[Peace] Fwd: Colombian Teachers Try to Separate Children from Guns

[manni at snafu.de]

Forwarded Message:
> To: portside at yahoogroups.com
> From: "portsidemod" <portsidemod at yahoo.com>
> Subject: Colombian Teachers Try to Separate Children from Guns
> Date: Wed, 29 May 2002 15:06:40 -0000
> -----
> TEACHING PEACE IN A TIME OF WAR 
> 
> Colombian Teachers Try to Separate Children from Guns
> 
> An intervewiew with Ligia Inez Alzate
> 
> Submitted to Portside
> 
> By David Bacon
> 
> SAN FRANCISCO, CA  (5/28/02) -- On Sunday, Colombian
> voters elected President the former mayor of Medellin,
> Alvaro Uribe.  The candidate of the right, Uribe has
> long-standing ties to the paramilitaries, who are
> accused of the worst of the human rights violations and
> massacres which have marked Colombia's decades-long
> civil war.  Uribe has called for an all-out war against
> the left-wing insurgency.
> 
> Many Colombians fear that an escalation of the war will
> bring greater attacks on unionists and those sections
> of civil society which have already been targets for
> assassination. Last year, 159 Colombian trade union
> leaders were violently murdered.  The year before,
> assassinations cost the lives of 129 others.  According
> to Hector Fajardo, general secretary of the Unitary
> Confederation of Workers (CUT), 3,800 trade unionists
> have been assassinated in Colombia since 1986. Last
> year, out of every 5 trade unionists killed in the
> world, 3 were Colombian, according to a recent report
> by the United Steel Workers.
> 
> Those who know Uribe best, the residents of Medellin
> and the state of Antiochia, where he was also former
> governor, call not for an expanded war, but for
> negotiations and peace. Medellin itself has been the
> site of one of the country's most important efforts to
> create a culture of peace. Ligia Inez Alzate Arias is
> one of the many educators fighting to provide an
> education to Medellin's children in the midst of budget
> cuts and civil war, where teachers have organized a
> unique effort to get guns out of the classroom, and to
> begin teaching a culture in which the children of
> participants in different armed groups can learn to
> live with each other.
> 
> Alzate was general secretary of the Association of
> Instructors of Antioquia for 12 years, and a leader of
> the CUT in Antioquia.  Five years ago she returned to
> the Presbyterio Camilo Torres Restrepo Elementary
> School, where she's now the principal, to begin finding
> ways to remove the war from the classroom.
> 
> Being a teacher union activist is the most dangerous
> job in Colombia. From 1986 to 2001, 418 educators were
> murdered.  In just one week in early May last year,
> Dario de Jesus Silva, a 22-year veteran teacher in
> Antioquia Department (where Uribe was governor), and
> Juan Carlos Castro Zapata, another school worker in the
> same province, were assassinated.  Both were activists
> in the teachers' union.  On May 14, Julio Alberto
> Otero, a university lecturer and union activist, was
> also killed.
> 
> Over 85% of trade union assassinations are laid at the
> feet of the country's paramilitary death squads.  But
> Human Rights Watch and almost all other observers say
> the Colombian military provides them arms and
> logistical support in a covert "dirty war."
> 
> The government targets teachers because they have
> helped lead resistance to budget priorities which
> threaten to abandon the country's educational system.
> The Colombian Federation of Educators (FECODE) struck
> for 48 hours on May 15, 2001, over a proposal to cut
> the education budget by $340 million.  Gloria Ines
> Ramirez, FECODE president, predicted that the cuts
> would deprive 500,000 of Colombia's seven million
> students of an education.  Three million people signed
> petitions opposing the measure. "We will not allow the
> government to make budget cuts for two of the most
> important necessities for our poorest sector simply to
> pay interest on the foreign debt," she declared.
> 
> Ligia Inez Alzate spoke with journalist David Bacon
> about her experiences.
> 
> DB:  What made you become a teacher?
> 
> LA:  I was born in Medellin, in Colombia, and started
> as a teacher in 1975, at a time when the labor movement
> was still very strong, and people believed passionately
> in social change. At the time we wanted to improve the
> educational system and the quality of education.  We
> were committed to making our union strong, and
> protecting the status of teachers.
> 
> I started teaching in a rural town 16 hours outside of
> Medellin, where we were actually building the school
> where I was assigned.  At the time, the army was
> looking for guerrillas who belonged to the National
> Liberation Army (ELN). That August, the army bombed the
> school because they said the guerrillas were meeting
> there on Sundays, and we were allowing it.  The
> government recalled me, saying it was too dangerous to
> work under those conditions.
> 
> DB:  After twenty five years, those conditions don't
> seem to have changed a great deal.  How do Colombian
> teachers cope with having to provide an education in
> the middle of a war?
> 
> LA: We had to invent a way of teaching that applies to
> this situation, and try to ensure that our students
> receive an education in the middle of this conflict.
> We call it the School for Living Together.
> 
> Students in our school belong to gangs formed by
> different social groups -- the guerrillas, the
> rightwing paramilitaries, criminal gangs, and the
> organizations of drug traffickers. They all take guns
> into the schools, and soon they're firing at each other
> at the school gates.  Many young people have been
> killed.
> 
> So in our school we implemented a project called Living
> Together, and made our school a zone of peace.  That
> means that everyone who comes in has to leave their
> guns behind, and learn how to live with other people.
> At the beginning it was very difficult, because we had
> to speak with the actual organizers of the gangs.
> 
> Adults are responsible for giving guns to the children.
> They even train them in how to use them. Drug dealers,
> for instance, give them guns to carry out functions in
> their organization.  But they didn't expect them to
> bring them to school. So we began saying that we
> wouldn't accept the presence of weapons in the school.
> 
> DB:  How many children were killed in your first year
> at the school?
> 
> LA:  Just at the school, two, but in the area around
> the school, many more. The whole reason for carrying
> the guns was to use them.  In the early 1990s, even
> teachers themselves were being killed by students who
> weren't allowed to graduate.
> 
> DB:  Were the children afraid of what would happen to
> them if they began leaving their guns at home or
> outside of school?
> 
> LA:  Yes, they were very afraid. First, they were
> afraid just to admit that they were carrying guns.
> Then they were also afraid about what would happen
> outside.  We realized that the situation was even more
> serious in the schools around us.  And we began
> discovering what the guns were being used for.
> 
> One boy told us he had a gun he was supposed to use at
> night, to kill people pointed out by the drug dealers.
> After confessing what he was doing, was found
> assassinated in a nearby barrio. That first year was
> very difficult, because no one wanted to talk.
> 
> One day, some of the principals were talking about what
> to do about the kids who were arriving late.  We found
> they were using drugs outside of school time, and even
> making connections in the school. That's when we began
> to see that there were other actors involved.
> Investigating in the barrio, we discovered that
> organizations of drug dealers, of guerrillas, of common
> criminals were all involved. Paramilitaries too.
> 
> DB:  How did the adults who were responsible react to
> this?
> 
> LA:  Our conversations were very difficult.  They felt
> that this was none of the schools' business, that it
> was their problem.  Given the seriousness of the
> situation, we organized big forums in the community,
> called Agreeing to Live Together, and tried to talk
> with the adults who were training the children.  But
> then the situation became even more serious, the
> students were killing each other.
> 
> We had meetings about living together, about non-
> agression, with the heads of the different
> organizations.  They would come to these meeting with
> hoods over their heads, so their identity would be
> hidden.
> 
> At first, they tried to close their eyes to the
> problem, but after a while, they got used to having to
> talk about it.  We also realized that to make schools a
> zone of peace, we would have to present some
> alternative to arms and drugs for young people.  All
> over the state we got the government to build playing
> fields for sports, so young people would have something
> else to do. We built cultural centers.
> 
> The discussion about the violence became much broader
> than just the schools, to encompass the whole society.
> We told the women, "You're the mothers of the children
> who are killing other children.  We have to talk about
> this."  The discussion went out into the whole
> community.  We were able to stop the war in our schools
> for two consecutive years.
> 
> DB:  What is the situation in your school now?
> 
> LA:  We no longer have children carrying guns.  They
> are much calmer. Using the Peace Curriculum, the
> students speak about the benefits of understanding each
> other, and talking through disagreements.  And as a
> result, our school is a place to study and learn, for
> knowledge and investigation, not for conflict.  Our
> parents now defend our school and try to get the
> government to give us the resources we need.  We have
> agreements about the appropriate behavior, and
> sometimes parents accompany their children to class.
> They're very concerned now about the quality of
> instruction.
> 
> DB:  Is the escalation of the war having an impact on
> Medellin?
> 
> LA:  This year the situation became very dangerous
> again, because the paramilitaries entered our city.
> They took over a big section of Medellin, in zones
> where we had been working.  It's much more difficult to
> have a dialogue with the paramilitaries.  They're
> organized and financed by the army. It's a way for the
> government to intervene directly in our communities.
> 
> Some schools have had to close for two or three months
> at a time, because the fights between the gangs have
> become much sharper.  This causes the problem to
> spread, because the students who are displaced then go
> to other schools to finish their studies.  Our
> classrooms are too small to accept them all.  In some
> schools, there are 60 to 65 students in a single
> classroom.  These schools then become the ones where
> the violence is the worst.  The paramilitaries even
> stop public busses from entering those barrios, so the
> children no longer have a way of getting to school.
> 
> DB:  Have you been able to get the cooperation of the
> government in controlling the paramilitaries?
> 
> LA:  No.  The conflict has gotten worse, and we haven't
> been able to get the paramilitaries to have the same
> kind of dialogue with us. The other groups have
> respected the education process.  They've been willing
> to allow the process of making peace within the schools
> to develop.  But not the paramilitaries.
> 
> DB:  Is that because they look at teachers and unions
> as an enemy?
> 
> LA:  To them, we are a military target. They accuse
> teachers of fighting against the government's education
> reform law.  When we try to organize parents to oppose
> it, they accuse us of being insurgents. That stigma can
> result in being killed.
> 
> We know the government itself is behind them.  When the
> workers began fighting the law which substitute
> individual negotiations with employers for collective
> bargaining, many of them were killed.  When they try to
> take over bankrupt businesses that still owe them back
> wages, the owners send the paramilitaries to kill them.
> That's all called insurgency by the paramilitaries.
> 
> DB:  How have teachers tried to assert their political
> rights given that level of repression, and how has the
> government responded?
> 
> LA:  In our country, we have to carry out our
> profession in a very dangerous situation -- an internal
> war.  It is very difficult to survive in that context.
> We try first to defend the labor rights of education
> workers, and then human rights, including the right to
> organize freely.
> 
> In 1992 we participated in formulating Colombia's basic
> education law. Teachers wrote some of the articles
> which incorporated into the Constitution,, and
> established that education was a responsibility of the
> state, the family, and the whole of society.  We
> broadened the concept of education to include defending
> the environment, preserving life, the right to use
> technology, and in general looking at education as a
> process that goes on from birth to death.
> 
> Preschool teachers, for instance, helped draw up the
> law which covers that part of education.  Teachers in
> technology or in academic subjects helped to decide
> what should be covered in those areas.  We all
> contributed our experiences.  The most important part
> of the law that we won was Section 60, which mandates a
> special budget for education consisting of 60% of the
> net national budget.
> 
> In May of 2001 the Interior Ministry, at the command of
> the International Monetary Fund, decided to break the
> back of the teachers movement and reform the education
> law, getting rid of the special budget.  They
> substituted a system in which education became the
> responsibility of the different states, without
> providing them any resources.  Today we basically have
> no guarantee of funds for public education.
> 
> The reforms the government proposes are all coming from
> the International Monetary Fund.  They want to
> privatize social services, making individuals
> responsible for their own education and healthcare,
> although people have no jobs and often not even enough
> money for food.   The government wants to make it
> easier for foreign companies to exploit our natural
> resources and labor.
> 
> DB:  Hasn't Medellin been one of the most violent
> cities in Colombia?
> 
> LA:  In past years, our city was ripe for war.  And now
> having lived with it so long, we're the city that most
> wants peace.  We're a city whose people cry out for
> life.  But we're a city without work now, with high
> unemployment, and where access to education has become
> more and more limited.
> 
> DB:  Do you think that peace is possible?
> 
> LA:  This is a very critical moment, in which the war
> is flaring up again.  But the people who  are demanding
> peace are growing stronger. We are all working for
> peace.  We have a strong civil society, which is very
> organized.  We believe that we can each begin with
> ourselves. But there must be international
> intervention, which demands the will to make peace.
> 
> DB:  What is it like to be a trade union leader in
> Colombia?  We know that over 150 union leaders there
> are murdered every year.
> 
> LA:  Being a trade unionist is very dangerous in
> Colombia.  We're called terrorists, because we fight
> for better conditions and for collective bargaining,
> and because we oppose the restructuring of laws
> governing education, labor rights and so on.  All these
> actions make us a military targets.
> 
> DB:  Are you afraid?
> 
> LA:  Yes, because we are constantly threatened.  One of
> the reasons is that many political points of view are
> represented in our federation, including the
> traditional parties, as well as parties which may
> sympathize with the insurgency.  We are constantly
> struggling against increased prices for basic services,
> denouncing the exploitation of our natural resources
> and the revenues from that leaving the country,
> fighting to keep the right to collective bargaining.
> All that makes us a target.
> 
> DB:  Who is making the threats and doing the killing?
> 
> LA:  A lot come from the large landowners and big
> business owners who are trying to reduce salaries in
> order to increase their profits. The paramilitaries
> attack trade unionists because we oppose the
> restructuring of the economy.  We also run the risk of
> being silenced because we denounce the human rights
> violations, and the armed actors responsible for them.
> 
> DB:  Do unions see a way out of the war?
> 
> LA:  The CUT has proposed a number of steps towards
> peace.  We want to include all the social movements in
> this process -- workers, women, youth, community
> leaders and others.  All should be able to express
> their needs, propose their own agendas, and point to
> what they think are the sources of the conflict.  Our
> work is part of something larger, a broader search for
> peace.
> 
> We declare internationally that no one represents us --
> not the guerrillas or any other force.  We are joining
> a large section of the population that is rejecting
> violence.  We want the negotiations between the
> government and the guerrillas to begin again, and civil
> society needs to be included.  We need a cease fire.
> No other solution is possible except for negotiation.
> 
> DB:  The US Congress voted $1.7 billion for the
> Colombian military two years ago, under Plan Colombia,
> supposedly to fight drugs.  What do you think of this
> policy?
> 
> LA:  Plan Colombia is a time bomb. They fumigate the
> illegal crops, but they're ruining the land, and
> involving communities that have nothing to do with the
> drug war.  The war has left a path of destruction,
> wreaking havoc in the areas of the oil pipelines,
> destroying many small towns.  We need to build
> infrastructure in the country, reactivate our national
> economy and agriculture, and give people a way to make
> a living and stay on their land.
> 
> The money for the military is really going to support
> the arms trade, instead of supporting Colombians.
> Instead of investing in war, we need to invest in
> peace.
> 
> 
> 
> 
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