“Let us all support each other, rescuing the values of humanity;
Let us all go forward, with affection and much love, with your and our loved ones, and all humanity;
All peasants farmers, let’s strengthen the peace community of peace, the peoples’ rights and freedom;”
On the 23rd of March 2022 in the Peace Community of San Joséde Apartadó, Peace Community members, former and current international, national accompaniers and friends who have been arriving at the main settlement of the Peace Community are woken up by the Peace Community’s hymn.
After the multifaceted “community” receives food at the Peace Community’s restaurant, members of five different embassies join the community. Without bodyguards, no arms nearby, accompanied by the Peace Community, international accompaniment groups, and guests, abiding to one of the Peace Community’s non-violent principles. No to armed protection, yes to community as protection.
Together, the group marches towards la Roncona, a piece of land the Peace Community has been working on since the beginnings. “For us, this is not just a piece of land, it has provided us with food, shelter, when we had to leave our land. It means live to us”, Peace Community members remember. The embassies and accompaniers plant trees, plant life at the Roncona.
The next stop is at the community’s cacao storage, where the declaration from 1997 is read. Community work and zero tolerance to human rights violations, resistance to impunity, have been two crucial principles of the Peace Community, which contributed to autonomy and international protection measures.
At the final stop under the palm roof of the Peace Community’s meeting place, experiences are shared, difficulties about surviving amidst continuing violence on a personal and a communal level. The Peace Community counts more than 300 members being assassinated and countless human rights violations have been reported. 25 years after its declaration, the Peace Community continues its nonviolent struggle, and is a vivid example that alternatives to violence are possible.
Michaela Sollinger
FOR Austria y FOR Peace Presence
Proyecto Colombia
INSIGHTS
The International Fellowship of Reconciliation collaborates with the Peace Community and FOR Peace Presence to advocate for their rights and support their nonviolent resistance.
The joint collaboration has produced as well a written statement which has been submitted by IFOR to the 49th session of the UN Human Rights Council.
This document, "Colombia: New Threats Against The Peace Community Of San Jose De Apartado On Its 25th Anniversary", has been received by the Secretary-General and has been circulated in accordance with Economic and Social Council resolution 1996/31. It has been registered officially on the UN website as A/HRC/49/NGO/239 and is available here.
Read here the dedicated oral statement that IFOR delivered at the UN Human Rights Council on the occasion of the Peace Community anniversary.
