Meeting Sound People, Part 1

I'd like to first point out the report on the Facebook march by people from my organisation. It explains some of the background stuff I haven't got round to telling you yet (though I do still intend to).



There's been a Brummie staying in the team house, and it's been very refreshing to feel such an immediate cultural understanding with someone. She's a photographer/journalist here to do bits of work for various trade unions/ lefty papers and with Mark Thomas who came on Friday to join her. He's here to research his book about Coca Cola and their complicity in trade union leader murders. Jess's work is pretty good. Take a look at www.jesshurd.com for slideshows on climate camp, Saving Iceland and a great one on Venezuela, complete with stirring soundtrack.

I've been accompanying her to meetings a bit, doing a little translation.

We met with two people from the Hijos Colombia group. They were very cool. The group started when a handful of young people whose parents were politically active, some of whom had been disappeared, discovered they had common experiences. Right from the start the emphasis was less on being a support group, and more on awareness raising and a thirst for justice. Their precedents, Hijos Argentina and Hijos Guatemala, differ from the Colombian group as here the conflict continues.

The work they have done has included during the 2006 elections publicising which politicians had paramilitary links, and highlighting specific cases of disappearances. As they began to campaign and their profile increased, other young people got involved who shared their politics rather than their specific experiences of having family members persecuted.

For Jess, it was quite important to get their personal stories, cos that's how journalism works. We explained that. They explained that how the group works, is that it doesn't like to focus on the personal, because that creates a distinction between those in the group who have stories, and those who don't. And because they are not about being victims who the state can compensate for their loss. They are about being clear that these cases are symptomatic of the state's strategy to silence and eliminate the opposition, and that specific cases are highlighted only to show the generalities.

It was a little awkward, but for the sake of the story, we had to keep asking. So one of them started: Her mother was from Chile, her father from Argentina. They were exiled from Chile in 1973, moved to Argentina, where her father was imprisoned for two years and tortured, and were exiled again. And then they moved to "lovely Colombia". She spoke a bit about his political activism here. And then she stopped. Erm. A bit more awkwardness. How many times can we ask to hear about her trauma and misery before it becomes really rude?

So, we explained again about the importance of the personal so that readers can relate. And they explained again about the politics of the group (every time they did this, I found them just so, so impressively sound).

And then she looked to the bloke, and he started his story.

Earlier they had said that the first event they had done picked the cases of Nidia Erika Bautista who was disappeared in 1987, and Jaime Gomez, disappeared in 2006. These cases were chosen to show that disappearances happened in the past, are happening now, and will happen again unless the impunity stops and real justice (changing the system not just taking some individuals to court) is done.

It was only when Erik started talking, that we learnt he was the son of Nidia Erika Bautista. Since then I've googled her and found her case referred to as "one of the most important human rights cases in Colombia". And there we'd been, pestering that girl, whose parents we later learnt are actually alive and well. A little embarrasing.

Erik's mother had got involved in the urban guerrilla movement M19 after working for the press trade union and being politicised by colleagues getting disappeared. She was involved in the infamous Palace of Justice siege of 1985, though she didn't enter the premises herself. After that event, which was ended bloodily by the army storming in and over 100 people being killed (and remaining guerrillas and cafeteria workers being taken away by the army, tortured and disappeared), there was a crackdown on M19 members. Nidia was taken from her home by nine members of the army intelligence unit, in front of Erik's sister, on August 30th 1987.

In 1990 an army deserter gave information which led to her remains being found in a common grave, three hours from Bogotá. In 1995 a General was prosecuted and found responsible - the first time this had happened with someone so high ranking. After that, the family started suffering increased harassment and in 1997 they left Colombia to live in exile in Europe. In their absence, the General challenged the verdict, the case was moved from the civil to the military justice system, and two sargeants were freed after only serving six months for the murder. Various human rights groups got involved. The remains were returned eventually in 2002, but the struggle for justice continues.

One thing that was said that I really liked, was that an effect of the group coming together has been that the children of the disappeared from all different parts of the traditionally-splintered-left were getting to learn about each others' struggles and to see what they have in common. In doing so, they gain understanding and unity as they focus together on the issues of paramilitary-state links and impunity. Yey. The left can always do with a bit more unity.