Article by PBI-Canada

On December 23, the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project posted on its Instagram page: “Do you know the area of our work: Support for the Reconstruction of the Social Tissue (Apoyo a la Reconstrucción del Tejido Social)?”

“Yesterday we were in Buenaventura doing the last session of the year of a process that we carry out with a group of incredible women from the Valle del Cauca chapter of MOVICE (Movement of Victims of State Crime).”

PBI-Colombia adds: “They were given copies of our new psychosocially focused exercise book ‘Stories of Defense and Resistance’.”

MOVICE pursues strategies for truth, historical memory, reparations and non-repetition.

As noted on its website: “MOVICE is a movement in which organized groups of victims of State crime converge. From our experience we consider that state crimes are mainly those perpetrated by State agents, or by non-State agents (such as paramilitary groups) acting in complicity with, or whose crimes are tolerated by, the State.”

“We consider that the majority of the crimes against social and popular movements in Colombia are the result of political and economic interests. In this context, this sociopolitical and State violence was not born as a result of the internal armed conflict but is rather a root cause of the conflict.”

And it notes: “MOVICE has adopted a clear political posture that emerged from the crimes committed against the popular and social movement in Colombia, crimes that are the result of a social, political, financial and ideological intention promoted or allowed by the Colombian State and its agents and implemented by paramilitaries groups in favor of the interests of the dominant classes and transnational companies.”

“MOVICE demands the restoration of the right to truth, justice, full compensation and guarantee of non-repetition and the right to remember the thousands of women and men who wished to build a Colombia in peace and with social justice.”

A report produced by the National Centre of Historical Memory found that 220,000 Colombians had been killed in the war between 1958 and 2013.

More than 177,300 people, or 80 per cent of those killed, were civilians.

By 2018, the National Centre of Historical Memory stated that more than 260,000 people had died over the 50 years of armed conflict.

Overall, it has been estimated that there were 7.9 million victims of the armed conflict.

Peace Brigades International has been present in Colombia since 1994. Along with accompaniment and advocacy, PBI-Colombia supports the work done by accompanied organizations to rebuild the social fabric torn by the armed conflict.

For more on PBI-Colombia’s accompaniment process of the MOVICE-Valle del Cauca chapter that began in 2017, please see Self-care as a political project.