wfn.org | United Methodist witnesses for peace in Colombia

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

Feb. 14, 2002   News media contact: Linda Bloom7(212) 870-38037New York
10-21-32-71BP{055}

NOTE: A photograph is available with this story.

By United Methodist News Service

For Scott Kerr, being a Christian witness for peace means taking the same
risks as the people he hopes to protect.

In February, he could be found in the countryside in Colombia, accompanying
farmers back to the homes they had fled in fear of both guerilla and
paramilitary violence in that Latin American country.

"I believe in the vision of Christians taking peacemaking as seriously as
people in the Pentagon take war-making," said Kerr, a member of First United
Methodist Church in Downer's Grove, Ill.

He is part of Christian Peacemakers Teams (CPT), an ecumenical ministry
started by Mennonite and Church of the Brethren congregations and Friends
Meetings to support "violence reduction" efforts around the world. The
organization arrived in Colombia a year ago and set up its project base in
Barrancabermeja, or Barranca for short, an eight-hour bus ride north of
Bogota.

Because Barranca is an oil refinery town, processing about 60 percent of
Colombia's oil, it is a strategic location for the armed groups struggling
for power, according to Kerr. Although it was once under guerilla control,
paramilitary groups overtook the town a year ago, escalating the number of
killings and human rights violations, he said.

In town, CPT has run street patrols, served as public witnesses to events
and set up a presence at a refugee center in order to help reduce the
violence. In the countryside, CPT members accompany people returning to
their homes and maintain a regular presence in villages where residents try
to live their lives apart from the armed power struggle.

"We have witnessed a number of human rights violations, but we believe
because of our presence there are less of them," said Kerr, who was part of
a CPT program in Chiapas, Mexico, for a year and a half before going to
Colombia.

Although having a U.S. passport "gives us a little more space to operate,"
he admitted that Colombia can be a dangerous place for just about anyone.
"We stay safe by using absolute transparency," he explained. "We have
meetings and are in communication with all the armed groups. We have a lot
of trust here because they know we don't believe in the use of guns."

Kerr said that while he serves as an "unarmed bodyguard" for farmers
returning to their homes, his supportive church congregation and network of
friends back home also offer some protection because he knows they would
respond if he were kidnapped. 

Many church groups - including the National Council of Churches and its
related relief agency, Church World Service - have been critical of the way
the U.S. government has used aid money in Colombia in efforts to eradicate
the drug trade there. They argue that the aerial fumigation of coca crops
and the U.S. involvement in Colombia's military and its internal warfare
have had a negative impact on innocent civilians whose homes, health, food
supply and overall human rights have been affected.

Kerr made his own statement about the U.S. military presence in Colombia and
other parts of Latin America when he joined a "Litany of Resistance" protest
last November at the U.S. Army School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.
The controversial school has been criticized by some who consider its Latin
American graduates guilty of human rights abuses. Kerr was released after
being arrested, and his case is still pending, he said.

On Feb. 5, representatives of Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and
the Washington Office on Latin America said their recent findings showed the
Colombian government has not met the human rights conditions necessary to
obtain up to $625 million in new aid from the U.S. government. 

They found, according to Human Rights Watch, that the Colombian government
has failed to suspend members of its armed forces "credibly alleged" to have
committed gross violations of human rights or to have helped paramilitary
groups; that the Colombian armed forces continue to organize, coordinate
with, support and tolerate paramilitary groups; and that the armed forces
are not cooperating with civilian prosecutors and judicial authorities in
investigating abuses or pursuing paramilitary members.

Kerr estimated that more than 80 percent of the human rights abuses in
Colombia are committed by paramilitaries that are too closely associated
with the country's military. "We witness them together at the same place, at
the same time," he said. "The connections are very clear."

The farmers he has worked with have told Kerr that there will be no peace in
Colombia "until the U.S. government decides there will be peace."

More information can be found at www.cpt.org, the organization's Web site.
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United Methodist News Service
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