________________________________________________________________
COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR
www.prairienet.org/clm
Thursday, 28 June 2001
**************
* DAILY NEWS *
**************
11. ASSOCIATED PRESS -- Wednesday, 27 June 2001
Police say member of U.S. Navy caught smuggling heroin from
Colombia
15. COLOMBIA REPORT -- June 18, 2001
Colombian Paramilitaries Take Dirty War to Ecuador
By Luis Angel Saavedra
16. COLOMBIA REPORT -- June 11, 2001
Young Women Struggle to Survive in War-torn Colombia
By Garry M. Leech
________________________________________________________________
****************************************************************
________________________________________________________________
****************************************************************
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Wednesday, 27 June 2001
Police say member of U.S. Navy
caught smuggling heroin from Colombia
-------------------------------------
BOGOTA -- Colombian police said they caught a member of the U.S. Navy
trying to smuggle 0.9 kilograms (2 pounds) of heroin into the United
States after swallowing the drugs.
Police on Wednesday identified the suspect, arrested Sunday at the
international airport in Cali as he tried to board a Miami-bound flight,
as 20-year-old Christian Gonzalez. They said he is a Colombian national
with permanent residency in the United States.
Gonzalez was carrying U.S. military identification and told police he
worked for the U.S. Navy, Cali police spokesman Col. Javier Pareja said.
Gonzalez appeared before reporters Wednesday wearing a black T-shirt with
a military-style crew cut. Police also displayed the 78 thumb-sized,
flesh-colored capsules of heroin Gonzalez allegedly swallowed.
A spokeswoman for the U.S. Embassy in the capital, Bogota, had no
immediate information on Gonzalez.
''The U.S. government applauds any success in stopping the trafficking of
narcotics,'' said the official, reading from a prepared statement. ''The
U.S. Embassy is currently confirming the details of this case.''
In a common practice here, couriers known as ''drug mules'' swallow
capsules of cocaine and heroin, and then expel them from their bodies
after reaching final destinations, usually in the United States or Europe.
Colombia, the world's leading cocaine exporter, also has become a major
source of the heroin sold in the United States.
Copyright 2001 Associated Press
________________________________________________________________
****************************************************************
________________________________________________________________
****************************************************************
* 15 *
COLOMBIA REPORT
June 18, 2001
Colombian Paramilitaries Take
Dirty War to Ecuador
-----------------------------
By Luis Angel Saavedra
Plans by Ecuadorian officials and the UN High commissioner for refugees
(UNHCR) to deal with the effects of worsening violence in southern
Colombia as a result of Plan Colombia focused on setting up camps for
displaced Colombians in Ecuador. When indigenous people in Ecuador were
forced to flee their homes, however, only the Catholic Church was willing
to take them in. More than 42 indigenous families in the eastern border
province of Sucumbios fled after receiving death threats from Colombian
paramilitaries.
Since mid-January, indigenous people from communities including Shumac
Pamba, Tarupa, Curiyacu, San Antonio and Charip, near the town of La
Bermeja, on the border with the Colombian department of Putumayo, began an
exodus toward the district of Cascales, near Lago Agrio, the capital of
Sucumbios. An armed group had given them "twenty-four hours to abandon our
land, or they would murder 50 people," Juan Noteno, a leader of the Kichwa
people, said.
The threats came after soldiers, apparently with help from local
indigenous people, found and destroyed a large drug-processing laboratory
on January 19. The action forced the drug traffickers to abandon the area,
leaving behind another larger lab.
More than 500 indigenous people made their way to Cascales, where they
took refuge in houses, schools and makeshift shelters, because the
official shelters set up there were only for Colombians. The Catholic
Church provided aid to most of the displaced Ecuadorians.
The UNHCR, armed forces and government agencies, have designed a
contingency plan for dealing with people displaced by the effects of the
U.S.-financed Plan Colombia, which involves eradicating illegal drug crops
in Colombia (see, Plan Colombia and its Consequences in Ecuador). The
Catholic Church in Sucumbios initially refused to participate, but joined
the plan after the UNHCR agreed to redesign parts of it.
"They wanted a scene full of tents, with soldiers and mobile equipment,
like you see on newscasts in other countries, but they should have
realized that it's better to adapt the structures and shelters that
organizations already have, for two reasons: the displaced people are
treated with greater dignity and the organizations have the opportunity to
improve their infrastructure," Succumbios Bishop Gonzalo Lopez said.
In December, Anselmo Salazar, vice-president of the Federation of Kichwa
Organizations of Sucumbios, Ecuador (FOKISE), warned the assembly of the
Confederation of Indigenous Nationalities of Ecuador (CONAIE) of the
danger of a military presence in the area, given the long history of
cross-border family and commercial relationships. "For years indigenous
people have been trading with people on the other side of the border. They
go across to sell their products or work. They have families and friends
there. That makes the soldiers pressure us to denounce people," Salazar
said.
But his warning fell on deaf ears, which increased local residents' fears.
"We don't trust the military to protect us. The armed forces don't provide
security and indigenous organizations are also unable to protect our
lives. The church is the closest and can help us, but it can't keep us
from being killed," Salazar said.
In revealing the site of the drug lab, the local people opted for military
protection. But after the initial publicity faded, the communities were
left unprotected. "They abandoned us. They don't want to listen to us.
They haven't included us in their organizations, their protection or their
contingency plans," FOKISE representative Monica Chuji told a committee of
human rights organizations in Quito. "Now we're all afraid."
While various community and religious groups, as well as the military,
have roles in the government-designed contingency plan, the measure does
not include any national indigenous organizations or groups from the
affected area.
Chuji also criticized human rights organizations for not including
indigenous groups in networks they have formed to monitor the effects of
Plan Colombia. This was corrected in April with the formation of an
Observatory of the Implementation of Plan Colombia on the Borders, which
includes both human rights groups and local organizations from communities
along the border.
"They asked FOKISE to take responsibility for the people who have been
displaced, but no one has told us how to do it or with what resources,'
said Chuji, who traveled to the affected communities to accompany the last
indigenous people who fled the zone. "They haven't taken us into account
at all and now they want us to take care of our people."
Defense Minister Hugo Unda, who admitted that Plan Colombia will have
repercussions in Ecuador, said that the price of these consequences "must
be paid by everyone, because we're all responsible for the fact that
Ecuador isn't developing." He also said the problem is a social, rather
than military, one.
President Gustavo Noboa announced that he plans to name governors with
military experience to provinces along the Colombian border. He appointed
Agustin Alejandro Luna, a colonel not on active duty, governor of
Orellana, which neighbors Sucumbios and has also been affected by the
conflict in Colombia.
Meanwhile, the indigenous people who were displaced in January are
receiving assistance from FOKISE and the International Red Cross. Several
indigenous communities associated with FOKISE have offered the displaced
people some of their lands, but military officials are asking them to
return home, assuring them that they will be protected. The people who
fled, however, are reluctant. "The soldiers arrive in town and then return
to their camps. They never even go to our communities," said Jose Huatoca,
president of the community of Curiyacu.
This article previously appeared in Latinamerica Press.
Copyright 2001 Information Network of the Americas (INOTA)
________________________________________________________________
****************************************************************
* 16 *
COLOMBIA REPORT
June 11, 2001
Young Women Struggle to
Survive in War-torn Colombia
----------------------------
By Garry M. Leech
More than two million Colombians have been displaced by the armed conflict
being waged between the Colombian army, right-wing paramilitaries and
leftist guerrillas and, according to Claudia Marcela Barona of UNICEF in
Bogota, "Sixty-five percent of Colombia's displaced are children." Growing
up in Colombia is not an easy task for today's youth, especially for those
being raised in the country's conflict-ridden rural areas.
In 1999 alone, 176,800 mostly rural children were forced from their homes
by violence or the dire economic conditions it often creates. For the
displaced, especially poorly educated teenage girls whose wage-earning
skills are often limited to housekeeping and working in the fields, there
are few options: remain and risk being killed; flee to the unfamiliar
environs of one of Colombia's towns or cities, often for a life of
prostitution; or join one of the armed groups.
Sixteen year-old Yamile and her family abandoned their home in the village
of La Cienaga in the sur de Bolivar after paramilitaries killed several
villagers and ordered everyone else to leave. The entire population of the
village, some 130 people, immediately fled downriver to the relative
safety of Colombia's most violent city, Barrancabermeja. For the past
three months, Yamile and her fellow villagers have been living in a single
over-crowded building near the market called Casa Campesinos.
Yamile is a quiet, serious girl who has been forced to bear much of the
responsibility of caring for her five younger siblings during the family's
ordeal. While her parents spend much of their time trying to provide food
for their children, Yamile remains confined in Casa Campesinos. There is
no school for Yamile to attend and she is having difficulty adjusting to
life in an unfamiliar and restrictive urban environment, "It is difficult
here because I am used to living on our land."
For Yamile, days spent attending school and evenings of dancing to
Vallenato music have been replaced by a state of constant fear and the
occasional thrill of receiving a Red Cross food parcel to supplement her
meager diet. When asked what her hopes for the future are, there is no
mention of money, clothes, music or any other typical teenage desires,
Yamile simply asks for, "Peace, love and calm."
But it appears Barranca will not provide the "peace, love and calm" that
Yamile longs for. According to Luis, another refugee from La Cienaga, "Our
leaders have been threatened by the paramilitaries and one of them had to
escape because they were following him all the time." For many years
Barranca has been a relative safe-haven for the displaced from the
surrounding countryside, but the situation in Barranca has deteriorated
dramatically over the past couple of years.
According to Regulo Madero Fernandez, president of the Regional
Corporation for the Defense of Human Rights (CREDHOS), "In the past two
years people have been displaced from Barranca to other places. The
government's legitimacy crisis here is absolute. The complicity between
the government, the public forces and the paramilitaries is a fact. All
these things generate an anarchic situation and the first victims are
human rights and the dignity of the people."
When she was 16 years-old, Erika abandoned her home in the southern
department of Huila after witnessing a paramilitary massacre. But instead
of joining the ranks of Colombia's displaced population, she took up arms
in the rebel Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC). Erika--whose
name, like those of most guerrillas, is a nom de guerre-- is now a young
woman of 18 with deep dark eyes that warily observe anyone that approaches
her.
She has been happily involved in a relationship for the past year with a
20 year-old rebel who is a FARC veteran of five years. Still, she admits
life hasn't been easy, "It is a difficult life being a guerrilla. There is
lots of sacrifice, like always being away from family." When asked what
her family thinks about her life as an AK-47 toting rebel, Erika says,
"They agree with it because they know why we are fighting. But it is hard
for my father to accept me in the FARC because I am so young."
Female guerrillas now constitute more than 30 percent of the FARC's 17,000
fighters. Joining the rebels has allowed many teenage girls to break free
of the traditional rural female roles of housekeeper and menial laborer.
According to FARC Commander Simon Trinidad, there are lots of young girls
in Colombia being, "exploited in the coal mines, the gold mines, the
emerald mines, and in the coca and poppy fields." And if they are not
suffering in the countryside, they are "in the streets of the cities doing
drugs, inhaling gasoline and glue," he says. Although it is difficult to
believe they are better off marching through Colombia's remote jungles and
mountains under a constant threat of attack, Trinidad claims that at least
in the FARC they receive "clothes, food and an education."
When the subject of clothes is mentioned to Erika, she claims not to be a
typical teenager, "Fashion doesn't matter to me. The uniforms we wear are
not a fashion they are normal for us. We are focused internally,
ideologically. Material objects don't interest us." And when it comes to
music, Erika and her boyfriend spend their off-duty hours listening to the
revolutionary ballads offered up by the guerrilla-operated radio station,
Voice of Resistance.
But rather than fighting Colombia's social and economic injustices, many
other teenage girls are desperately seeking to escape the violence and
poverty so prevalent in rural Colombia. Unfortunately, one of the only
wage-earning options available to many young, poorly educated females is
prostitution. The de-facto capital of the FARC-controlled demilitarized
zone in southern Colombia, San Vicente del Caguan, is teeming with
brothels full of teenage prostitutes who have fled from other regions.
Stepping through the curtains draped across the door of the Bar Las
Tequilas brings one into a darkened room that appears at first glance to
be just another seedy bar blasting Vallenato music at earsplitting levels.
But the true nature of the establishment is soon revealed by the steady
flow of couples to and from the rooms located in the rear of the
establishment.
Gina Paola is a 19 year-old prostitute who has worked in the Bar Las
Tequilas for three years. She and her fellow workers live in the small
wooden rooms in the back of the bar where they also ply their trade. Gina
shares her room with another full-time girl and with two part-timers who
come into town for the busy Friday and Saturday nights. The four beds are
separated by thin wooden partitions that offer little privacy.
Like Erika, Gina also fled from Huila, but that's where the similarities
end. Gina is interested in earning money and escaping from Colombia's
poverty and violence. But like millions of others, her lack of education
and the country's dire economic situation make it difficult for her to
earn a living. Gina claims that in prostitution, "I earn double the amount
I could earn in another job. Sometimes you can earn $20 or $25 a night."
She has a three year-old daughter who lives with her parents back in Huila
and Gina makes the five-hour trip to see her three or four times a year.
When asked what her parents think about her profession, Gina says, "They
think I should get out of here, that it's not good for me. But when my
daughter was very young, my parents didn't help me. I had to survive. My
family made me turn to prostitution."
Since arriving in San Vicente, she has endured the abuse of drunken cattle
ranchers seven nights a week. She has also had to live with the constant
risk of contracting sexually transmitted diseases. When asked if she is
worried about AIDS, Gina says, "Sure, you never know. Sometimes you have
sex without a condom and you don't know what other women he's been with.
You can be healthy on the outside, but not know what's happening on the
inside. You have reservations, but you have to do it."
Gina doesn't envision working in prostitution much longer, although one
gets the impression she's been telling herself that for years. "If I get
money this year, maybe I will start a business and pay for school for my
daughter. I have a lot of dreams." One of those dreams is to get far away
from Colombia's troubles, "I think I would like it in Spain.
People tell me I would have a good time there. But everything is not
always as you want it to be." And then, exhibiting a fatalism beyond her
years, she quietly adds, "Time will decide."
One teenager who escaped from a life of prostitution is 19 year-old
Carolina. She grew up in one of Bogota's poor barrios and when she was 15
and her sister was 14, they both ran away from home to escape the constant
beatings and abuse. "My mother died when I was very young and I have never
had contact with my father. I grew up with my grandmother and some
uncles," she says.
Carolina and her sister soon found themselves working as prostitutes in
the streets of Bogota. Then, one night a few months later, they were
arrested by the police and taken to the Renacer Foundation. Renacer is an
organization that offers child prostitutes a bed, food and an education if
they agree to quit working. The Foundation was founded 12 years ago and
now has approximately 60 kids living in their two houses at any given
time.
According to co-founder, Estrella Cardenas, "I had been working as a
volunteer with a religious group that worked with female prostitutes. We
began noticing more and more child prostitutes living in the streets, but
had no program for them." And so, with funding from the government agency,
Bienestar Familiar, and the British, Canadian and Spanish embassies among
others, Renacer was founded and has since evolved into an organization
with 53 employees, including six psychologists and three social workers.
One of the psychologists, Juan Carlos Carrillo, explains how they approach
the children, "We find the kids on the street working as prostitutes and
slowly get to know them. Many of the kids living in the streets were
displaced from different parts of Colombia by the violence. Many end up in
prostitution because of domestic problems or are forced into it by their
families to earn money."
Once the children have been convinced to enter Renacer, the kids
participate in a two-year program that teaches them social and job skills,
which are then honed in the foundation's restaurant, graphic arts company,
book printing shop, tailor shop and computer lab. According to Carrillo,
"The vision of Renacer is not only to get children out of prostitution,
but to work with families in poor neighborhoods to make the communities
better."
Carolina is now taking care of her two year-old niece because her sister
left the program and returned to the street. Meanwhile, Carolina has
graduated from Renacer and now wants to study business administration at
the National University. But first she faces the unenviable prospect of
finding a job, no easy task in a city with 20 percent unemployment. "I
want to work in the airport for American Airlines," says Carolina, "but
they want a certificate saying I speak English fluently." And then, with a
youthful optimism that belies the many hardships she has endured, Carolina
boldly states, "Next week I start English classes."
Research for this article was provided in part by the Dick Goldensohn
Fund.
Copyright 2001 Information Network of the Americas (INOTA)
________________________________________________________________
****************************************************************
* CLM-NEWS is brought to you by the COLOMBIAN LABOR MONITOR at *
* http://www.prairienet.org/clm *
* and the CHICAGO COLOMBIA COMMITTEE *
* Email us at [EMAIL PROTECTED] or *
* Dennis Grammenos at [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
****************************************************************
* To unsubscribe send request to [EMAIL PROTECTED] *
* unsubscribe clm-news *
****************************************************************
_________________________________________________
KOMINFORM
P.O. Box 66
00841 Helsinki
Phone +358-40-7177941
Fax +358-9-7591081
http://www.kominf.pp.fi
General class struggle news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe mails to: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Geopolitical news:
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
subscribe: [EMAIL PROTECTED]
__________________________________________________
