Paula first came under our wings at our first Summer Youth Leadership Gathering in Jaque, Darien, Panama. She was a real dynamo of about 16 years old with a vibrant personality. Right away, she took on helping us to coordinate the camp activities.

She was a Colombian refugee who had crossed the border with her family after the massacre in Jurado, Choco’. Life isn’t easy as an externally displaced person in Panama. Since it is assumed that you will eventually return to your home country, you have few rights. It was hard for her father to work to support the family and, since there was no high school in Jaque even for the Panamanian youth, there was no way her to even hope of completing her education in Panama City. The fate of most girls in her position was to find a guy (who would hopefully marry you) and start having babies. But Paula had dreams that were larger than that. She wanted to finish high school and maybe even go to college to study Psychology so she could help other victims of massacres to deal with their post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). We were determined to help her have that chance.

Shortly before Christmas of that same year, we got word that there would be a forced repatriation of the refugees, sending them back to Jurado despite the lack of guaranteed security. We knew the authorities had been coercing people to go back and, in fact, we brought a video camera down for the camp and held a workshop for a few budding photographers who interviewed the refugees asking who wanted to return voluntarily and who was being sent under duress. When we got the word that Panama was sending refugees back, we quickly formed a witnessing group and headed south. As it turned out, only about half of those scheduled to go actually went, once we were able to prove with our documentation that they had been coerced and lied to. Paula’s family had decided to leave, since living in Jaque as a refugee was so difficult. Even if they still had to fear the possibility of another paramilitary attack, at least the father could plant his crops and provide food for his family. (click here for article on Repatriation)

We knew we had to find a way to get Paula through high school. After seeking schools in Bogota to no avail, we found a place in the mountains up from the city and a family with whom she could stay. It wasn’t easy on her. It was cold in the mountains and she was used to the warmth of the Pacific coastal jungle. And there were not black people in the mountains either, while Choco’ was inhabited by indigenous and African Descendents.

But she did it! She joined the soccer team and a Traditional Dance group (traditional Latin dances, not traditional Chocoan dances) and made the most of her situation. She got her high school degree! And, no baby or early marriage as an escape from her difficulties.

After graduation she wanted to do a little traveling to some other communities that had suffered at the hands of armed actors in the decades long civil war. She was thinking to maybe go to Cacarica, a “peace community” that had suffered its own massacre and declared that no armed actors are welcomed there. It should be noted here that the “good guys” are the ones without weapons. Local people often find themselves caught between the battling actors of guerillas, paramilitary and even the Colombian military itself. They are frequently accused of being drug dealers as justification for their demise, when the real benefit of corruption is gotten by the armed actors themselves. The local population loses on all fronts; loss of loved ones, loss of land and loss of personal and familial security.

I decided to take a few of “my girls” with me to the Yanama (gathering) of the Wayuu, who each year called for an international accompaniment to their ancestral coastal desert lands of Bahia Portete in La Guajira region, from which they are exiled since the massacre there in 2004. So Adriana, Paula, and another “Chocana” from Jurado, Dalicia joined me as witnesses. It was a powerful experience for all of us, with the girls from Choco’ sharing their stories of the massacre in their coastal jungle community with these indigenous Wayuu coastal desert dwellers. Paula decide the stay there after the Yanama and remained for another year.

She has recently returned to Jurado, but has grown well beyond the ability to reside in a sedentary existence that is typical of her jungle community. She is ready to move into the next phase of her desire to be of service to humanity and has expressed that she is headed to Bogota in an attempt to further her studies and begin university. We want to help her with the means to be of service. If you want to help, too, let us know. The world can certainly use a Paula to assist others who have known the trauma of violence in their world.

Reviewing the war between Israel and Gaza

How governments make use of nationalism

The huge mess and Obama’s tough challenges

Whoever wins election will inherit a huge mess

The Age of democracy and its discontents

The housing crisis

What we don’t know may wind up hurting us

Questions they forgot to ask Clinton, Obama

“Let Peace Fly” was painted by Ana Tierra to celebrate Frank’s birthday and all of his life. It tells the story of his growing up in new York with a family of Italian immigrants. It shows him as little boy with his father’s push-cart. We see him in prison as a CO. The wildlife around him is of Florida, where he resided for many years until his passing. As the boy becomes a man, we see that he has Ghandi in his head. Frank loved to work with youth at Peace Camps and was our favorite Italian cook, famous for his baked ziti. He liked to teach birdhouse construction to the campers. We see him dressed as Santa Claus, hitting the malls at Christmas-time with a sign saying “Don’t Buy War Toys!” The explosion in the painting represents the destruction of war. He went on a peace march in Russia and visited the massacre site of Baba Yahr. Every time he told us that story, he cried. Finally, we see the whole of his life encased in a Peace Dove. The inscription on the painting says, “For you who could not believe in the Creator, but the Creator believes in You.”

Jaque, Darien, Panama

Dec. 9?12

Our delegation arrived in Jaque on Tuesday, Dec. 9. We consisted of the following groups (about 15 people total): from Panama?Center for the Research and Promotion of Human Rights (CIPDH), Center for Popular Legal Assistance (CEALP), Vicariate of the Darien (Catholic Church), Justicia y Paz (Catholic Church); from Colombia?Project counseling Service, Norwegian Refugee Project Colombia office. There were 4 from the US including Roberto de Roock and myself from Tucson. The other two were members of Bridges Across Borders from Florida who have projects in Jaque such as preschools and youth camps. Immediately after our arrival in Jaque we began interviewing folks who were scheduled to leave for Colombia in two days to verify if they really wanted to go or not. What we found was that almost all who were on the final list did want to go back??this was a huge relief as I feared a much worse situation when I got off the plane that day.

On Nov. 28 Panama’s ambassador, Roberto Alfaro, had responded to Rep. Raul Grijalva of Arizona and 14 other members of Congress who had written the president of Panama to express concern over the treatment of refugees. Alfaro stated, " We cannot accept as refugees, illegals, terrorists, drug dealers, arms smugglers, and paramilitary which constitutes the majority of border violators."

When I was in Jaque last July Panamanian authorities had forced most of the refugees to sign voluntary deportation forms using threats and intimidation. About 220 people ( half children and adolescents) were to be sent back. They were told if they didn’t sign they would fall into the hands of immigration authorities who would deport them without any of their belongings. To avoid another public relations disaster like the one that occurred last April when 109 refugees were deported by force, the Panamanian government allowed the United Nations High Commission on Refugees to observe this repatriation and agreed to other important measures. First a group of six refugees were actually taken to Jurado, their former home in Colombia, where they could see first hand the situation there. When they returned to Jaque they had a closed meeting with other refugees to describe what they had experienced. Then just days before the scheduled repatriation, all the refugees on the list were given the chance to state again whether they truly wanted to return or not. The list dropped from 220 to 80 after that new census was taken.

So on December 11 the 80 Colombian adults and children did voluntarily return. There were also six Panamanian citizens who went due to family connections such as being married to Colombians. One Colombian woman who was being deported to Colombia against her will was taken off the list after members of our delegation met with the joint Panamanian?Colombian government commission which conducted the repatriation. A plane load of journalists was flown in to cover the repatriation. Overall things went fairly well. The refugees were taken back to Colombia on a huge ship.

While this repatriation was voluntary, it is important to note that all the refugees complain of how hard living in

Panama is for them. They are under constant strain. Very few have been granted refugee status. They cannot leave Jaque. They are often not allowed to farm or fish. They have to report regularly to the police, some as often as three times a day. For many who returned the difficult situation in Panama was the primary reason.

The refugees are returning to a Colombia still in a state of war. The Colombian government said they could only guarantee safe conditions in town and a couple of kilometers beyond. One of the two high schools in Jurado is used as a military base. There is very limited health care available with only one doctor in the clinic and little medicine. The returned refugees will only receive food assistance for three months.

The head of the UNHCR delegation in Panama, Gonzalo Vargas Llosa (son of the famous Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa) eloquently stated at the press briefing, "The people who are going back to Colombia today all have hopes and dreams for the future. The refugees staying behind also have hopes and dreams. We can’t forget them. Their situation in Panama is very difficult. Hopefully things will improve for them here."

We had close friends among the ones who went back to Colombia including our next door neighbors in Jaque, Casimiro Mena and his wife plus their daughter and three year old son Ariel who was our two year old daughter’s favorite playmate this past summer. No one was allowed to take any animals so they had to leave behind their two dogs and cat. The poor cat wailed all night like a baby and it was hard for us to sleep. The two dogs didn’t budge from the abandoned house for days. To our relief other friends said they would feed them.

On our final day in Jaque our whole group planned to travel upriver to visit an indigenous community where we have traveled many times to visit friends and buy crafts. For whatever reason the police refused to let us go this time, perhaps because the river is so heavily militarized and we had a journalist traveling with us.

Part II of Panama Journal

Since returning to Panama City I have been reviewing news coverage of the repatriation from Jaque. One paper carried an article about Amnesty International calling the repatriation on Dec. 11 "totally unacceptable" since the refugees were being sent back to a dangerous area where it is very likely they will suffer human rights abuses. Another disturbing article quoted the Director of Immigration in Panama saying the repatriation was a great success and that 600 more refugees will be repatriated in February from Puerto Obaldia and Central Darien. This is a very real possibility and these repatriations could be far less voluntary. Overall the Panamanian government has enjoyed good publicity from this repatriation so this may build momentum to clear out the remaining Colombians. It is unclear what will happen to the remaining 200 plus refugees in Jaque??the authorities may make life even harder on them with the hope that the rest will also decide to leave. If they are denied refugee status (which would give them greater protection against deportation) their future in Panama will be extremely precarious. But perhaps the most vulnerable refugee populations now are the ones which reside in more remote areas in Puerto Obaldia and Central Darien. Repatriations are scheduled for early next year from these areas.

Dec. 13?15 Central Darien

On Saturday Dec. 13 our delegation left the coastal town of Jaque and we flew into the heart of the Darien Gap region to the town of Real. This is one of the most remote areas in Central America. Real is about in the middle of the Darien Gap between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans. Real is about an hour down river from Yaviza which is the end of the Pan?American Highway. The highway has never been completed to Colombia so a seventy mile gap remains. We traveled to Yaviza that afternoon by boat to have a meeting with refugees who have been living there for seven years. There is a lot of support in Yaviza for Colombian refugees. A banner hanging on the front of the Catholic Church states "Let the Refugees Live in Peace." The banner was put up after 109 Afro?Colombian refugees were deported in April from the upriver settlement of Punusa. Punusa
has been entirely wiped off the map as the houses were burned. Many of the refugees in Yaviza and Central Darien in general are from the Cacarica River area in Colombia which is racked by violence and largely controlled by brutal paramilitary forces. There is also the peace community of Cacarica which has a humanitarian fence around it to keep all armed groups out and has constant accompaniment of Colombian and international NGOs. All of the refugees who were deported from Panama in April are now living in the Cacarica peace community.

The story of the refugees in Yaviza (and all other areas we were in) were very similar. They had been threatened with deportation if they didn’t agree to leave "voluntarily." The mayor of Yaviza was very outspoken in favor of the refugees being allowed to stay. The UNHCR is supposed to open an office in Yaviza soon as well as ONPAR, the Panamanian refugee agency which has a history of abuses against refugees (the new ONPAR director seems far better than the notorious old one). There are over 60 refugees living in Yaviza. After our meeting we returned to Real for the night and rest up for the last and most ambitious day of the trip??a three hour canoe trip up the Tuira River into the most conflictive part of Panama.

We left at the crack of dawn in two motorized canoes and were accompanied by a Salesian nun from Real who had also gone with us to Jaque. We were unsure of how far we would be permitted to go. The day before the police chief (note??Panama has no army but all the police dress like soldiers and carry automatic rifles) in Yaviza had told the Panamanians they were most concerned about the two US citizens (Roberto and myself) in the group. It was obvious he was referring to the incident last January where two US backpackers and a European journalist were kidnaped by Colombian paramilitary forces in Panama just upriver from where we planned to go. They were released unharmed after 11 days of captivity but the same paramilitaries assassinated four Kuna indigenous leaders in the village of Paya after accusing them of collaborating with the FARC (Colombian guerrillas). The FARC moves in and out of the Darien for whatever reason??they have even been sighted close to Jaque. This has led to a very precarious existence for the residents of Darien. People are accused of collaborating with the guerilla such as selling food to them and then risk the wrath of the paramilitaries or Panamanian police. The region is heavily militarized as a result of this and residents seem to complain most about heavy?handed police tactics which restrict their daily lives in many ways.

Our first stop was in Boca de Cupe, the last significant village (over 1,000 pop. with about 160 refugees) before reaching the Colombian border several hours upriver. The situation there was somewhat in crisis. About six Embera indigenous including a child had just been taken away by a police helicopter the day before. It was unclear what they were charged with though I later overheard a police telling the local priest that they had no documents to which he responded that no Embera have documents. In Boca de Cupe we met in the Catholic Church with a large group of refugees. As in every place we visited, our Panamanian counterparts described in detail what had just happened in Jaque and they gave out posters for them to put up on their houses which list rights they are entitled to and should demand as refugees. Manuel Acevedo of the Darien Vicariate of the Catholic Church stated, "Jaque was a first step where the voice of the refugee was felt. Here there shouldn’t be second or third class people. We are all equal. Should Panamanians and tourists be the only ones who can freely move about? You (the refugees) didn’t chose to abandon your homes and enter Panama as a pleasure trip. Some have come here with only the clothes they were wearing. Refugees shouldn’t be punished for coming here and made to feel like they’re in prison."

The Catholic nun based in Boca de Cupe spoke very strongly. "We have seen people taken away and we don’t know anything about what happens to them. We have known of cases of torture. Here there is no rule of law. It is a police state in this area. Civil authority doesn’t exist. Just the other day police were firing their weapons off right in front of the church. The Vicariate is being harassed by authorities for having denounced these things."

One Afro?Colombian man in the crowd (the refugees in Central Darien are a mixture of Afro?Colombian, mestizo, and indigenous unlike Jaque where they are almost all Afro?Colombian) mentioned he had just fled Colombia within the past year and that he was from the village of Rio Sucio. I asked him if the knew Marino Cordoba, an Afro?Colombian leader from Rio Sucio who is a friend of ours and who is living in Washington, DC after receiving political asylum. Incredibly he said he was related to him and had even had a dream about him the night before.

We received permission from the police to continue upriver (the day before nobody was allowed to go upriver) to the small community of Tolocua which has about six Colombian refugee families and an agricultural project supported by the Catholic church. It was from Tolocua that four refugee families had left the day before after hearing that they were to be sent back to Colombia on Dec. 14, the same day we were there. These types of rumors are rampant throughout the Darien especially after the awful events of April.

On our way back to Real we made one last stop to meet with refugees living in the village of Yape. We made it back to Real at dusk after traveling for a couple of hours in a cold hard rain.

So that is how our days in Panama played out. At least another major atrocity was prevented in Jaque but that doesn’t mean the future is brighter for the hundreds of refugees remaining in Panama. The future for the people who just returned to Colombia is also very uncertain. What is clear is that people shouldn’t be made to suffer as refugees so they will feel compelled to return to a war zone. While some Panamanian authorities say that no refugees will face deportation for the time being and that their status will be reviewed on a case by case basis, other authorities such as the Director of Immigration continue to speak of imminent repatriations. Hundreds of Colombian refugees in Panama have no documented status and are certainly the most vulnerable of all.

The new year will certainly bring new challenges and difficulties for the refugees. The question of whether the Jaque repatriation represents hope for the future or more suffering ahead will be answered soon.

A: My love of the natural world was probably first influenced by my mother, who was a real tree hugger. I can recall her getting awestruck by an old Oak or some other majestic tree. She would comment on unique trunk displays, on various shapes or shades of leaves, or on the sound of the wind rustling through the branches. As a teenager growing up in Miami, my “stompin’ ground” included the Florida Keys and the Everglades. I saw them both change dramatically over my time spent there and I felt a loss of opportunity for future generations to even know what will be missing from their lives. As an adult, I quit my legal secretary’s job and volunteered at the Environmental Center of Miami Dade College, where I was nurtured by some wonderful Earth Literacy mentors. About a dozen years ago I met my Co-Madre (Co-Mother), Ana Maria Vasquez, and began my travels to the jungles of Central and South America. There I met the most beautiful place I’ve ever known and watched it become a massacre site, making an undeniable connection between environment and human rights. My field of study at FIU was Environmental Sciences with a minor in Sociology, so I guess that makes me a Social Ecologist. Although, I really prefer to stay out of the boxes of ists or isms. I prefer ishs; like 9:00 ish or 10:00ish.

I was also greatly influenced by growing up in the ‘50s and ‘60s. I was a product of duck and cover drills and the piercing sound of the Saturday afternoon air raid siren. I lived a block from the railroad tracks in Miami during the Cuban Missile Crisis and I saw the tanks and missiles being shipped to Homestead Air Force Base. I was a terrified little girl who lay awake many nights thinking the plane overhead was a Russian bomber come to drop a bomb on me. Until one night, in my mind’s eye, I saw a little girl in Russia lying awake thinking the plane overhead was an American come to drop a bomb on her. Suddenly my “enemy” was no longer a slathering Russian bear, but rather a scared little girl just like me. It was an early realization that people have no vested interest in war, but governments do. Once I realized the duck and cover drills were a perpetrated ruse, not a plan of action for survival, I was mad at my government for deceiving us all about their MAD (Mutually Assured Destruction) scheme and traumatizing my childhood.

And then, as a teenager, there was Vietnam. My older brother had joined the Peace Corp and was sent to Afghanistan. I was horrified by the visuals of death and destruction, and I was shocked and ashamed by photos of the My Lai massacre. I questioned what kind of dehumanization it would take to cause one human to treat another so cruelly. I began to protest the war. And I began to look at “geographic history” patterns. The imaginary lines called borders would be redrawn and names would be changed hundreds of times over. So called “leaders” would come and go, some beneficent and others unbelievably cruel. Some awful dictators, like Duvalier of Haiti and Marcos of the Philippines, were even installed with the help of my own government.

I wondered what it might mean to be a person who lives on and nurtures a plot of land in what they know to be a particular country under a particular rule of governance, only to find ones self suddenly bound by another set of rules or, even worse, to be displaced from the only land you have known. What about those relatives who now live on the “other side?” We use a May Sarton quote, sent to us by Wendy Clarissa Geiger, that expresses how we view this little planet of ours. It says, “Turn toward each other quietly and know that there are still bridges even nations cannot overthrow.

Q: What brought you to conceive of Bridges Across Borders?

A: No matter where we travel, we have seen repetitive patterns of need. All peoples need the same basic essentials of clean air and water, sufficient nutrition, adequate housing, access to basic health care, education for our children, and meaningful work to engage us. We know that diminishment of resources leads to conflict. We know that even the preparation for war is environmentally destructive. And we know that war as a means of resolving conflict takes generations to emotionally overcome, no matter what the conflict outcome. So we work on small but meaningful projects of economic empowerment in keeping with the local cultural traditions. We work on human rights issues affecting people and their land. And we work with youth to teach creative conflict resolution and steps to creating peace.

Q: You claim that Bridges is an “international collaboration of activists, artists, students and others who cherish cultural diversity and global peace.” Could you elaborate on this claim? Who would most likely be attracted to Bridges Across Borders?

A: We mean all the people with whom we collaborate on projects. The four CoFounders of BAB are all dedicated activists who came together because the respective work we were involved in has common threads despite the diverse regions of the planet where we had all been working. We work with cooperatives of papermakers and soap makers; weavers of cotton “mochilas” and palm baskets; carvers of wood and tagua, aka vegetable ivory because it looks and feels like ivory but it comes from a seed, so no animal had to lose body parts. We just held a Viva la Mujer benefit concert to honor the strength of women and we had musicians and poets and other volunteers who used their creativity to further the work of BAB. We are always seeking new POPs (People of Passion) who want to help. We have a wonderful program teaching Suzuki violin to kids in an orphanage in Magdalena, Mexico. In Cambodia we are working with a group called Tiny Toones that teaches break dancing to street kids. One of our Co-founders, Ana Maria Vasquez, is an incredible Eco-artist who donates her art to our fundraising efforts. We sell the reproductions on our website and at events. She also is an amazing mural painter and incorporates the community into the mural project. Right now they are making adobe and painting a mural with natural paints in Mexico. As for myself, I draw stick figures and make a feeble attempt at two songs on the pan flutes, but I have talents that express my passion for this work, and hope that all my organizing efforts are expressed with artistic grace. We believe that people do their best work when working at what they love the most.

Q: Considering the recent controversy over illegal immigrants and the opposition to “amnesty” by conservatives, where does Bridges Across Borders stand in relation to this controversy? In other words, it seems that you are going against the trend to tighten immigration laws and restrictions, how do you feel about that?

A: Our mission statement is to dissolve the imagined and imposed borders between us. Those borders are the stereotypes and misconceptions we have been taught about each other as well as the boundaries imposed by governments. So the first realization is that the true demarcations are those of nature and culture. Borders change at the whim of governments; mountain ranges hold firm. Next, we need to remember that things like pollution created in one place doesn’t respect the border lines, but invades areas that now pay the costs even though they never attended the consumption party. Things like pollution and global warming do not carry a passport. Then we need to imagine ourselves faced with a natural disaster in which we lose our home. We have to migrate to another county or another state. Imagine a severe drought, like a dust bowl, and your people starving. Imagine a massacre that sends you fleeing across whatever border offers any possibility of safety, even if not offering a promise of security. And even if you know that to cross a line makes you an illegal alien forced into the shaows.

To d
emonize hard working people who are trying to make a better life for themselves as illegal and criminal, is a false attempt at personal security. When I hear the argument about smugglers and unseemly types, I always get a vision of the movies we’ve seen of bank robbers and train robbers heading “south of the border” to escape prosecution. That doesn’t represent the bulk of travelers in either direction.

Why are we willing to bring in resources from a place but not the people whose loss of those resources has made them destitute? If job security is the concern, then supporting Fair Trade, rather than Free Trade, would eliminate the constant corporate global shifting to seek ever cheaper wages. And the hypocracy in policy is confusing. Trade with Communist China, no problem. Trade with Communist Cuba, no way Jose.

If homeland security from afar is the guise of a huge border wall across the south, then what about a wall across our Canadian border? The truth is we can’t build big enough walls to keep our problems in and others’ problems out. Peace is our only true security and we’d better start putting our precious and limited energy into creating that.

For us at BAB, the ability to move around and to bring visitors is crucial to being able to develop appreciation for each other’s cultures. When we can eat together, laugh together, discuss our common problems together, then we view each others culture with appreciation for what each brings to the table.

Note: Why should I not be able to have any one of my friends visit me here? It is harder to get together across those lines than most people would think. (Denying those matters of the heart (relationships) is not good use of brain matter if building good relations is the goal.)

Q: You list six major goals for BAB, which ones do you feel you have achieved with the most success and how was that accomplished?

A: Everything happens in collaboration with others. Frequently we are just the initiators and weavers, then some other group will tap in and do such remarkable justice to a program that we are delighted to pass it on and fill some other holes. We then just make ourselves secondary to the operation of the projects. By being on hand in the region we can troubleshoot and then serve as support. We never seek ownership. We just want to get things going and in self sustaining mode as much as possible. The projects themselves actually belong to the people we serve.

We frequently facilitate cross cultural exchanges, bringing people to tell their stories first hand. In addition to traveling and bringing volunteers to the regions where we have projects, we also attend their events, such as the Wayuu “Yanama” in the Colombian coastal desert this past April.

Our goal of preserving ancient cultures and ancient species is met through our solidarity with indigenous land rights, promoting Fair Trade of their crafts, and sponsoring cultural interchanges. We do our little part to preserve ancient species of sea turtles by collecting and hatching turtle eggs, then releasing the babies back to sea. It is an amazing thrill to hold a tiny turtle in your hand but a painful realization knowing that the odds are very scarce that she will survive to return to this beach for nesting.

We provide some basic services such as feeding the Elders in Jaque, Darien, Panama through our Meals on Heels program; recycling the town’s paper with our handmade paper cooperative; collecting and recycling plastics or making methane gas for cooking from organic waste in our Garbage Reduction and Transformation project, or hosting Youth Leadership Gatherings. In Southeast Asia, we work on a Housing Rights campaign; we have provided vaccines for thousands of kids who work picking through garbage at the landfill for anything of value; and we provide Clinical Legal assistance to trainees who can act as a consultant in remote villages.

Q: What obstacles, if any, did you have in achieving some of your goals? In what ways, if any, did you overcome these obstacles? If you have been stymied by some obstacles, what do you suggest would be helpful in overcoming them?

A: We work in some pretty remote regions, so one challenge is communication between here and there. Where we work in the Darien jungle there are no roads, no internet, and only two phones in town that only sometimes work. Things don’t always follow an expected timeline, so we have lots of chance to test our virtuous patience.

Getting visas to bring people here from Colombia and Panama can be a challenge to our goal of people to people sharing of cultures. It is getting harder all the time for people who do not have monetary means to be granted permission to visit.

Financing is always an obstacle. Though we keep our operating costs very “low budget” by not paying office rent it is still a struggle just to raise the funds to pay for our part time administrative assistant.

Q: In your work with Fair Trade, what ways have you found to make their merchandise more accessible to others outside their sphere of influence? Why do you feel this is a worthwhile effort?

A: Indigenous groups have always had artisans that represent their unique cultures through weaving, carving, sewing, and have always sold their crafts. Providing an additional fair outlet for their crafts is a big boon to their economy as well as helping us to connect people here in the north to their causes for self sufficiency.

In the case of the afro-population, many of whom are refugees from a massacre in Colombia now living in Panama, they landed there with nothing and no hope of making money. Now the ladies are making the most beautiful recycled paper cards. We work mostly, though not exclusively, with women’s cooperatives. Financial empowerment to women translates into immediate betterment for the family. We collaborate with other groups in Panama to market the paper in the city and those groups have even sponsored workshops for the papermakers to enhance their artistic and marketing skills. But this is a small town and we never want to set up a factory situation. Right now the ladies get together under an outdoor structure and the kids are playing while the ladies make the mash and set the deckle to dry on old tin sheets in the sun. So we can’t always guarantee quantity to be sold through some of the Fair Trade catalogs. We do want to get set up in small local Fair Trade stores, but we have to do that on a case by case basis according to stock on hand. We sell on our website as well and we are now in the process of enhancing the online shopping capabilities. We will be getting some beautiful new things for the holidays which will arrive here in mid-September.

Q: Regarding your current campaigns, you mention WAYUU solidarity and SOA/WHINSEC. Would you care to comment on these efforts? What has BAB been able to contribute towards them?

A: We have been attending the SOAW demonstrations as an organization since our inception. The School of Americas, now aka WHINSEC, is a training ground for Latin American soldiers. The “school” was previously located in Panama, where it was known as Escuela de Asasinas, or School of Assassins, until it was ousted from there and set up at Ft. Benning, GA. Closing the training ground is directly related to our work in Central and South America, since many of the perpetrators of massacres have been SOA graduates. Manuel Noriega of Panama was a star pupil prior to his arrest, by the way. Many other less infamous graduates have committed documented atrocities. For the last two years we have brought Debora Barros Fince, indigenous Wayuu representative, to the gates of Ft. Benning to speak of the massacre committed against her Colombian coastal desert community. Her clan is in exile in Venezuela right now and each year they host an international return to their land so it is not deemed abandoned and sold to the mining company extracting from the area.

Each year the U.S. Congress gets closer to de-funding this SOA t
raining ground. Like Abu Graib, a name change to WHINSEC can’t clean up the memories of the history. Too many atrocities have been associated with its activities. The trainings of SOA and funding of Plan Colombia have only served to fuel the internal conflict in Colombia. There is too much evidence of collusion between the Colombian military and the paramilitary to pretend that our tax dollars are being used well by the Colombian government. Some few readers may have seen, hidden somewhere in the back pages of their newspaper, that Chiquita was deemed guilty of hiring paramilitary who murdered union organizers in Colombia. Shame, shame, shame on Chiquita and other corporations who resort to such abhorrent behavior in order to maintain low wages without resistance!

Q: BAB has a plethora of activities, such as the Bioregional Exploration of Darien Gap, Panama. What is upcoming and how can others get involved?

We are located out in the country just northeast of Gainesville and we humbly maintain our offices in a reconstituted old construction trailer. We’re a small organization with a big reach. On occasion we host local FUNdraisers, such as our mural painting party on our office trailer or the Viva La Mujer benefit concert at the historic Thomas Center in Gainesville. If people just let us know to include them in our email events list we’ll be happy to keep them posted. But we mostly get to meet new people by moving around ourselves, so we encourage groups and classes to invite us to give a presentation. We can give presentations appropriate to all age groups on a number of topics. Another thing folks can do is to host a house party. They can invite their friends and we can even make a special dinner party and Fair Trade crafts sale. This is a great idea for holiday shopping with conscience, and we will be fresh back from Darien in September with a new and beautiful supply of Waunaan baskets, recycled paper cards, and other goodies. Maybe your group wants to sell some crafts to raise money for our collective projects, your own group’s projects, or both. For those who have a special talent to share in a hands-on fashion, we have internships and volunteer opportunities available.

Of course, we always hope that folks will support our work by general donations, personal or gift memberships, or conduct a yard sale, bake sale, or other fundraising activity to adopt a project of your choosing.

Maya Luna	Mexican Farmer and Child	Resurrecting Earth	Chico Mendes
Amor Pareja Totumo	Beluthahatchee Stetson	Earth Weaver	Let Peace Fly
La Playa de Choco	Let the Sun In	Living Ark	Musica, la Musca
Pacha Mama	Seeking Refuge	Spanish Dancer	Tree of Life

Turtle	Turtle Mother	Virgin de Guadalupe	Weaver of Life
Chrysalis	The Lovers	Jungle Christ	Border Christ
Lady of Our Borders	Hacia un Mundo Posible	American Woman	Jungle

Thanks,

Bridges Across Borders