Colombian human rights activist Maria Ruth Sanabria shared the tragic story of her people with the University on Tuesday with a slide show presentation called “Women waging peace in Colombia.” Speaking through her translator and fellow human rights advocate, Scott Nicholson, Sanabria recalled how one activist eerily described Colombia as a “laboratory for war.”
It is a place where schools are used to shield the military, and where friendly “clowns” with sweets invite children into the forest to “play soldiers for a day,” said Sanabria. Now approaching 50 years of fighting, Colombia has the highest murder rate in the world and the most internal refugees following Sudan, she said.
As a representative of the Alternative Democratic Pole opposition party on her local municipal council and a board member of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, Sanabria is all too familiar with the abuses.
A mother of six, Sanabria has survived four death threats and a guerrilla attack, in which four escort police officers were killed. Sanabria’s first husband was assassinated in the political genocide of the “Red Dance,” and her family has been displaced five times.
While landmines, cartels and ghost towns seem to decorate rural Colombia, Nicholson of Lutheran World Relief said, “we hear about the cocaine, about the poverty, but we often don’t hear about how incredibly beautiful the country is.”
While Colombia produces 100,000 barrels, or $10 million of oil per day, Sanabria said, the majority of its population still lives in poverty.
“Colombia is a very rich country, there is oil, there is have fresh water, there is have coffee…we live in a state of impoverishment, but we’re not poor,” said Sanabria.
United Technologies, Textron, DynCorp and Monsanto – Sanabria named these as some of the U.S. companies tapping into Colombian resources. One corporation, Occidental Petroleum, destroyed a sacred lagoon and relocated 300,000 indigenous people to drill for oil, she said. The company also blocked seven crucial water sources and altered drainage systems, causing an increase in flooding, she said. This all happened in Sanabria’s home state of Arauca, and she showed slides of the closed company territory with the words, “Ecological Protection Zone,” written on the gate.
Without loans, jobs, technology and health care it has become the people’s responsibility to take initiative.
“During elections, the corruption flourished,” she said. “The government played with the needs of the people, they took advantage of the people’s hunger and they buy the vote.”
Such was the motivation for founding Peasant and Indigenous Women of Arauca, an organization of 420 people formed in 1991. Sanabria and other women work to find the social rights they aren’t given by the government. With cement, sand, concrete and sometimes leaves, the group works to provide homes in emergency neighborhoods of displaced families.
After a flood damage, Sanabria’s community built two small parks.
“They are very small, but they mean a lot to us. Before the children didn’t have a place to play, and now they are there from 11 in the morning to 11 at night. They try to get there first – to get in line. They fight,” she laughed.
Set to return to Colombia on Friday, Sanabria said “people ask how we deal with the struggle. We dream … I never thought I would come to the U.S. I was afraid, and I did not want to betray my people, but it is beautiful here … there is only one problem – it is cold, but that doesn’t compare with the warmth you have provided.”
Nicholson, Sanabria’s translator, works with her in Colombia on a weekly basis. He lived in Los Angeles and Montana before moving to Colombia, and his role at Alternative Democratic Pole meetings is to consult and provide an international presence.
Nicholson said that Sanabria’s work takes a lot of courage and commitment to creating peace through social justice. The commitment to leaving a better country for her children is a major driving factor for Sanabria, Nicholson said.
“She loves them very much and very much would like a better country for her kids,” he said.
Kailani Swenson, a senior majoring in international studies and business, lived in Nicaragua and Spain.
“I am really happy that she is teaching kids that we’re not the enemy … we’re all individuals, we’re not our government. You don’t often see people like her struggling to be positive … it’s such an amazing quality and it is a true sign of a leader.”
Freelance editor Allie Grasgreen contributed to this report
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