Dateline ACT

Colombia 0102

Those who sow should also harvest...

Florencia, Colombia, 3 December, 2002
By Tommy Ramm

Following the ACT-Emergency aid project in the south of Colombia, the catholic communities together with Diakonie Emergency Aid (DEA) continued to engage in emergency assistance. Though conditions are difficult, they have made huge progress.

"Don’t you worry that there could be a tooth in there?" the rather large-sized restaurant owner asked. With a large grin on her face, she put the baked fish on the plastic table of her tiny restaurant and smilingly returned to her pots.

Her guest, Yolima Salazar, who is telling the story, has long got used to the humor, which has been going around Caqueta, the tropical province in southern Colombia. How else can you bear the situation, she asks thoughtfully, pausing briefly to see whether she would receive an answer. Only recently, the parish church of Caqueta sent her to Curillo. Here, left wing guerrillas of the Farc and ultra right paramilitary groups are fighting over territorial control. People disappear on a daily basis while fishers talk about decaying bodies flowing downriver near the village. It has been difficult to sell fish according to the owner of that restaurant.

The parish church, our last hope

For years Yolima has been living in the community of Morelia in the heart of Caqueta. To her, work means assisting poverty-stricken families to organize themselves while bearing the daily pressures. She would love to leave the region, but this is not the right time to do so. She has been coordinating an emergency aid program in various province-communities, which cannot be abandoned easily. Why is this so?

"By now, church organizations have become the only entities, that are able to take on social work in the province", she says. Threats by armed actors; brutal battles and assassinations have led local government to suspend activities. Indeed, local mayors are finding it extremely hard to pursue their tasks given the weak or even absent state present. Local town halls are closed; hence, financial and material assistance cannot reach those displaced and isolated families.

The situation has deteriorated particularly since February 2002. Following the suspension of the peace process between the government and the Farc guerrillas, military activities have sharply increased in the thinly populated province that has about 350,000 inhabitants. Hopes to end the 40-year-old conflict have become illusive. Those fleeing post-peace process bombardments, have been aimlessly roaming around Caqueta ever since. Many places were cut off from the outside world following armed actors setting up blockades. It was near impossible to send in humanitarian assistance as international aid organizations rarely dared to enter rural zones. Given this, few are certain about the numbers of displaced people in the region.

According to the Red Cross, Caqueta’s capital Florencia receives up to 300 displaced families every month, three times more than last year. As for the rural zones, no institution in Florencia could come up with reliable information. According to UN estimates, Colombia counts more than 2 million internally displaced people.

The only viable ‘entities’ able to respond to the needs of affected communities are those intact networks of the Catholic Church. The parish church and the Diakonie Emergency Aid, a German organization which has been working in Florencia for the past two years, recently received US$25,000 from ACT and has been able to get emergency aid to local people. Between April and June 2002, 259 food packages were distributed to the families of the municipalities of Montanita, San Jose, Morelia and Belen de los Andaquis, which had been cut off from the outside world. Rice, salt, panela and oil significantly improved precarious food conditions.

Weeklong blockades prevented the arrival of basic food supplies into this region. Roadblocks by armed groups have become a reality in Caqueta, on many occasions passing cars and lorries are obliged to pay levies. There was hardly anything left to eat. While initially food rations were put together in Florencia, gradually, food supplies were sold in those places affected by violence or alternatively people were receiving cash. According to Yolima, this was to "prevent guerilla and paramilitary groups from stealing food supplies".

From emergency aid to long term development

Direct food supplies only constitute a small part of ACT-assistance. The alarming conditions in Caqueta has not changed. Long-term development has to be promoted in order to prevent more families being forced to displace themselves. The main objective of ACT-emergency projects is therefore to ensure the continuity of food supplies, and ensuring self-sufficiency of marginalised families. The idea is simple: If people are able to grow basic foods themselves they become less vulnerable to future blockades in the region. This in turn reduces the dangers of further displacement.

The parish church and Diakonie through the ACT Emergency Program are coordinating the growth of vegetables on small plots of land. Sweet corn and beans are no longer grown following technical advice and material assistance an approach that proved extremely successful. Families are now harvesting up to 1,5 kilos vegetables per day. 527 households, which grow food on only 449 small plots, are the beneficiaries. This is of vital importance in a region where due to coca cultivation other products have been extremely difficult to cultivate. More families are being encouraged to integrate the project. The message by neighbors is that the situation can be changed.

In the meantime the corporation between Diakonie Emergency Aid and the parish church has strengthened. Plans are underway to extend the activities already initiated. And thanks to their neutrality and strong ties with the local population, churches are able to continue their activities.

According to Yolima, although armed actors might try to undermine these activities, village populations will defend the representatives of the parish church. "Of course, we are not neutral", Yolima admits secretly. This is not possible in the Colombian conflict. "We take sides with the affected population, and have to act in the midst of conflict". But means that people can become targets.

Yet, in spite of difficult circumstances, people have been able to continue with their lives, thanks largely to the solidarity of neighboring families. And while they cannot do so in peace, they can at least do so with dignity.