Global Exchange Newsletter
Summer 2001

After a bumpy ride on an unpaved road through the breathtaking mountains of the Abibe range in northern Colombia, one arrives at San José de Apartadó.

Besides the plots of land reserved for crops and a few humble homes that precede the town, the first sign of humanity in this remote rural area is just that, a sign. It reads, "Community of Peace San José de Apartadó--The community freely participates in communal work, says no to injustice and impunity, does not participate directly or indirectly in the war, does not carry arms, does not manipulate or offer information to any of the sides."

Located in the strategically important, war-torn region of Urabá, San José de Apartadó is a solitary white flag of peace that finds itself in the middle of a battlefield. All sides of Colombia's internal conflict, the military, the paramilitary, and the guerrilla, are present in the area. As a result, San José de Apartadó is caught in the crossfire, and life in the peace community has been anything but peaceful.

The story of San José de Apartadó is one of the struggle of its people to improve their lives in an area historically abandoned by the Colombian state. Founded in 1970, and consisting of 12 settlements nestled within the verdant valleys and steep ridges of the Abibe, the members of the community survive from the cultivation and selling of corn, avocados, yuca, rice, beans, cacao, bananas, and the raising of livestock. In the early days, members of the community used to walk 12 hours to take their goods to the nearest market.

Not until the 1980s did roads finally reach San José de Apartadó, followed by the construction of schools and the arrival of teachers. As is the case for most of rural Colombia, the absence of state presence and a chronic political and social exclusion by the Colombian establishment contributed to the rise of guerrilla in the region. In the 1990s, the rise of the guerrilla was followed by the rise of Colombia's notorious paramilitary forces, formed as much as a reactionary response to the guerrilla as a security force serving those with economic interests in an area rich in natural resources, including large deposits of coal.

Thus, the conflict as it is known today was born: military and paramilitary versus the guerrilla, with the civilian population stuck in the middle. In a country where an average of 20 politically-motivated killings occur every day, the majority of the victims are non-combatants, a truth that has not excluded San José de Apartadó. What was inevitable came to be--to those militarily and economically interested in the area, the people of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó were in the way.

The community's efforts to create an alternative to war has made it a target. Since declaring itself a Community of Peace on March 23, 1997, San José de Apartadó has endured constant harassment from the armed groups in the area. Over 80 members of the non-violent community have been killed and/or disappeared. From a population high of over 3,000 inhabitants, today the population hovers around 1,200 people.

As recent as March 5, a week before a Global Exchange /Fellowship of Reconciliation delegation arrived in San José de Apartadó, men identified by the community as paramilitaries entered the town, set fire to 13 houses, and stole the community's money. The men left with a familiar threat to the community, "As from tomorrow all this has to be abandoned, this must be a ghost town. We're going to burn everything down. Next time we will not respect anybody, not even women and children."

According to military officials, there are more than 50 official Communities of Peace in Colombia, all with similar histories to that of San José de Apartadó, the oldest of all of them. They stand like fragile white flags waving bravely in the battlefield, attempting to build peace in a country where the obstacles to peace are many.