COLOMBIA: Using Communication to Build Peace

By Helda Martínez
BOGOTÁ, Jul 12

"We don't want to give birth to children who go off to war. We want our children to be filmmakers, painters, dentists, whatever they want, but not to repeat this disgraceful war," a Colombian woman tells IPS.

The woman is Soraya Bayuelo, who 14 years ago co-founded a communications collective for children and young people, which won the National Peace Prize in 2003 and the AVINA Prize for journalism in 2006. It is located in one of the regions of fiercest conflict, the Montes de María in the northern Colombian department (province) of Bolívar.

"Our region isn't just the red blotch on the map shown by our colleagues in the commercial media. Montes de María is also a place where people live, sing and remember. We think information should be balanced, and we want to show the sunny side," Bayuelo says.

Bayuelo was among about 100 leaders of projects from all over the country who gathered in Bogotá recently for an International Seminar on Communication and Peace.

Indigenous representatives came from the department of Cauca, in the southwest. Young people from Belén de los Andaquíes, Caquetá in the south of the country, arrived on their radio-bicycles, or mobile radio units attached to bicycles.

Presenters of programmes like TVO Bien and Reporteritos came from Antioquía, in the northeast, and, community radio stations from 18 municipalities in Magdalena Medio, in the east-central region, also contributed their experience.

"Hundreds of young people from all over the country who are raising their voices for peace are an essential contribution to the Colombian peace process," Bolivian expert in communication for development, Alfonso Gumucio, one of the foreign invited guests at the meeting, told IPS.

Colombia has endured a complex civil war for nearly half a century. Guerrilla movements in remote rural areas took up arms in 1964, and rightwing paramilitary death squads have been active since the 1980s, although they have been partially demobilised under an agreement reached with the present government of President Álvaro Uribe.

The international seminar was organised by the Jesuit Javeriana University, the non-governmental Colombia Multicolor Foundation, the Presidential Agency for Social Action and International Cooperation, the British Council and the European Union.

Its goals were to revise communication strategies for training local workers, to learn from communication and peace experiences in countries like Tanzania, Ireland, El Salvador and Guatemala, and to share works created by 28 groups, such as videos, printed materials, educational games, theatre and dance.

According to estimates, there are more than 600 communication collectives in Colombia, initiated by women and young people who have grown tired of the ongoing armed conflict.

For instance, in San Francisco, in the eastern part of Antioquía, the leftist guerrillas imposed a curfew and ordered residents to shut themselves up in their houses from mid-afternoon.

A group of young people rebelled against this imposition. "We would stay in the park until we heard the first shot," Luis Arbey, former engineering student at Antioquía University, who dropped out to devote himself to working full-time for TVO Bien, a communication collective, told IPS.

After four years' work, 60 young people are now participating in communication activities in San Francisco, which include film screenings in the public park.

"At first we had to put up with criticism and opposition from the townspeople themselves. Now we feel proud of our work, when we see that adults and children alike are setting their fears aside and coming out to enjoy the movies, which are selected according to the audience and the requests we receive," Arbey said.

In Magdalena Medio, community radio stations sprang up a decade ago. They have faced violence from different fronts. When the paramilitary groups dominated the region, they were against the young people meeting in public places to enjoy themselves, "like young people everywhere," said Manfry Gómez, a communicator for the Peace and Development Programme.

"So, choosing our words carefully and avoiding confrontation, we explained through the community radio stations that the gatherings of young people had no other objective than fun and entertainment. The paramilitaries understood, and stopped persecuting the young people," Gómez said.

In indigenous peoples' territories, communication groups have been promoted with success. Emilio Basto, of the Páez indigenous community in Santander de Quilichao, Cauca, said he was pleased with the results of the radio station there.

"We work so that people may become aware of what our Mother Earth produces, so that our children may listen and build peace. We broadcast in Spanish and in our own language, Nasa Yuwe," he told IPS.

Participants talked about their own experiences and learned from others. In the end, they agreed on a proposal to create "a national information agency that will allow us to go beyond the barriers put up by rigid, entrenched institutional agendas, and allow us to get the sap that sustains this country flowing," said Mauricio Beltrán, head of the Colombia Multicolor Foundation at the closing ceremony.

Bayuelo said that in the midst of the armed conflict, her efforts are "a drop in the ocean, but a clear and shining drop. Here, young people now approaching the age of 17 have already chosen their path, and the last thing they want to do is pick up a rifle."

Bayuelo said she is happy that one of the young members of her collective is now the head of the Audiovisual Department at the Universidad Jorge Tadeo Lozano, a prestigious institute of higher education.