Catholic bishops in Colombia put hope in "Week for Peace" to stem violence
Organizers hope the special week will highlight not only the harshness of violence but also resistance and courageous efforts by peace workers
Catholic bishops in Colombia are organizing a "Week for Peace" in the country ravaged by violence from narco-criminal groups.
With the theme "Territories in movement for Peace", the Episcopal Conference of Colombia (CEC), through the National Secretariat for Social Pastoral Care and various regional and national social organizations, is promoting the "Week for Peace held September 4 – 11.
This is the 35th edition of such an initiative that organizers hope will highlight violence in territories where “tensions, conflicts and the harshness of violence are experienced, but hope, resistance and courageous efforts are also manifested in the construction of decent living conditions".
The Week for Peace is a citizen mobilization whose objective is to make visible the daily effort of thousands of people, groups, organizations, institutions, who work for peace. It takes place in September within the framework of Human Rights Day in Colombia and the feast of San Pedro Claver on September 9.
The objective is to strengthen social awareness of the urgency of building a solid and lasting participatory peace process in Colombia, with a view to national reconciliation.
For the occasion, the Department of Liturgy of the Permanent Secretariat of the Colombian Episcopate (SPEC), prepared a liturgical guide for the opening Mass of the Week for Peace and the prayer scheme for the meetings during this week.
The Communications Office has prepared a series of contributions that can be published on social networks.
Catholic bishops in Colombia have for long expressed concern over the increasing loss of lives of those who work for peace and to end violence from narco-criminal groups. They have pleaded that local communities be left out of clashes and hostilities in areas where drug traffickers operate.
A history of violence
The Diocese of Arauca, for example, in the Colombian region located in the northeastern part of the country on the border with Venezuela is witnessing not only a resumption of armed conflict between rebel groups but also from drug traffickers.
Unverified social media posts show of videos and reports of the violence especially among the civilian population affected by the selective assassination of young people, forced displacement of entire families in rural areas, threats to leaders, attacks with explosives, burning of vehicles.
Drug traffickers and paramilitary groups -- fighting over the territories they influence and for the illegal economies of drug trafficking -- are accused of the violence. Colombia is the world's largest producer of cocaine.
Besides drug and people smuggling, illegal gold mining and extortion are part of their business empire. It virtually controls almost all routes used to smuggle drugs from Colombia to the United States, and even to far away Russia.
The Diocese of Buenaventura, headquartered in Colombia's main port city with the same name on the Pacific has become a key point in the international drug trade and an area for extortion and violence by various criminal groups fighting for control of the area in order to use it for drug trafficking.
Buenaventura, a city of some 311,000 people, has been terrorized by violent gangs comprised by former rightwing militias that, in collusion with state security forces and drug traffickers, fought leftwing guerrillas during the country's long civil war.
Violence has been cyclical and rampant in Buenaventura for decades, with new groups arising to contest one of the country's most lucrative criminal areas.
The city has some of the highest rates of forced displacement and homicide in the country.
Since early 2021, a wave of violence in Buenaventura has led to a spike in homicides, displacements, disappearances and extortion, with the Ombudsman's Office warning that over 170,000 people are at risk from the violence.
In January this year, clashes between local gangs have displaced more than 500 people in Buenaventura, according to state agencies.
BBC has reported that at least 145 community leaders and rights defenders were murdered in Colombia in 2021. They included indigenous representatives, peasant leaders and trade unionists.
Most of the killings happened in areas where drug traffickers operate. The violence dates to the mid 2000s, when members of the National Liberation Army (ELN) fought with dissidents of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) in Arauca and the neighboring Venezuelan state of Apure.