Land and Law

November 15, 2006

Yesterday was a very busy day here, and a day of contrasts. In the morning we sat in on a land meeting with a group of about 20 men, who are displaced from the violence here in Colombia. The meeting was being run by a young lawyer and was held here on the campus of the Reformed University. The lawyer walked them through the steps towards land aquistion, and with petitioning for their rights as desplazados. The process in Colombia reminds me some of the INS process that Juan and I have gone through over the last six years. It is complex, hard to follow, multiple steps, and next to impossible for the lay person to navigate. I feel with immigration at home that the system is set up that way on purpose, and I suspect that it is some of the same desire here in Colombia, there is a legal process, but it is not set up in a fashion that allows the regular person, let alone someone with limited capabilities to navigate it. It was interesting sitting in the room as an observer, the men all had varying levels of anxiety and interest in figuring out the process, and varying degrees of need among them. All wanted to move forward in their lives and to return to dignity as one man shared with me. It felt humbling to sit there and listen to them talk and as I listened to the complexity of the legal battle they would have to fight, I was once again reminded of how difficult a road it is to travel here in Colombia for many people. I was also deeply impressed by the ability and the intelligence of the lawyer who was working with them who was my age, who is deeply committed to this work and who has already been writing to the government to petition for the rights of this group of families represented by the men in the room. In many ways he is putting his own life on the line. One of the other lawyers who did this work on the coast and who was supported in part here by the Presbyterian Church has just left the country a few days ago because of threats to his life and time he spent in jail, it was suggested that he was collaborating with the guerilla. Alexa Smith, now an independent journalist, who used to be on staff with the PCUSA has written numerous times about his plight. Her latest appeared in the Presbyterian Outlook just a few weeks ago.
http://www.pres-outlook.com/tabid/1151/Article/3238/Default.aspx
As I was listening to this lawyer, my age, work all morning explaining bit by bit, detail by detail all of this to these men I kept on thinking about the other lawyer who had to leave. I wonder about the person standing in the room in front of me now. I have come to regard him as a friend while here just these two short weeks on the coast, we have hung out, spent time traveling together, if I lived here or he lived in the States I know that he and I and Juan and our other extended group of friends our age would become fast friends, would enjoy being together. As I watch him teaching the law, doing work that so many will not do here, are afraid to, I am amazed. As I watch these men who are working to figure out a new way for their families I am also amazed and shaken. Another humbling day…..