Putting Your Eyes On
Yesterday I got bitten by tiny, fierce ants that were crawling all over the basil plant Richard and I bought to make our favorite pasta. The thing is, I didn’t even see them when I went to pick the leaves. I knew they had been there because Richard came in one day howling for me to move so he could get his hands under the water (and quick), so before I reached down I looked at the plant and was pleasantly surprised to see it ant-free.
I picked one leaf and within seconds had ants all over my hands biting me as if they had been waiting for the meat dish to go with their basil salad. After running inside to get my hands under the water (and quick), I went back out to look at the plant. It had ants crawling all over it. There was absolutely no way that many ants had appeared in only the 60 seconds it took me to howl my own way to the sink which means that even though I had specifically looked for the little buggers, I simply did not have the right eyes on to see them.
There is a lot that goes on in life that require the right eyes to see. Sometimes those eyes are trying to see and just do not (like me and the ants), and sometimes the eyes pretend to be looking but really are just putting on a good show.
For instance…
The government in Colombia touts statistics that demonstrate less violence – homicides down, kidnappings down, “terrorist attacks” down – and celebrates greater freedom for people to travel around the country by land without fear. All of this is good news, but it does not take into account some important realities; the little ants seen only at second glance.
It is safer to travel on the roads of Colombia now than it was. In places where situations were
most difficult you will now see tanks every 2km to protect the highways and byways and reaffirm your safety (as men with large guns stare at you as you pass). That may be disconcerting for US folks unaccustomed to such sights, but it does help protect the road. The problem is that 5 or 10 kilometers from the road the official control often ends, and the people living there have to do their best to stay below radar or negotiate their freedom with whomever is in charge at the moment. For them, having the road safer is not really that much of a bonus. It is good news, but as they are not so much jet-setting around the country, it simply doesn’t affect them. You may not see the stinging ants from the road, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t there.
Another example…
The government lauds the demobilization of paramilitaries through a “Justice 
and Peace” process begun in 2005 which offered light sentences to paramilitaries who would confess to crimes they had committed and make reparations to victims. Apart from the fact that the first two sentences were handed down just this year, the reality is that many of the “demobilized” simply return to their ranks once they are released from prison (if they even go to prison…click on the graph to enlarge). After they confess and turn over their weapons, they receive from the state a pension for their cooperation as well as various training classes to help them reintegrate, but many also join with their former compatriots under new names and take up their former activities. That is, look once and you get one answer…look again and you get quite another.
As for putting on a good show, I will leave that up to Richard to describe (though the paramilitary example above definitely has some good showmanship involved). He has recently gone to a solidarity demonstration regarding a large common grave found in an area of Colombia…which the Cancillería (Secretary of State) denies even exists.
May those who have eyes to see and ears to hear use their mouths and their hands and their feet to help Colombia because I’m telling y’all, the ants are there.
Extradition
1,482 people have been extradited to the US from Colombia since 1984. Of those, 1,149 were in the eight years of President Uribe’s administration. (from Colombia Reports)
So it’s a good thing, right? Due to a weakened judicial system and systemic political corruption, the US has a policy of extraditing persons involved in the drug trade here in Colombia to face trials – and prison – in the US judicial system. Who could complain (other than the guilty)?
It turns out, like everything here, the issue is not quite so cut and dried. Many of the persons facing extradition are part of the de-mobilization of the paramilitaries undertaken here in 2003-2004. These paramilitaries – shadowy armed groups that have accounted for many of the worst human rights violations, forced abductions, and violent displacements – were also often involved in narco-trafficking. So as a part of their demobilizing, a process in which they are supposed to confess to crimes committed and face their victims, they are often extradited to the United States for their involvement in the drug trade. See this article from Adam Isacson for more details.
Here’s the problem – the US is only trying these criminals for drug-related crimes. They are not being tried in the US judicial system for massive human rights violations, or any other parts of their violent history in Colombia. So if you are one of the thousands of relatives of a disappeared person trying to find your loved one, or one of the millions of people violently forced off your land who is looking for some shred of justice, this process of extradition has just slammed the door on you. Again. And, as this recent academic analysis on the process recently exposed – these paramilitaries are often receiving light sentences on the drug charges they face, and then leaving the justice system altogether.
Worse yet, there are instances of criminals beginning to talk about their connections to politicians – and then being hurriedly extradited.
Colombia as a society is trying to heal from wounds from violent conflict stretching back decades. But as other countries trying to heal from past atrocities have shown us, without some form of truth, some facing of the worst of the past, there is no future. Full justice will never be possible for the hundreds of thousands of family members who have lost loved ones. But it is terribly important for the country to seek its own truth, and with that, some modicum of justice. Without this, there is no ladder out of the spiral of violence.
Adam Isacson has a good summary of the state of extraditions here, as well as a podcast discussion with Roxana Altholz of the University of California at Berkeley Law School Human Rights Clinic on Colombian extraditions.
So what can you do? The Berkley Extradition report has these recommendations:
The report has three recommendations for the U.S. government.
- Create an effective and efficient procedure for judicial cooperation. The United States should review current policy to identify the cause of delays in responding to requests for cooperation. New procedures should ensure that U.S. authorities share information with and respond to requests by Colombian authorities in a timely manner to minimize any impact of the extraditions on open investigations in Colombia.
- Incentivize extradited paramilitary leaders to disclose details about all their crimes and the identities of their accomplices in the military, government and national and foreign businesses. The United States should actively encourage extradited leaders to testify about their crimes and allies by conditioning sentence reductions or other benefits achieved through plea-bargaining on effective cooperation. Possible benefits of cooperation should include provision of visas to family members of defendants under threat in Colombia. … The U.S. Department of Justice should reverse its current policy of taking “no position” on whether defendants should cooperate with Colombian authorities.
- Initiate investigations for torture committed by extradited paramilitary leaders. Pursuant to the U.N. Convention Against Torture, which the U.S. has ratified, the State Party in whose territory an alleged torturer is found has a duty to either extradite that individual, or to “submit the case to its competent authorities for the purpose of prosecution.” This duty is also supported by U.S. domestic anti-torture legislation. … The United States should hold extradited leaders accountable for all their crimes under federal law, including torture, and promote justice for Colombian victims.
I don’t have the exact office to press these concerns on in Washington. Can we crowd source this? Anyone want to help?
Epiphany Reflections – Clanging Gongs Edition
(A reflection on the upcoming Sunday’s lectionary, January 31)
Psalm 71 and 1st Corinthians 13
Our passage this week from 1st Corinthians is a sacred text. Not in the holy, reverent way, but in the don’t touch that text way. It is the wedding text, mostly because it is a great reflection of the give and take of love in a relationship. But it is so much more…
The Iglesia Presbiteriana knows that the bible is often most powerful when it is read outside of its normal environment. When it is read not from the high pulpit in the church, but rather read in a farmer’s small house, or in the street at a protest against violence against women, or at a Christmas party with tons of screaming kids -that’s when you hear the the bible saying things you don’t hear in church.
Below, the text of 1st Corinthians 13 is placed beside a glimpse of the reality of violence in Colombia. What is love when it lives next to violence? How are we patient and kind amidst the destruction of life on an enormous scale? How is one to live as a full human when faced with raw inhumanity?
And in the passage from the psalms, we find answers that people here offer to these questions:
In you, O Lord, I take my refuge.
Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress.
For you, O Lord, are my hope.
The psalms don’t take away any of the pain or anger or bitterness of life, but they do give one company in those feelings. Through them we know that we are not alone; not the only ones with our eyes toward God as everything else around us seems focused on death, destruction, and denial.
God – Be with me this week, as I seek to see your world as you would have it, rather than as it is. Give me strength and courage and wisdom, and yes, most of all, love, to be who you created me to be. My praise is continually of you. Amen
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
13:1 If I speak in the tongues of mortals and of angels, but do not have love, I am a noisy gong or a clanging cymbal.
And if I have prophetic powers, and understand all mysteries and all knowledge, and if I have all faith, so as to remove mountains, but do not have love, I am nothing.
If I give away all my possessions, and if I hand over my body so that I may boast, but do not have love, I gain nothing.
Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant
or rude. It does not insist on its own way; it is not irritable or resentful;
it does not rejoice in wrongdoing, but rejoices in the truth.
It bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things.
Love never ends. But as for prophecies, they will come to an end; as for tongues, they will cease; as for knowledge, it will come to an end.
For we know only in part, and we prophesy only in part; but when the complete comes, the partial will come to an end.
When I was a child, I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.
For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face. Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.
And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; and the greatest of these is love.
Psalm 71:1-6
71:1 In you, O LORD, I take refuge; let me never be put to shame.
In your righteousness deliver me and rescue me; incline your ear to me and save me.
Be to me a rock of refuge, a strong fortress, to save me, for you are my rock and my fortress.
Rescue me, O my God, from the hand of the wicked, from the grasp of the unjust and cruel.
For you, O Lord, are my hope, my trust, O LORD, from my youth.
Upon you I have leaned from my birth; it was you who took me from my mother’s womb. My praise is continually of you.
One Campesino Went to Market…
Early in the morning an older man comes to market with a load of yucca. He is a campesino (a rural peasant farmer) whose living is essentially subsistence farming. He walks into the burgeoning market and is greeted by a younger man who is part of the paramilitary which currently controls the prices in the market…
Paramilitary (P): Hey tio (uncle, though they are not related), you look like you have a lot of yucca there today!
Campesino (C): Si mi hijo (my son, though they are not related), it is very good yucca, very fresh.
P: Oof, tio, you know the market for yucca today, it’s not looking very good.
C: No? But this is very good yucca. I have cared for it myself
P: Si tio, it looks good. What are you asking for this load?
C: Oh mi hijo, I need to get $200,000 (Colombian Pesos – about $100) for this yucca.
P: Oof, tio, didn’t I just tell you the market isn’t looking so good today? It’s just not a good day for yucca. I’m not sure you’ll get anywhere near that amount. Listen, I can offer you $100,000 for your yucca today if you sell it to me now.
C: Oh hijo, muy poco. I need to make the $200,000 just to cover my costs and give my kids a little something to eat. I came this morning without anything to eat, and after paying to get here and get home, and after all I have put into this crop, I need to be able to take a little home to feed my family.
P: Tio, you haven’t eaten anything yet? That’s terrible. Let me go get you some breakfast!
The paramilitary man leaves and returns with a hearty breakfast. The campesino accepts it, begins to eat, and then asks what he owes the other man for the food.
P: Me? Nothing, don’t worry about it tio. You are hungry and you have been working so hard for this good yucca. I’m happy to give it to you. Good luck with your yucca, eh?
The paramilitary man walks away, and the campesino thinks about the kind man who gave him breakfast. The campesino finishes breakfast and begins to set out his yucca. It is good yucca. Even on a bad day, this yucca should sell. No one is talking to him yet, but it is still very early.
After walking away the paramilitary man goes to each buyer and tells them they are not to buy from the old man that he just gave breakfast. Though several people walk up to the campesino they do not offer to buy anything, they simply sigh and shake their heads and move on.
It is now 4:00pm and the market is emptying. People who have came to buy have mostly left and sellers are packing up to leave. The campesino is now quite worried. A policeman, recently paid $20,000 by the paramilitary man, walks up to the campesino.
Police: Hey old man, you know you can’t stay here all night. You need to sell your yucca and get going. I will give you 15 minutes, and if you are not gone by the time I get back then I am going to take you and your yucca to jail. Do you understand me?
C: Yes sir. 15 minutes sir.
The policeman walks away. The campesino peers around desperately trying to catch someone’s eye when the nice man who bought him breakfast comes walking around the corner.
P: Tio! What are you still doing here? Oh no, it looks like you haven’t sold hardly anything today. I told you that it was a bad day for yucca didn’t I? It’s a shame too because that is really good yucca.
C: It is good yucca. Mi hijo, you wouldn’t still be interested in buying the yucca would you?
P: Oh tio, it’s awfully late now. I have already sold what I needed to sell, and I am on my way home. Plus, your yucca is good today, but it won’t be so good tomorrow. Then I am stuck with your bad yucca.
C: No mi hijo, if you put this yucca in water it will last for 4 or 5 more days with no problem. I could take the $100,000 you offered me this morning and you would have good yucca for the morning.
P: $100,000? That was the price this morning tio. If I buy your yucca now then I have to take it home and bring it back. I will lose money on this tio because I am taking over your problem. I couldn’t possibly offer you the same thing I did earlier today. The most I could do now is $30,000 (about $15).
Meanwhile the policeman walks by a little further away, casting glances over at the campesino.
C: Okay, okay. I will take $30,000. You can have my yucca. I have to go home.
The paramilitary man brings the yucca back the next day and sells it for $250,000. Only days later, after talking with other people in the market, does the campesino find out just how expensive his free breakfast was.
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