About Charles and Carol Spring

MARK YOUR CALENDARS!! Carol and Charles will be at 1st Pres. on September 29th, presenting about their experience in Colombia. The presentation will be after worship service in Fellowship Hall. A light lunch will be served.

Carol and Charles, long time members of First Presbyterian Church of Palo Alto, have joined the Christian Peacemaker Teams and are now working in Colombia. Please keep Carol, Charles, the CPT members in Colombia and all the people of Colombia in your prayers. We also urge you to learn about the escalating military crisis in Colombia and our nation's role in it.

Please feel free to e-mail me with suggestions for web links to learn about Colombia. Here are a few:

Letter from Carol in November 16 2002

Peace Begins Here
by Charles Bunch Spring


Saturday, November 16, 2002, brought a mix of emotions for the CPT Colombia team, from hanging a peace banner across the Opón River to praying and visiting with paramilitary members.


Due to a reduced team size since the Colombian government has not renewed or granted new visas since March, the team has sought other ways to make its presence felt. In September, the team started making peace banners to hang around the area that CPT accompanies. During the last two months, CPTers have painted scripture on banners and shared their visions of peace, such as “Peace without weapons, peace without fear”. Some banners hang in areas visible to boats and others along foot paths frequently used by members of armed groups.

The banner project reached a high point when the team hung a huge, colorful banner over the Opón River, for all to the see the message “La Paz Empieza Aqui” (Peace begins here) as they enter the zone of CPT accompaniment. A banner with this message also greeted river travelers during most of lent of this year, but strong winds ripped it down during Holy Week. The team used a different method to hang this new banner and had high hopes for its longevity as the rainy season was just ending.


After consecrating the banner with prayer and song, the team traveled to locations where they have encountered members of armed groups recently and prayed for a spirit of peace to permeate the land. At one location where paramilitary members have actually set up living arrangements for themselves, the team found a dozen of them, heavily armed with assault rifles and grenades, relaxing in the shade on this hot afternoon.


Each CPTer had two “Child of God” letters to deliver. North Americans are writing letters to members of armed groups to raise awareness of the concern of many in North America. These letters remind armed actors that they are children of God and that their lives are precious as are the lives of the civilians in the area.


Team members read the letters aloud, either to individuals or to a cluster of paramilitary. In each case, all listened attentively but without much immediate reaction. After reading the letters, team members gave them to
select paramilitary and then engaged them in conversation.


In one conversation, the commander said he would rather be in the paramilitary than the army because “The army has many rules that restrict their work. For example, they can only hold someone for 72 hours.” He compared war to a soccer game. Each time someone is killed, the other side gets a point, like a goal in
soccer. Carol Spring responded “but in soccer, the game ends with the same number of people as it started with.”


One 17-year-old, who joined the paramilitary a year ago, said that if he weren’t in the paramilitary, he would be a farmer. When asked if being in the paramilitary is hard work, he replied “it’s easy…I’d rather do this than be a farmer.”


By visiting, praying, and singing with these paramilitary members, the team hopes that these men will leave the civilian population in peace. Unfortunately, the hope for the banner over the river fell as Keith Young and Lena Siegers found only a trace of it a few days after it was put up. Some people are not ready for the peace to begin yet.

Letter from Carol in November 2002

After a night of hard cleansing rains, CPTers awoke with the dream that someday
the Opon River communities might also be cleansed of violence. Lena Siegers
(Blyth, ON) and I (Palo Alto, CA) had slept in La Florida, a small community
perched on the banks of the Opon River and a few minutes' walk from the swampy
lake called Cienaga del Opon. As we crossed the lake that morning, October 17,
the sun beat down, but the motor on our boat created plenty of breezes on our
faces.


We headed toward the house of someone we knew. Suddenly I saw the soft ripples
on the water interrupted by gunshots. We could not hear them because of the
sound of the motor, nor could we see the weapon itself, shot from behind the
trees. Men on the shore saw us and thrust their hands in the air. Were they
waving us over or waving us away? Lena, her face set, motioned to pull up at
the shore.


We pulled up in front of a house we'd known before it was taken over by this
illegal armed group, the paramilitary or AUC (United Self-Defense Forces of
Colombia). A family with small children still lived there, amidst the piles of
automatic rifles, pistols, and hand grenades. Dark green ammunition vests hung
on a clothesline. The commander greeted us cheerfully, as if he was glad to see
us. His stern-looking right-hand man now held on his lap the malfunctioning
assault rifle they'd been shooting into the lake near the house, trying to
diagnose the problem.


After we introduced ourselves to all who let themselves be seen, Grandma Lena
did not hide her just anger. "Why are you shooting this gun into the lake?
Don't you realize how dangerous it is?" Most of the young men looked back
blankly or turned away.


On a previous visit, Lena challenged the friendly commander to give up his
weapons and learn how to play the drums. "People in this area, a long time ago,
used to make wonderful music. That's what these communities need, not more
guns." The commander had insisted that he, too, was working for peace, and that
"guns are only for defending oneself."


We did not stay for long. After about ten minutes, they resumed their
"testing." Each time the gun fired, I jumped, then winced when I realized that
the children were already becoming accustomed to the sound. I did not want to
go close to the men with guns to say goodbye, but Lena walked up to the
commander and forced him to put his gun in the other hand in order to shake her
hand. Saddened, we drove away.


As we approached the narrow channel that connects the lake with the river, I
saw dozens of men, standing, crouching, and sitting among the reeds. What are
they doing? I wondered. Then I saw their magnificent fishing nets, the
fishermen throwing them out from their small wooden canoes in a wide circular
motion using both arms. Because of the storm we'd received last night, the fish
were particularly active this morning. The vigorous greetings we got from the
fishermen encouraged me and reminded me of their dream: to someday be able to
fish, harvest crops, and raise their families without fear.

Letter from Carol in July 2002

COLOMBIA: "The women will build peace."

by Carol Foltz Spring

On July 25, Matt Schaaf (from Winnipeg, Manitoba) and I (from Palo
Alto, California) marched with over 20,000 women and men in the
National Mobilization of Women against the War, in downtown Bogota. Matt and I
had accompanied the forty-eight buses from Barrancabermeja organized by
the Organizacion Femenina Popular (Grassroots Women's Organization), a
group which just celebrated its thirtieth anniversary.

I felt proud to be a woman, and proud to accompany these courageous
women who had come from far-flung reaches of the country, braving long
bus rides and several nights with little sleep.

They came to demand a negotiated peace, an end to war. "Not one woman,
nor one man, nor one peso more for the war," the women proclaimed in
unison.

Some women wore giant butterflies on their shirts, carried flowers,
danced joyfully with ribbons and acted out stories of liberation in
various skits as they marched forward. "The women will build peace,"
they shouted. Indigenous women wore tape over their mouths,
symbolizing their forced silence. Many women dressed in black,
borrowing from the Women in Black movement, in remembrance of the many
women, men, and children who have been killed in Colombia. "We dress
in black because of our pain over the 251 forced disappearances and
3,041 kidnappings in 2001," one banner said.

They came to present a nonviolent alternative--"a million friends in
favor of life"--to the plans of President-elect Alvaro Uribe, who will
take office on August 7. Uribe had proposed, as part of his campaign
platform, to create a network of a million informants, people who would
report on their neighbors and be paid weekly. When Uribe was governor
of the state of Antioquia several years ago, he recruited hundreds of
civilians to work as spies and extra fighters in groups called
"Convivir", some of which became paramilitary and criminal gangs.

After marching through downtown Bogota, we gathered in the main square
for a rally. Thirty-foot-high banners demanded direct participation of
women in the peace process (One of the banners I had noticed earlier
said, "Out of 42,000,000 residents in Colombia, 21,406,863 are women
and we do not have a place in political negotiation of the armed
conflict.")

Music and candles closed the evening, and we rode all night to arrive
back in Barranca the next morning. Women returned to their homes
exhausted but exhilarated, renewed by another step forward in the long
nonviolent struggle against the war in Colombia.


=====
Carol F. Spring

Letter from Carol on May 8th

Greetings family and friends,

We have written a couple of new articles and posted them with pictures
on our website. Below is the text of one of our articles. To see
pictures of this event, visit http://www.springfree.org/colombiaNews.html

Peace,
Charles and Carol

COLOMBIA: CPTers confront U.S. Ambassador on arms funding

by Carol Foltz Spring

BARRANCABERMEJA--On May 8, 2002, U.S. Ambassador to Colombia Anne
Patterson visited this industrial city and was met by local Christian
Peacemakers challenging her violent antiterrorism stance. With signs
proclaiming "A peaceful coexistence does not include arms," the CPTers
washed the American flag, remembering the complicity of the U.S.
government in the "dirty war" in Colombia.


Ambassador Patterson was attending the inauguration of a new community
center (translated literally, "coexistence center") in the same
outlying area of Barrancabermeja where CPT has its offices. The team
responded with signs reading "Coexistence YES, arms NO!" Patterson had
announced the previous day that the U.S. Congress is considering a bill
that would send $6 million this year and $28 million next year for an
increased army presence to guard the Cano Limon-Covenas oil pipeline in
Arauca, Colombia. This would be a new military funding package not
part of the massive military aid already included in Plan Colombia.


During the two-hour vigil, team members sang, prayed, and spoke with
neighbors. Surrounded by approximately forty to fifty heavily armed
soldiers and policemen who were guarding the embassy delegation, they
declared, "We wash the American flag of the blood of the innocents who
have died because of arms from North America. We demand that the U.S.
government stop sending arms to Colombia."


A local priest, Father Jose, spoke of his gratefulness for the CPTers'
presence, saying, "the flag-washing was beautiful." Several Colombian
human rights workers took a break from the diplomatic gathering and
joined the team enthusiastically in singing "Solo Le Pido a Dios" ("All
I ask of God is that I not become indifferent to war..."). "Our
presence showed that there's a great deal of North American opposition
to military aid to Colombia, and that we are supporting locals who are
working for change," affirmed team member John Marks.


Team members participating in the event were Marks (Portland, OR), Matt
Schaaf (Winnipeg, MB), Pierre Shantz (Waterloo, ON), and Carol Spring
and Charles Spring (Palo Alto, CA).

Carol F. Spring
spring@alum.mit.edu

***************************************************************

Letter from Charles on May 8th

Don't Lose Faith, Don't Lose Hope

by Charles Bunch Spring

After the Bishop of Barrancabermeja read his letter lamenting the
plight of the workers in this region and calling for more respect for
workers, a lay leader led all gathered for the May 1st Labor Day march
in a song whose chorus goes, "Don't lose faith, don't lose hope."
Union members and leaders have been especially targeted for
assassination in this conflict in Colombia. In 2000, three out of
every five unionists killed in the world are from Colombia.
Barrancabermeja, being a strong labor town, has lost several labor
leaders in the past year.

"The big companies benefit from these assassinations, so they pay
paramilitary members to carry them out," Jose (not his real name), a
union leader, told me. With weaker unions, companies can hire more
temporary workers. At the Coca-Cola bottling plant, union workers earn
about US$400 per month. Temporary workers earn about $150/month. With
this kind of savings, Coca-Cola bottlers are eager to weaken the union
and have been especially friendly to the paramilitary, letting them
come inside the plant with their weapons, according to Jose.
Nationwide, seven unionists from Coca-Cola plants have been killed.
The union brought a lawsuit against Coke in the U.S courts charging
that Coca-Cola bottlers work with death squads to kill, threaten and
intimidate plant workers. A solidarity event is planned for July 22 in
Atlanta (Coca-Cola headquarters) to further shine light on that
company's actions in Colombia.

In light of all we are learning about Coca-Cola, one team member
committed to kicking her addiction to Coke - a legal "drug", which,
like its illegal namesake, is adding to death in Colombia.
Of course, Coca-Cola is just one of many international companies
making profits at the expense of the poor, taking advantage of the
corporate-controlled global economic rules with the single goal of
turning profits for investors from North America and elsewhere. So we
must march on Labor Day as well as raise our voices at shareholder
meetings. Use the power we have. And don't lose faith and don't lose
hope.

Charles Spring
bunch@stanfordalumni.org
 

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