earn more by investing in peace not war,” she added.

The “powerholders”‘ lack of interest in peace only encourages greater violence in a nation where only three percent of murders are investigated, only one percent are punished.

“The Colombian people are not violent, there is a small minority which practices and encourages violence, and a majority who desperately yearn for a peaceful life which would allow the people to leave poverty behind them,” she said.

In recent years the guerrilla forces have become better armed, while their political ideals have weakened. At the same time, the paramilitaries have grown stronger, with each group controlling different zones of the country.

Spanish political leaders with representation in the European Parliament promised Bernal they would propose a parliamentary mission to help in the October 26 elections.

A similar commitment was made by members of parliament from other European countries when she visited the EU headquarters in Brussels and the Netherlands.