Lilia Peña, an awesome defender

26/07/2018 pbicolombia Leave a comment

Lilia Peña Silva is a woman with kind eyes who smiles often. She emanates a positive and welcoming energy as she invites us to her home. At the moment she is allowing herself to breathe more easily after a particularly difficult month in May. Lilia talks to us about her work and her life as a human rights defender. She is a survivor of the horrors of the Colombian armed conflict. She was forcibly displaced from San José del Guaviare after her family was persecuted and her husband was killed in 1998. Conflict-related violence followed her to Santander, where in 2002 her brother was also killed, after experiencing constant harassment. Lilia has also been persecuted throughout her life. She is one of those fighters that are so rare. Because of the injustices she has faced, she has dedicated her life to supporting victims of the armed conflict with all her energy and generosity. In 2004, with a team of ten people and six organisations she founded the Association of Victims of State Crimes in the Magdalena Medio Region (Asociación Regional de Víctimas de Crímenes del Estado del Magdalena Medio – ASORVIMM).

PBI accompanies ASORVIMM[1] from time to time in Barrancabermeja where they have their office, working for victims and also with trade unions, small-scale farmers, students and grassroots organisations. The organisation is part of the National Movement of Victims of State Crimes (Movimiento Nacional de Víctimas de Crímenes de Estado – MOVICE), and offers legal support, workshops on victims’ rights, psychosocial workshops and support for the construction of historical memory. ASORVIMM works in the north of the Antioquia department, throughout the Magdalena Medio region and in Guamocó.

The latest attack against Lilia took place when six armed, hooded men entered her home violently, to commit what appeared to be a robbery. It was a traumatic experience, as the assailants pointed their guns at Lilia’s head and at her 9 year-old granddaughter. They also harassed her 90 year-old father. The defenders’ whole family were terrified. The assailants stole a computer, telephones and USB sticks which Lilia uses for her work and they also took financial information related to her work.[2]

According to members of ASORVIMM, one of the attackers was arrested several hours afterwards, along with the taxi driver who drove the men to Lilia’s home. The incident was also reported to the Prosecutor’s Office. More than one month later, there is still little information about what really happened and why. According to the organisation, the 8th Prosecutor’s Office in Barrancabermeja has not been in touch with them, and at least six of the perpetrators have yet to be identified.

Lilia and her family have been badly affected by the intrusion of this violence into their daily lives. They hope that progress will be made in the case as quickly as possible so that life can return to normal, given that Lilia has had to suspend her activities as a human rights defender for the moment, and has had to focus on caring for her father.

The persecution of peacebuilding and human rights defence work

Lilia knows this kind of violence well. She has experienced it before and continues to face it, in her work with victims in Barrancabermeja, Monterrey and Santa Rosa del Sur. Her commitment to achieving respect for victims’ rights has not wavered. This tireless defender talks to us about the communities she supports, and describes how she has always wanted to work alongside them.

We are impressed by Lilia’s strength as she continues to protect the victims of the conflict with her team from ASORVIMM. When we ask her where she gets her strength, she answers with a shy smile, and says that it comes from her sons and daughters. She explains that being a woman human rights defender is an added challenge. The attacks she experiences are related to her work but they also affect her personal life and her family, “male defenders are freer and can relocate more easily if the threats get too serious”. Lilia tells us that she and her female colleagues cannot imagine leaving their region because they have closer ties to the area where they live. They are the true heads of their families as well as being defenders, and they are victims of attacks aimed at forcing them to give up their work.

The next step

Although the harassment and persecutions continue, Lilia is looking towards the future. When we finish the interview, we are speechless, at a loss for words in the face of all she has had to live through, including what happened on 9 May this year. We continue to admire her in silence; it is not every day that we meet someone who is courage incarnate. She gives us a shy semi-smile when we share our admiration. And that’s when she says, “it’s customary to be awesome round these parts”.

When we are finally about to leave, even though we would like to stay longer with this extraordinary woman, we see her 4 year-old granddaughter in the street, opposite the house, having her first experience of riding her bike. We watch transfixed, as she propels herself forwards for the first time.

Agathe Chapelain, Maelys Orellana and Yvonne Furrer

Footnote

[1] ASORVIMM official website: https://www.asorvimm.org ; PBI Colombia: ASORVIMM

[2]ASORVIMM: Grave amenaza contra Lilia Peña fundadora de ASORVIMM, 10 May 2018 ; Prensa Rural: En Barrancabermeja hombres armados amenazaron y agredieron a Lilia Peña, defensora de derechos humanos,11 May 2018

Advocacy

Remembering forced disappearence in Colombia

07/07/2018 pbicolombia 1 Comment

On the 22nd of June 2018, representatives of the Embassy of Germany and France, Caritas Germany and the German Agency for Technical Cooperation (GIZ) made a diplomatic visit to express their support for the work of the Nydia Erika Bautista Foundation (FNEB[1]), which accompanies victims of forced disappearance to achieve truth and justice. Seventy relatives of victims of forced disappearance attended the event from the following organizations: Familiares Colombia (Family members Colombia), Madres del Meta y Guaviare (Mothers of Meta and Guaviare), Madres por la vida (Mothers for life), Mujer sigue mis pasos (Woman follows my steps) coming from Bolívar, Boyacá, Caldas, Casanare, Cauca, Cundinamarca, Meta, Putumayo and Valle del Cauca. Continue reading Remembering forced disappearence in Colombia →

Annual Report

2017: international accompaniment and observation during the first year of the Peace Agreement

03/07/2018 pbicolombia Leave a comment

Despite the signing of the Peace Agreement between the Colombian Government and the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in November 2016 and the efforts of the State and other entities to situate Colombia in a “post-conflict” context, the main outcome is that the situation of risk for human rights defenders, their organisations and communities, has stayed the same and in some cases has even worsened after the signing of the Agreement. Continue reading 2017: international accompaniment and observation during the first year of the Peace Agreement →

Tales from the field

Accompany the return of the Castaño Family

15/06/2018 pbicolombia Leave a comment

“Say something in Scottish!” eager faces gather round and I manage to get a few words out in English before someone calls me out and they all start giggling. “Eso es inglés” scoffs one of the girls before starting to count out loud the number of people in the room, “one, two, three, four…”.

Today the total reaches twenty-one including the three month old baby whose name Luz means light. It’s easter week and I’m spending it in a small holding farm in Bajo Atrato, in the Urabá region of Colombia. My field volunteer partner from France and I are here for five days accompanying the family of Mario Castaño, a land reclaimant and community leader who was brutally assasinated in front of his wife, adult children and grandchildren in their family home in November 2017. They’ve been displaced in a nearby town ever since and only return to the family farm with the accompaniment of CIJP (the InterChurch Commission for Justice and Peace, one of the organizations that PBI has accompanied for the longest in Colombia) and PBI.

blog_arbol del pan — The return to the family house in the Biodiversitu Zona “Arbol del Pan”, La Larga Tumaradó

Mario Castaños Bravo was forcibly displaced from the region in the late 1990s, in the era the locals call “the violence” when paramilitary groups worked hand-in-hand with the government armed forces to displace the rural population under the guise of fighting the FARC guerrillas that were present in the area. Shortly after, with the area cleared of small scale farmers and guerrilla forces pushed back to the mountains, large scale businesses moved in, destroying the ecosystem by cutting down the forests and draining wetlands to install huge plantations of plantains and palm oil. When Mario and other displaced people returned in the early 2000s the landscape was almost unrecognisable. With the support of CIJP he was able to bring his family to reclaim their land, reconfiguring it under the figure of a “humanitarian zone” and to help other communities in the process of land reclamation, actions which put him at great risk and that would ultimately cost him his life.

Blog_Familia Castaño — Elilia Isabel, the widow of Mario Castaño, holding his protrait and surround by three of her daughters and grandchildren

Our accompaniment in the field is as often as much centered on the emotional well-being of individuals as their physical integrity. While our logoed t-shirts and the PBI flags that we put up when we enter a community, and the work we do advocating the cases within high level government both within Colombia and internationally allow us to visibilise our presence and affect change, our role as field volunteers additionally provides moral support and solidarity. This week is a time of great nostalgia for the family, the air is peppered with anecdotes about Mario, placing him in the landscape that he loved so much. It’s also a time of uncertainty: who is going to lead the community now, when might they be able to return, are further reprisals imminent? In the middle of the night the dogs start barking and startled awake I can feel the tension in the air until people relax and fall back asleep.

The next day Mario’s widow tells me that she didn’t sleep the rest of the night – despite our presence, despite the other twenty people present in the tiny house in hammocks, tumbled together in beds and on the floor around about her. It reminds us that each attack on human rights defenders affects the social fabric of the communities and families they leave behind. Processes are interrupted, and the fear of repetition often means that new leaders can be reluctant to step in and can leave communities vulnerable to further human rights abuses.

On the last morning after a night of swingin hammocks listening to a chorus of frogs, crickets and the occasional snore, we pack up our hammocks and make our way together with the family traversing paths through the surrounding business owners’ plantations back to the main road. A large SUV with tinted windows, the armed protection scheme that the government has provided for Mario’s widow, is waiting to take them back to the town where they’re currently displaced. We say goodbye with promises to stay in touch by phone and take motorbike taxis to begin our journey back to our base.

Morna Dick

Morna y Nelcy marzo 2018 — Morna with Nelcy, daughter of Mario Castaño

Tales from the field

Resisting in the Naya River

28/05/2018 pbicolombia 1 Comment

Navigating the clear waters of the Naya River is a pleasure for the senses. Lush vegetation bursts forth as you leave behind the Pacific Ocean to enter this river basin: a zigzagging river flow, whose banks are dotted with 64 black communities, all belonging to the Naya Community Council[1]. They have been here since ancestral times, “338 years to be precise”, according to Continue reading Resisting in the Naya River →

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