SAN MARTIN, August 29, 2005 — The little room off a short hallway in a one story building in the center of this ranching town could be any slightly battered small town office. But what sets this room apart are the microphone and the people who have access to it. The room is the home of the community radio station of San Martín, 97.5 on the FM dial, offering a mix of music and local news, community and family announcements and sports scores. Juan Jiménez Salazar, one of the voices behind the microphone, explains the station’s importance goes far beyond broadcasting the ranchera music, favored by the cattlemen who dominate the region. “We try to provide a space,” Salazar says, “for people to express their opinions, their dreams.” The idea of speaking one’s mind freely is new to its listeners in the middle region of the Magdalena River valley—Magdalena Medio —who are much more accustomed to guarding their opinions closely. In the 1980s, left wing guerrillas dominated vast sections of the Magdalena region. During the following decade, most of the guerrilla fronts were pushed deep into the mountains. Today right wing “self defense” paramilitaries dominate the population centers. Both sets of illegal armies covet control of the region, where despite a wealth of resources, a 70 percent poverty rate helps maintain a steady flow of recruits.  |  |  | | The (radio) station’s importance goes far beyond broadcasting ranchera music |
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Walking a Fine Line Thus, in Magdalena Medio, staying on the air means walking the line between safe and unsafe discourse—remaining close to the flame without getting burned. The station’s three staff members would never think, for example, of using the airwaves to urge young men against joining an illegal organization. On the other hand, Protestant ministers are invited to broadcast from this station, which began as a Catholic Church project. “We try to tell young people that certain values should be upheld, such as tolerance,” says Salazar. In this region, it’s a new and liberating idea. The radio station is just one of the projects operating under the Magdalena Medio Program for Peace and Development and the affiliated Peace Laboratory. In all, it operates 340 projects involving 30,000 people throughout the region. It covers four departments (provinces) in north central Colombia and takes in 29 municipalities.
Among the projects are the organization of palm oil production and cacao growing co-operatives, the setting up of school programs aimed at discouraging students from dropping out, and community workshops on sexual and reproductive health. High Poverty, Illiteracy and Homicide The setting for the program is a region afflicted by extreme poverty (at a rate nearly three times the national rate of 11 percent), an illiteracy rate of 20 percent, and a high incidence of homicide (though that has been falling in 2004) linked to the country’s armed conflict. The question is: can the link between wealth, poverty, and armed conflict be broken? Father Francisco de Roux and his 85 colleagues in the Program for Development and Peace of Magdalena Medio say it can. The task requires what de Roux calls “desarrollo en caliente ”—development in the thick of the action, where the flame is hottest. A slender, soft-spoken 61-year-old Colombian Jesuit priest with a doctorate in economics from the University of Paris, de Roux helped found the program in 1995. Initial funding sources included Ecopetrol, the state oil company, and the Catholic Church. World Bank support began in 1998, with a loan of $5 million made through the Colombian Government. A second $5 million loan followed in 2001. The affiliated Peace Laboratory gets most of its funding from the European Union. | |  | | A family living in Magdalena |
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All projects emphasize local control with the aim of strengthening communities and empowering them to develop the economic, social, and political power necessary to resist the violence, plaguing the region. For those unused to having any say in how they live, the difference is enormous. Making a Difference The program has made a vast difference to the life of 33-year-old Isolino Quintero. A program staff member recalls how five years ago, Quintero was so withdrawn; she would sit through an entire meeting of the Community Development Association without saying a word. However, her continued attendance helped Quintero to become more outspoken. Today, Quintero is an activist for finding and building new housing for 116 families who live on the banks of the Magdalena – an area which floods three or more times a year. Once the association obtained funds to help finance new houses on high ground further from the river, an official of the municipal government then in power ordered her to deposit the money in the local government account. Otherwise, he said, “I’ll have you killed.” According to her account, Quintero replied, “If I’m found dead, you will be the one responsible.” The threat turned out to be a bluff. But her boldness was striking in a region where community activism can be a risky proposition. In recent years, 15 people associated with Program for Development and Peace projects throughout Magdalena Medio have been killed. Is the program itself a target? People from the area say no. One of them views the killings as a way to eliminate grassroots leaders who become intermediaries between their communities and local and regional government officials. Economic Advancement In this climate, many people who seek to improve their lives focus single-mindedly on the economic side. Maximo Vega, 35, runs a cacao nursery in the mountains above Landázuri. Using techniques taught to him by a Program for Development and Peace staff member, he grows plants which are custom-designed for the area’s altitude and conditions. The goal is to increase productivity to 2,000 kgs per hectare from the present 1,300 kgs per hectare. Farmers will then create a local agricultural economy with a stake in resisting the present push to plant coca. Other farmers estimate that coca now accounts for 2,500 hectares in the municipality. Vega does not see coca as a crop with long term possibilities in the area. “If I plant coca and that is what I live on, what would I be leaving my children? All they would know how to grow is coca,” he says. For his part, Vega has made a good enough living from the 9,000 plant cacao nursery to start building a four room brick house, with running water and electricity. Demand for the custom designed seedlings among the 1,500 farmers who are working with program advisers is intense. “If I had 100,000 or 200,000 plants, I could have sold them all,” Vega says. | |  | | Nery Escobar, secretary and account executive at brick cooperative |
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Bricks to Money Nery Escobar, 37, belonged to an informal network of self employed people, who used homemade backyard ovens to make bricks. But Nery and the others struggled through tougher and tougher times in the 1990s. As construction companies became more demanding, handmade bricks couldn’t compete with the factory product. Despite their strategic location in Barrancabermeja - the oil refinery city, which is the informal capital of Magdalena Medio -, the brick makers found it difficult to survive. Then members of the program staff suggested they compete with the brick factories on equal terms. Six years later, a new co-operative was born. The Cooperativa de Trabajo Asociado Alfareros de Barrancabermeja (Brick makers Cooperative of Barrancabermeja) opened a $745,000 factory with a brick-forming machine and two ovens capable of producing 144,000 bricks a month. In early June last year, the factory began producing for its first order, a 10,000-brick shipment for a construction firm in the city. The Program for Peace and Development not only encouraged the cooperative to form, but it also helped obtain the grants —from the state oil company, Ecopetrol, among other sources—to provide the initial capital. The funds did not provide any subsidies to keep the cooperative members going during the years it took to get the factory financed and built. Members lived on earnings from family members or from renting out their brick ovens to artisans who hadn’t joined the cooperative. “When we met with Fr. de Roux,” Escobar says, “he told us: ‘We’re not giving you anything; you’re going to have to work. That gave us more encouragement than promises would have.” Escobar also sustains herself with the goal of providing a better future for her three children, aged 9, 10, and 14. “I want them to become professionals,” she says. Balancing the commitment to the cooperative is adherence to the code of behavior of Magdalena Medio. “The law of silence is the rule,” Escobar says. She was referring to her decision not to try to find out about the killing of her husband, Victor Daniel Gómez, who was murdered at a time when paramilitaries were pushing guerrillas out of Barrancabermeja. Her husband was not involved in the conflict. But she says asking questions could be fatal. “Better to leave things as they are.”
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