COLOMBIA: THE CONFLICT
AND THE HOPE

Ricardo Esquivia Ballestas

Colombia is one of the most beautiful and wealthy countries in Latin America. God blessed our country with kind citizens with solidarity, initiative, and intelligence and provided them with enough natural resources to guarantee a life with dignity and abundance.

Since the time of the wars of independence in the eighteenth century, a small group of families descended from the Spanish colonialists planned an exclusive country where the great majority of the riches and opportunities were only for them. They developed a political and economic system that guarantees the control of political power and the continuation of the appropriation of the wealth that they have had since the era of colonial conquest.

These families organized economic groups and political parties and did not permit an equitable distribution of the opportunities and wealth. Rooted in this situation, disputes began among them, as well as other social sectors of the country. This has brought about great internal wars, with only short periods of apparent peace.

In the last fifty years, the social conflict has been growing. Now the situation has degenerated into a real war that has left the country in a desperate situation. Violence kills almost 30,000 people every year. Almost two million people are displaced. The economic infrastructure is ruined. The life dreams of thousands of people have been frustrated.

For me, what is fundamental and what gives me strength,
support and inspiration is my community of faith.

This social situation is made worse because many people seeking to survive -- and others seeking to gain socially and economically -- have found the drug trafficking and the cultivating of illegal plants provides opportunities that the State has refused them. Armed groups that call for justice have arisen. Others exercise their own forms of justice by their own means. The State has lost its legitimacy. The ethical values have changed and many people, especially the leaders and organizers who are politically and socially based, have moved away from God.

Within this conflictive situation, many people lose their hope. They cling to violence as a social panacea. Hopelessness reigns in many hearts. In this situation, the church of Christ rises as a lantern in a night storm at sea. The Mennonite Church is part of this church of Christ that strives to be faithful to its ministry of reconciliation. As ambassadors of the Prince of Peace and following the tradition of the historic peace churches, the Mennonite Church lives and suffers with the Colombian people in their tragedy. At the same time, the Church helps transform the social situation provoked by the conflict positively and creatively.

To fulfill its ministry, to support the victims of the violence, and to live the values of God’s Kingdom, the Mennonite church has created the Christian Center for Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Action or JUSTAPAZ. This allows the Church to take several paths of action, including conciliation, mediation, human rights, peacebuilding, and conflict resolution and transformation.

When one lives and works with high levels of violence, suffering, pain, sadness and much hopelessness, the message of Jesus and the community that practices this message are possibly the strongest pillars that holds one up. For me, what is fundamental and what gives me strength, support and inspiration is my community of faith. Within this community is my family. I think it is crucial that my family shares my values, and above all, my faith.

I think that perhaps in this situation there are few options in choosing work. We had no choice in living in this country at war and there is nothing we can do about it. There are very few options that remain.

Personally, I was born in an area with high levels of injustice, where we did not have rights. We were discriminated against and lacked the basic requirements to satisfy our daily needs. We did not have land or adequate housing and I always felt that I didn’t count for much and that I was in everyone’s way. Since then, I have always lived in situations of danger in which fear has been constant.

I don’t think God is unjust. God made creation for all of us, including the blacks, the indigenous peoples, and the poor. Our duty is to struggle so that we all have the opportunity to reach the abundant life that Jesus promised us. For me, faith is a window of hope, and the promise that everything and everyone can change. I am a living example of this change. This hope that people can change gives me encouragement and strength, because I know that the Bible says where there is an abundance of sin there is an abundance of grace and that the Kingdom of God is within each one of us.

Ricardo Esquivia Ballestas is the Director of the Christian Center for Justice, Peace and Nonviolent Action - JUSTAPAZ - in Bogota, Colombia. A partner of CTP since CTP began, Mr. Esquivia taught an SPI course in 1997.