The thousands of participants in the ‘National Meeting of Peasant, Indigenous and Afrocolombian Communities for Land and Peace in Colombia: ‘Dialogue is the Route’’ - which took place in Barrancabermeja between 12th-14th August 2011, declare to Colombian society and the international community:
1. Our event has concluded successfully. The analysis of the country’s situation has been achieved. We have specifically considered our concerns for the future of our country - our land and resources, democracy, the condition and the guarantee of our rights, as well as the state of the war and the possibilities of a political solution.
2. These results are an expression of the aspirations of a civilian gathering which was carried out in public and was transmitted by the media. The results are thanks to our collective efforts and sacrifices, and our desire to find a path towards peace.
3. We thank the accompaniment of the church, the regional government of Santander, and the Mayor’s office of Barrancabermeja, as well as the international community, especially some organisations committed to the causes of human rights and peace. Their help is very significant.
4. We reject the governmental policies of the last decade which have been implemented in the country in order to promote an economic model which brings about the intense exploitation of our land and natural resources, favours transnational companies and economic groups, intensifies the conflict over land and territory, stimulates new processes of expropriation, dispossession, and forced displacement, radically deteriorates social processes, and risks our sovereignty and food security. This economic model destroys the peasant economy, the territories of indigenous and afrocolombian communities, and escalates the social and armed conflict which weighs our country down.
5. We are concerned about the government’s ‘General Law of Lands and Rural Development’, the ‘Law of Victims and Return of Lands’, and the ‘National Plan of Development’, because they don’t guarantee the rights of Colombians, and they favour the current mining and energy model which does not benefit Colombian people or the environment.
6. We reaffirm our support for the ‘Law of Integral Land Reform’ presented by peasant organisations, and drafted by the ‘Platform of Agrarian Unity’ which was presented at this event, because we believe it largely encapsulates the aspirations of the rural population of Colombia, and we call on society at large to support it.
7. To have democracy in our country and to create better conditions for the guarantee of our rights and in order to make them effective, we need a new model which allows the use of natural resources and wealth to overcome deep-rooted social and economic inequality for the well being of the population.
8. We are concerned that despite the formal recognition by the current government of a conflict in Colombia, and its statement that ‘the key to peace is not lost’, it is evident that a military solution is at the top of the governmental agenda, owing to the mistaken concept of a ‘peace of winners and losers’. The history of the Colombian conflict shows us that military solutions do not lead to peace. Therefore, we cannot continue to be trapped by an outlook that seeks to escalate the war and increase foreign military intervention. We don’t want to continue living under the permanent threat of bombs and bullets. A political solution is essential.
9. We are aware that the prospect of a political solution has many privileged enemies, especially those who benefit from the current state of affairs which sustains their position. Stopping the war is also against the interests of those who have made a lucrative business out of it. We Colombians have the right to take ownership of the task of creating conditions not based on the violence which has been inherent to the conflicts in our society in order to achieve peace and social justice through dialogue.
10. We believe in the need to push forward the conceptualisation and realisation of a route to peace - which has as its next objective the creation of a national movement with international support, with the explicit aim of promoting peace with social justice and a political solution to the social and armed conflict. To achieve this aim we need a favourable climate. It is urgent that we work together to create a culture of peace. We think that the parties directly involved in the conflict should consider a bilateral ceasefire which will open the possibility for dialogue. Likewise, to consider compromises and humanitarian accords which permit the cessation of the violence against the civilian population and the ending of atrocities.
11. General declarations regarding peace and dialogue are insufficient and many times are accompanied by an escalation of the war. For this reason, this event calls for gestures and actions from all parties to show a positive response to the demands of the population, the demands of the peasant, indigenous and afrocolombian communities: stopping of all forced displacement and dispossession, unconditional respect of the rights of women and children, guarantees and respect for the rights of victims, no militarisation of land, respect for the autonomy of the indigenous people. Stop the war and create peace. It is the time for a political solution.
12. We need to make the idea that dialogue is the route real. To realise this, we need, above all, the widest possible social and popular participation. A political solution cannot only involve the parties directly involved in the military conflict. “All the voices, all the hands” of this country need to be heard and mobilised to lay foundations which will allow us to achieve peace with social justice. Doing this will mean an arduous task of organising, of political education and social mobilisation, which we wish to undertake together with all those that are willing to accompany us, and which will add to all the social and popular efforts and initiatives that are being developed across the country in different ways and through varied organisational expressions. This space must be created and widened with the guarantee of the respect of social organisations and their autonomy. The starting point is found in the innumerable manifestations of popular and social collective action, in the different organisational processes with different focuses and diverse political perspectives which have been taking place in our country during recent years.
13. We propose that all those efforts, in addition to local expressions of social organisation, including those dealing with specific gender, ethnic or sectoral concerns, work together in the preparation and realisation of regional constituent assemblies – which would be spaces of popular sovereignty and civil participation, which could serve as the mechanisms to create peace and social justice through a political solution. The design should allow the general problem of the conflict and its solutions to be analysed, as well as allowing regional concerns to be tackled. These processes presuppose the active and direct participation of the broadest social cross section, representing society’s diversity and plurality, and should lead to the necessary creation of regional mandates.
14. These mechanisms would converge in a National Assembly of Constituent Assemblies and Regional Processes for Peace. This would provide a national mandate for a political solution and for peace with social justice with a corresponding program of action. All of this effort has a much bigger likelihood of success if it is accompanied by the international community.
15. The conclusions of this event, the product of our hard work in different platforms, as well as this Political Declaration, will be given to Colombian society, to the central government and other state entities, as well as to the FARC and ELN guerrillas, with the aim of making clear our will and desire that actions to untie the knot of confrontation are explored urgently, to advance towards a political solution and peace. We are convinced that this is the growing will of the Colombian people: to live in peace with social justice.
16. We invite all participant organisations to promote and participate in different arenas and initiatives to continue to strengthen the aims of this event.
National Meeting of Peasant Indigenous and Afrocolombian Communities for Land and Peace in Colombia
Dialogue is the path
BARRANCABERMEJA, August 14th, 2011
More information: www.justiceforcolombia.org
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