Colombia: Women's Rights Worker Assassinated

Hiya

When I switched on my computer this morning, I found the following message (in Spanish, my translation). Please urgently send polite but strongly-worded e-mails and faxes and letters of protest to the representative(s) of the Colombian government in your country to protest against the assassination in Medellín on September 24, 2008, of OLGA MARINA VERGARA, her son (26), her daughter-in-law (22) and her grandson (5). Olga Marina Vergara was a member of the women's grassroots organization Ruta Pacífica de Mujeres Colombianas (Colombian Women's Peace March).

Please click on the title to this post if you would like to support an international human rights NGO with a highly meaningful peace and empowerment project in Colombia. Doing so will take you straight to the Colombia page of pbi – Peace Brigades International's website.

(Note that I am a supporter of pbi but am posting here as a private individual exercising her right of free expression. Having said that, pbi may well put out a call for urgent action; the OFP itself and some of its members have "enjoyed" pbi accompaniment and unarmed, non-violent protection for many years now.)

Thank you!

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SOCIAL MOVEMENT OF WOMEN AGAINST WAR AND FOR PEACE

PROTEST AND CALL FOR URGENT ACTION

We, humble women from various corners of our country, farming women, city women, women of African descent, mulattoes, mestizo women, women from various social and political processes, have organised ourselves and united in the SOCIAL MOVEMENT OF WOMEN AGAINST WAR AND FOR PEACE; we gathered for our national meeting on September 27 and 27, 2008, in the city of Bucaramanga, Santander; and we publicly PROTEST AGAINST, CRITICIZE and CONDEMN the MASSACRE during which our companion OLGA MARINA VERGARA was assassinated. Olga was a member of Ruta Pacífica de Mujeres Colombianas (Colombian Women's Peace March). The massacre moreover claimed the lives of three (3) members of her family, i.e. her son (26), her daughter-in-law (22) and her little grandson, a boy just five years of age.

The massacre occurred in Medellín last September 24, 2008, a city that is not only Colombia's second-largest in terms of inhabitants, but one that has also been presented to the world as a "model of the successful process of paramilitary demobilization". However, continued massacres, assassinations of civilians and forced disappearances have been indicators of the success with which this government of "Democratic Security" has coddled and favoured criminals.

We women love life; we create life; we are artisans in the craft of resisting and persisting against war and for the construction of a peace that will bring social and gender justice. To our country and to the world at large, we PROTEST AGAINST the patriarchal strategy of war and violence in Colombia which delights in targeting women: in every corner of our national geography, women are being murdered in so-called "feminicidios", forcibly displaced, violated, mutilated, subjected to sexual and domestic slavery, and condemned to live marginalized lives deprived of resources, health, water, education, work, proteccion.

The ill-named process of "Democratic Security" has not brought women greater security, nor has it protected their right to a dignified life, on the contrary: this policy has made the Colombian people much poorer, and has deprived and robbed us of our land and territories in order to annihilate our food autonomy and sovereignty, and to hand our country and our resources over to transnational companies that have been privatizing, exploiting and destroying our biodiversity and our local economies.

To our companions of the Ruta Pacífica de las Mujeres, and to the members of Marina's family we extend our solidarity and thoughts in the pain that afflicts us today; yet again we reaffirm our unflinching commitment to defend a life in dignity, and to stand up for social processes that will continue to lead us on the road toward building the just and fair, free, democratic and peaceful country that we so intensely desire for ourselves, for our daughters and sons, and for our people.

WE DEMAND of the authorities and of our national government to investigate these events, and to bring to justice and punish whoever may be materially and intellectually responsible.

Stop the impunity of crimes committed against women. We demand truth, justice, full compensation and guarantees that this will not be repeated!!!!

• Organización Femenina Popular (Grassroots Women's Organization)
• Colectivo Policarpa Salavarrieta – La Pola (Policarpa Salavarrieta Collective)
• Federación de Mujeres Campesinas de Nariño (Federation of Rural Women in Nariño)
• Coordinadora Nacional Agraria – CNA (Sevilla, Yumbo) (National Agrarian Coordinator)
• Resguardo Indígena Cariamomo (Caldas- Risaralda) (Cariamomo Indigenous Refuge)
• Programa Mujer Indígena CRIC-Consejo Regional Indígena del Cauca (Indigenous Woman's Program; Cauca Regional Indigenous Council)
• Programa de Mujer Indígena de la Orivac (Orivac Indigenous Woman's Program)
• Asociación de Proyectos Alternativos Comunitarios-APAC (Association of Alternative Community Projects)
• Asociación de Madres Comunitarias (San Pablo, Bucaramanga, Puerto Wilches) (Association of Community Women)
• Liga Internacional de Mujeres por la Paz y la Libertad - LIMPAL Colombia (San Jacinto- Bolivar, Bogotá, Villavicencio, Cartagena) (International League of Women for Peace and Freedom)
• Asociación de Mujeres Productoras de Cárnicos –ASOMPUCAR, (Caquetá) (Association of Women Producers of Meat Products)
• Comisión Interfranciscana de Justicia, Paz y Reverencia con la Creación– Piedecuesta, Santander (InterFranciscan Commission of Justice, Peace and Reverence towards Creation)
• Pastoral Social de Trabajadores-as (Regional Sabana: Hermanas Nuevas Esperanzas; Alianza Fraternal- Apartadó, Barrancabermeja, Ibagué,) (Workers' Social Pastoral)
• Asociación de Mujeres Fe y Vida- AMUFEVI, Valle del Cauca-Rovira, Ibagué (Association of Women, Faith and Life)
• Asociación de Mujeres AMAR – Arauca (Women's Association)
• Red de Mujeres de Tiquisio – Magdalena Medio (Tiquisio Women's Network)
• Red de Mujeres de Puerto Wilches – Magdalena Medio (Puerto Wilches Women's Network)
• Red de Mujeres de Puerto San Pablo – Magdalena Medio (Puerto San Pablo Women's Network)
• Asociación Departamental de Mujeres Campesinas e Indígenas de Santander - ADEMUCIS (Association of Farming and Indigenous Women in Santander)
• Asociación de Desplazados-as Palmeros-as, San Alberto -Cesar (Association of Displaced Palm Plantation Workers)

Observers
• Equipos Cristianos por la Paz – ECAP (Christian Team for Peace)


29th September, 2008
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Peace!