|
|||||||||
|
|
|
For the last 40 years, Colombia has been torn apart by armed conflict among guerrilla organizations, paramilitary groups, and the national army. With the world’s highest cocaine production and kidnapping rates, Colombia is associated by many with violence, drug trafficking, and human rights violations.
After 40 years of war, civil society in Colombia is disoriented and fragmented. Years of violence have destroyed trust among individuals and among entire social groups, leading to more violence and distrust. In such an environment, it’s hard to know which civil organizations or which armed groups will lead legitimate reform. Colombians are people with many different origins: African, Spanish,
indigenous. Our values and cultures are vastly different, and there
is little national pride weaving them together. Without a shared
identity, we have been unable to come together with a common vision
for the future. So, the country has continued to pursue a military
solution without success.
In spite of the continuing violence, I believe Colombia has reached a transition point. Civil society is starting to understand how it can help transform the conflict. Specifically, it’s taking on the role of mediating between leading social actors like the state, the Church, and the guerrillas. Women have a particularly large role in this transformation, because they account for 90 percent of NGO leaders in the country. Although women in Colombia historically played important roles in the community, their work for peace has been "behind-the-scenes" at the grassroots level. But because of the war, many women have become more independent and gotten more educated. When they lost their husbands and sons, women started taking on leadership roles - started running their own lives. They're now in guerrilla groups and in the army, in politics, banking, and business. They're more empowered because, as leaders, their voices are amplified. Women have a lot of strength to change things, and they're using that potential in civil society. A major obstacle to the peace process has been the breakdown of confidence in leadership. People have to trust that somebody will represent their interests. As an umbrella organization, we’re building this trust two ways. One is making sure NGOs we work with are reliable. The public sector has grown rapidly, but we’ve seen a number of illegitimate NGOs as well—some are being created for unclear political purposes, some for buying guns. If we want our network to stand for something, we have to guarantee the quality of services our NGOs deliver, and we have to insist on transparency in their work. To let people know who is trustworthy, we are creating a certification program. We hope that having a “seal of approval” will discourage the creation of corrupt NGOs. The Confederation is also placing an emphasis on quantifying outcomes: How many houses were built? How many teachers were trained? NGOs need to know what they’ve accomplished, and society needs to know that they really are delivering the services they promise. We encourage our members to collaborate, and we help them compile their services in portfolios they can offer to public policy institutions. When they present those service portfolios—whether it’s for health, education, or some other service on the public agenda—they do so in alliance with others. Because of that, they can approach regional governments, mayors, and other public entities with greater support and resources. Our second way to build confidence in civil society has been to draft a formal agreement with four principles that should guide NGOs in their work. Through this agreement, we are showing Colombian society that we stand for something and that we’re working together, regardless of our different histories or cultures. There are NGOs of all kinds under the Confederation’s umbrella, but these main beliefs are the bridge: 1. We believe in our constitution and in a social state ruled by law. My task has been to educate other parts of civil society—schools and community committees, for example—about these four principles and to demonstrate that we are committed to a new social contract in Colombia. Many organizations I talk to decide that they want to join our agreement; and although they are not NGOs, we welcome them as a sign that mainstream society is starting to recognize the value of working together for the common good.
One of the most encouraging developments has been NGOs and the military coming together on behalf of this vision for a common future. The Confederation has organized meetings between NGOs and military authorities in our most violent cities. The idea for such meetings was planted in 2000, when I attended a Inclusive Security: Women Waging Peace meeting in New York. A military general was present, and someone asked how I felt as a representative of an NGO coalition, sitting beside a general. I answered that we never trust the military and that they never trust us, but maybe it’s time to sit down together and start talking. And so we’re now talking to each other. Our first meeting was in Barrancabermeja, a city that has suffered massacres and other terrible violence. We invited the police commissioner, army commander, security and intelligence officials, and NGOs. Everyone was nervous when the military men came into the room with a tape recorder and guns, but we opened the meeting gently, telling them about our mission, our work, and our organization’s four principles for peace. We also said we feared them but that we needed to know them—know how they feel, how they think, and how they see NGOs. They told us that they didn’t feel secure with NGOs, who always seem to be making accusations against them. They felt, for example, that NGOs invited them to press conferences only to accuse them. Then the NGOs spoke about military abuses and the fear they feel every time they see a uniform. After just two hours, the military put aside their guns, and the two groups were laughing and discussing community problems. They even agreed on joint activities to benefit the community. Those activities have been remarkably positive. Implementing the Agreement
We need to do much more. To generate ideas on implementation, I organized a Peace NGO Colloquium, where 300 NGO representatives discussed their contributions to the peace process. We used that forum to circulate ideas on making our four principles concrete. As civil society’s role increases, policymakers shouldn’t be working alone on challenges facing our country. Without knowing what our sector is doing—and taking it seriously—the solutions they propose can’t be effective. They’d be ignoring significant peace-building work being done on the ground. At the same time, civil society can’t do its work without policymakers. We need to build alliances that extend beyond the Confederation. We foster local, regional, and national alliances by representing lesser-known civil organizations in the capitol. Because we speak with the combined voice of so many NGOs, policymakers have to pay attention. The international community and Colombian policymakers need to know what civil society is doing, so these organizations need to increase their visibility. We provide media training and teach them how to get their message out. They also need to know how to implement UN resolutions, how to work with budgets, and how to grow from small, provincial NGOs into organizations with the capacity to bring about significant change. This “institutional strengthening” increases their legitimacy as interlocutors among the groups involved in the conflict. To that end, we host trainings and conferences on topics that will prepare NGO leaders for active participation in politics. In workshops, our goal is to build trust, cultural identity, and a shared vision of the future and then to create a plan for action. We have to sit down and honestly tell each other our ideals, our agendas, and our fears. This process requires compromise, and that’s not easy, but it strengthens the links among organizations at our workshops. They have to learn to work through their disagreements and still be able to collaborate, and that’s an invaluable skill for the negotiating table or for politics. We’ll never have peace through a military solution, but peace isn’t just the signing of an agreement, either. Peace means having security, living in an inclusive society, and knowing that human rights are being respected at every level. After 40 years of war, Colombia won’t change overnight. But in the process of making people aware of how they can contribute to peace, we will all learn about our strengths, our weaknesses, and our opportunities in this historical moment. We have a lot of work
|
The Colombian Confederation of Non-Governmental Organizations,
a network of some 1,100 NGOs throughout the country, was created
in 1989 as a United Nations project. As executive director of the
Confederation,