PEACE CARAVAN IN THE TENSE SOLITUDE OF PUTUMAYO
By Constanza Vieira

November 26, 2003 - (IPS/GIN) Just before dusk, a group of drivers gathers on the side of the dirt road in the remote Colombian province of Putumayo, bringing the Women's Peace Caravan, which is protesting the civil war, to a halt because one of the buses has a flat tire.

One of the self-protection mechanisms agreed on by the more than 3,000 women riding in the caravan of over 100 buses into the heart of the war-torn southern province is that if any vehicle has a problem, the rest will wait until it has been fixed.

Another pact is that if any of the armed groups involved in the four-decade civil strife decides to kidnap any of the activists, all of the women will go with her.

The caravan is driving through Putumayo, the epicentre of the war and the main target of Plan Colombia, a heavily U.S.-funded anti-drug and counterinsurgency strategy that includes the aerial spraying of coca, an estimated 66,000 hectares of which are growing in that province.

Fifteen buses carrying local activists joined the caravan of 96 buses that arrived Monday in Mocoa, the capital of Putumayo, from all over the country.

The activists declined the military escort offered by the government of President Alvaro Uribe, and sent messages to the leftist guerrillas and right-wing paramilitary groups, urging them to turn the roads used by the caravan during its six-day journey into "humanitarian corridors."

In Colombia's cities, the very idea of the Peace Caravan is seen as sheer madness. The war, which is waged in the rural areas, has increasingly bottled up city-dwellers within the limits of their urban universe.

But by Monday, the caravan was deep in the conflict zone, with no incidents to report. And the drivers were hesitant but willing to continue driving into the night, until reaching the town of Puerto Caycedo.

"Everyone knows that no one can drive here after 6:00 PM," one of the drivers told his colleagues.

He was referring to one of the unwritten laws of this South American country of 44 million: the main rebel group, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), which has been active for 40 years and controls huge tracts of mainly rural territory, does not allow traffic on the roads within the areas under its control between 6:00 PM and 6:00 AM.

The route that leads from Mocoa to Puerto Caycedo, in the direction of the Ecuadorian border, figures on the Plan Colombia maps as a paved road. But although it is one of the country's most important highways, it is nothing more than a narrow gravel road, five metres across at the widest spots.

The funds have been earmarked to pave the road, but the work has not advanced beyond the first seven kms out of Mocoa, due to the heavy guerrilla presence.

Once the tire is repaired, the snaking line of headlights, dust and diesel exhaust begins to crawl forward again at 20 kms an hour, leaving the last rays of sunlight behind.

This may well be the biggest and best-organised women's peace march in the world: the members of 315 women's groups from eight regions have come to the current hotspot in Colombia's armed conflict, where the violence is at its worst.

This is the third Women's Peace Caravan. In 1996, 1,000 women gathered in the city of Murindó in the northwestern banana-producing region of Urabá along the Panamanian border, the most conflict-stricken part of the country at that time.

And in 2001, 5,000 women converged on the river port of Barrancabermeja in central Colombia, where just a few months earlier, insurgents and paramilitaries had been fighting for control of the oil port city, and many local residents were murdered in targeted and collective killings.

"Not one single woman, not one single man, not one peso more for the war," say the activists. This year, the Peace Caravan decided to accompany the women of Putumayo in their solitude.

The route from Mocoa to Puerto Caycedo, which normally takes three hours to drive, takes the caravan five and a half, through stretches of jungle, and through Villa Garzón, 16 kms south of Mocoa.

Local ombudsman Gustavo Burgos, the municipal official who receives the complaints filed by local citizens, had explained to IPS that it is the paramilitary umbrella, the Self-Defence Forces of Colombia (AUC), that settles problems in Villa Garzón.

When a legal dispute or other problem arises in the area of Mocoa and Villa Garzón, the paramilitaries step in.

"With regards to the statistics on how many people are killed, you start to forget, because people don't talk about that, they don't report the murders," he added.

Some 11,000 people displaced by the violence from their homes in the surrounding countryside are living in Mocoa. Some of them have been living in makeshift plastic tents for as long as two years. They see no possibility of returning to their villages and farms because of the fighting.
Most of the displaced -- who number between two and three million throughout the country, one of the biggest populations of internal refugees in the world -- are women and children.

Two military bases housing an army brigade and an anti-narcotics battalion, as well as the civilian airport, are a five-minute drive away from Villa Garzón. Seven security rings surround the bases to protect them from the guerrillas.

The largest villages and towns in the province are under the influence of AUC, which has gained control over all of the municipal seats in Putumayo. The surrounding countryside, however, is still in the hands of FARC.

In the town of Puerto Umbría, the local residents have poured into the streets, holding a spontaneous fiesta to greet the Women's Peace Caravan. "Where do you come from?" they shout to the passengers.

Riding in the buses are Paez and Guambiana Indians from the Cauca region, professionals from Colombia's main cities -- Bogotá, Cali and Medellín --, community leaders from Santander and Bolívar, teachers from Huila in the country's coffee-producing region, black women from the jungles of Chocó, and rural women activists opposed to free trade.

Many are dressed in black. They are the Women in Black, a global network committed to peace with justice and actively opposed to war and other forms of violence, which first emerged in Israel and has found fertile ground in Colombia.

In the stretches between villages, rural residents appear in the darkness on the side of the road waving the peace symbol and white shirts and sheets to greet the caravan.

Sometimes it is groups of children of all ages, standing in the middle of nowhere. At other times it is entire families, or a solitary elderly man waving a white handkerchief from his yard. Lights are on in some of the farm houses along the road. "Thanks for coming!" the women hear as they drive by.

Perhaps it is the excitement of seeing not just one bus, but more than 100, drive by after so many years of dark, silent night-time roads, the product of the ban on driving at night. The drivers honk their horns in response to the warm welcome.

The women are keenly aware that not only the local peasant farmers see them drive by. FARC combatants are also undoubtedly watching them from the brush.

Puerto Caycedo, a ramshackle town of 2,500, fell into the hands of the paramilitaries a few months ago. Six weeks ago, the police returned to the town -- government security forces are not present in areas under FARC control -- and they now make a big show of patrolling the streets to prepare for the caravan's arrival.

The welcome, as the caravan rolls in at 11:30 PM, is discreet. But the townspeople open their doors to provide shelter to all of the women, who outnumber the local population. One hour later, a snug sense of calm hangs over the sleeping town.

On Tuesday, the women awaken to the news that in Villa Garzón, Luz Marina Benavides, the president of the Committee of the Rights of the People, has been shot and killed at 6:00 AM in front of her house.

Ironically, Benavides was murdered on Nov. 25, the International Day for the Elimination of Violence Against Women, which was first named to commemorate three sisters who were raped, tortured and killed for their activism against the dictatorial regime of Leonidas Trujillo (1930-1961) in the Dominican Republic.

In a meeting on the outskirts of Puerto Caycedo, the women of the Peace Caravan observe a minute of silence.

The caravan turns around Wednesday, and will pass through Villa Garzón once again. The organisers have decided that they will stop in the town square, where the Women in Black will hold a sit-in to protest the murder of the local human rights activist.

From: http://globalinfo.org/eng/promo.asp?Key=32902645203