"We Denounce the Militarisation of Our Lives"

[Judi Lynn]

"We Denounce the Militarisation of Our Lives"
Behrous Amiri interviews PATRICIA GUERRERO of the Displaced Women's League

UNITED NATIONS, Mar 3, 2011 (IPS) - Paramilitary groups in Colombia continue to threaten, harass and violently attack women's rights activists, says Patricia Guerrero, founder of a leading human rights group.

Behrous Amiri spoke with Guerrero, who helped found the "City of Women" outside Cartagena in 2003, a space where women displaced by the fighting could evolve from victims to agents of change.

Altogether, some 5.2 million people were forced to flee rural areas of this South American country between 1985 and 2010, according to a report released in February by the Consultancy on Human Rights and Displacement

Excerpts from the interview follow.

Q: Your group was recently threatened by a paramilitary group for the fourth time. Which one was it?

A: The Black Eagles, Águilas Negras.

Q: You help women who were forced to flee their communities, homes and lands due to violence. Why is Águilas Negras threatening you?

A: Because we are women human rights defenders. And they hate human rights, particularly women's rights. They hate justice, reparations, and the truth about the crimes committed by them.

Everybody in this country knows that they are state agents behind that ridiculous name. They want to scare our communities, in peaceful resistance against perpetrators of crimes again humanity and war crimes. They are panicked by our knowledge of their crimes, because we have documented their crimes for more than 10 years. They are panicked by our capacity and commitment to justice for displaced women.

They killed more than 50 human rights leaders, men and women, last year, they are really killers.

More:
http://www.ipsnews.net/news.asp?idnews=54710

[Peace Patriot]

1. What amazing and brave women, to challenge this narco state!

And their list of demands is quite remarkable. For instance:

"We denounce the militarisation of our lives in the name of the war on drugs, the war on terrorism, the war on everything that threatens capitalism and their financial world.

We demand the legalisation of coca and respect of the indigenous ancestral culture. We demand social and political responsibility of the United States and the European Union for the crimes committed in Colombia in the name of war on drugs" --from the OP

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Wow! These women really, REALLY know what's going on!