Pubdate: Sat, 26 Aug 2000
Source: CNN.com (US Web)
Copyright: 2000 Cable News Network, Inc.
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Author: Steve Nettleton
Note: Part 3 of a 6 part series.

SEEDS OF HOPE IN FIELDS OF WAR

Amid The Chaos Of Their Lives, Colombia's Poor Find A Way To Survive And To
Generate A Bit Of Hope, If Not For Themselves, Then For Their Children

BARRANCABERMEJA, Colombia (CNN) -- Rosalba Gomez would never have believed
that a visit to the market with only 500 pesos (25 cents) could spare her
son from a life with the guerrillas.

Years later, with her son enrolled in a university, while all his former
friends have enlisted with rebels or criminal gangs, she feels she never
made a smarter investment.

"I sent my son to Bucaramanga [a city 100 kilometers (60 miles) away] when
he was 13 and now I thank God," Gomez said.

Thanks to a scholarship fund, she has been able to put two of her children
through college. She hopes to send her third to university when he finishes
high school.

The auspicious shopping trip that changed her life came in 1993. It was a
modest attempt by nine women to find food for their families in one of
Colombia's most-violent cities.

Unemployed and desperately poor, Gomez and the others had few options.

They lived in a run-down "commune" northeast of Colombia's oil center,
Barrancabermeja, in an area controlled by the country's second-largest
guerrilla organization, the National Liberation Army, or ELN.

Forced to follow the whims of gun-toting guerrilla militiamen who did not
hesitate to kill anyone they suspected of collaborating with the police,
army or right-wing paramilitary groups, the women felt trapped in their own
homes.

When they ventured outside their neighborhood, crossed the railroad tracks
and entered government-ruled Barrancabermeja, they were treated as pariahs.

"The government sees us all as guerrillas. All doors in the city are closed
to us," said Guillermina Hernandez, one of the nine.

"If you go to asking for a job at any business, if you are from the
northeast, you don't get work. This has a terrible effect on the community,
because if we don't have a job, we don't have food, we can't have an
education, we don't achieve anything without a job."

'Let's Shop Together'

Seeking to surmount their dire circumstances, Hernandez, Gomez and seven
other women pooled what little grocery money they had. They hoped that, as a
group, they could buy more. Each pitched in 500 pesos, and together they
went to the market.

It paid off.

Not only did each woman receive enough to feed her family, but also the
women had some left over. The women resold the surplus to pay for other
daily needs, and began again.

The women then sought help from a local priest, obtaining a loan to help
them buy foodstuffs. More families joined and before long a humanitarian aid
organization offered to help them.

Today, there are 44 families in the program, called "Merquemos Juntos," or
"Let's Shop Together."

"All of the 44 families didn't know each other from before," said Hernandez.
"We weren't friends. If we ran into each other, we were distant: You are
there, I am here. Now when we meet, we feel like one family of 44 families."

"Merquemos Juntos" now goes far beyond shopping.

Members staff a cooperative store on the grounds of a church in their
neighborhood. They teach -- and some learn -- basic job skills, such as
sewing, to give unemployed women a source of income. But most importantly,
Hernandez said, they have established a trust fund for area children to go
to school in other cities.

The communes, where armed groups often pressure young people to join their
ranks, is a dangerous place for children to grow up.

"The economic situation that we are living in makes this a reality," said
Angel Miguel Solana, a community leader. "There are many children who leave
to go pick coca [the plant from which cocaine is made]. That is no secret.
They go to the paramilitary groups or they go to the guerrillas. There are
few kids who have the guidance of their parents."

So far, "Merquemos Juntos" has managed to send nine children to high school
and 13 teens to university.

And Hernandez hopes to expand the project even further.

"My dream for the future is to be able to have in this area a cooperative
for credit, for savings. We don't know what we will name it, but it should
be where the people have access to it, where someone won't tell them that
because they live here, their house has no value, and they can't get a
loan," she said.

"From the top of the bridge [the dividing point between the communes and the
city], everything here is [seen as] worthless. For those of us who live
here, if we don't do something for ourselves, nobody will."

Getting A Piece Of The Action

An hour's boat ride down the Magdalena River from Barrancabermeja, outside
the town of Puerto Wilches, 50 families are pinning their hope of escaping
Colombia's civil war on a field of young palm trees.

Like the residents of Barrancabermeja's communes, Lino Bohorquez used to
feel trapped in a cycle of violence and poverty.

He grew up a campesino, a laborer who worked on any farm that would hire
him. He had no land and little money. Around him, other peasants suffering
in similar conditions were joining guerrilla groups or paramilitary forces.

"In some sectors of the society, those without employment, without work,
sometimes they have to join armed groups to earn a salary, to be able to
survive," Bohorquez said.

He was not interested in taking up arms, but he knew of no opportunity to
make a better living. He certainly did not believe he could grow a future
from the seeds of African palms.

"Before, we thought it was a business for the rich, for the big
[businessmen], not for the little [ones]," said Bohorquez.

"It was a program only for those who had money," agreed Salvador Acosta, a
peasant who for years struggled to survive by growing yucca and plantains.
"The [landowners] wouldn't give us the opportunity to have such a business,
so we could do better. Simply, if you had money you could grow palm. They
never gave us the chance to do something like that."

For decades, African palms have thrived in Puerto Wilches. The choice crop
of landowners looking to cash in on palm oil, the trees grew along the river
in thick forests covering thousands of acres.

The owners, however, refused to live anywhere near their plantations. After
several landowners were kidnapped by ELN guerrillas, most fled to Bogota,
Cali or Medellin. From a distance, they lived off their palm profits,
leaving their fields in the hands of contracted managers.

Peasant leaders, allegedly under the influence of the ELN, complained they
were overworked and underpaid and demanded higher salaries. The landowners
refused. When the peasants threatened the strike, the owners threatened to
shut down the plantations. Neither side seemed ready to give in.

A respected Catholic priest from Barrancabermeja, Francisco de Roux, stepped
in with a compromise. He proposed that the owners give the peasants a small
piece of the business by letting them plant African palms on small plots of
their land. He also asked the owners to end a monopoly of the nearby palm
oil processing plant and share the facilities with the peasants.

The landowners agreed, and the campesinos returned to work.

A year later, the first saplings are ready to be planted. Bohorquez is
anxious to get started with his 10-hectare (25-acre) plot. He firmly
believes the program, now named "Project Hope," will soon expand tenfold,
eventually including 500 families and 2,500 hectares (6,250 acres) of
farmland. He hopes that one day they can build their own processing plant.

"I believe that at least, at my age, that I'm going to be able to have a
retirement with this program. For my children, they are going to have a
place to work. They are going to have an income. And maybe it will be
possible through this program that they will be able to start studying at
the university. It's possible."