VISIT TO COLOMBIA PRESENTS OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION

Witness For Peace Member Brings Back First-Hand Accounts Of The Effects Of
U.S. Drug War On South American Country.

HILLSBOROUGH -- As Jena Matzen clicks through slides of her recent trip to
Colombia with the Witness for Peace program, a number of doleful themes
spring forth:

Murder.

Deforestation.

Economic ruin.

Yet for every story and picture that presents a bleak outlook for the
future of the South American country, Matzen sounds a drumbeat of hope that
raised awareness in the United States can stop the devastation taking place
there.

"My hope is that the U.S. would be involved in a supportive, peaceful role
in the peace process and not engaging in what is to me terrorism," Matzen
said about the U.S. role in funding anti-narcotics initiatives in Colombia,
which is wracked by civil war. "In the end it's really about, we're not
doing right by the Colombian people."

Matzen will speak about her trip to Colombia at 5 p.m. today at CHICLE, the
Chapel Hill Institute for Cultural and Language Education, at 412 W.
Franklin St.

Matzen, an Orange County resident, was one of about 40 participants from
across the United States who took part in the trip with the Witness for
Peace program, a nonpartisan group that arranges many visits such as this
one to Mexico, Central and South America for human rights awareness.

"The idea is to get U.S. citizens down to see the impact of U.S. policy and
then come home and work to change that policy from militarization and
oppression to one of peace," said Gail Phares, a founder of Witness for
Peace who works in Raleigh.

The delegation went to Colombia in January to talk with labor organizers
and farmers about how U.S. funds spent on military intervention in the drug
war affect their lives.

Matzen said she saw areas where military planes had indiscriminately
sprayed pesticides on subsistence crops instead of the coca plants the
effort was supposed to target. Farmers spoke of losing their black pepper,
corn and beans to the pesticide planes even when one man had erected a
flagpole with a white flag on top to show the pilots he had no coca on his
ground.

"This man did everything he could possibly do, even waving surrender, but
it was futile," Matzen said. "What is so tragic is that you have people
that sign pacts with the government (for economic assistance) and are
working on eradication of coca plants, and they get wiped out."

While the government claims the spraying is not toxic to humans, Matzen
said a family told her of a baby who had died after being sprayed and of
livestock that also died.

The weeklong trip to Colombia tied together Matzen's longtime interest in
environmental issues with her more recent work for farmworkers' rights. She
is a freelance lawyer and previously worked for Farmworkers Legal Services
and the Immigrants Legal Assistance Project. She is also on the board of El
Pueblo, El Centro Latino and the Orange County Human Rights Commission.

In college, Matzen also helped found the Institute for Regional
Conservation, a nonprofit group based in Florida that works on
bio-diversity and environmental issues in the Southeast and the Amazon in
South America.

As a representative of that group, Matzen spent five months traveling the
Amazon, which gave her a background on environmental issues in South
America that she also used on the trip to Colombia.

"The people who are getting sprayed and wiped out are moving into the
rainforest areas and cutting it down," Matzen said. "The people are really
the victims in this."

Both Matzen and the Witness for Peace program advocate that drug war money
should be spent on expanding drug treatment in the United State to decrease
the market for cocaine. They also support improving Colombia's
infrastructure and domestic markets for other crops so farmers don't have
to depend on coca to make money.

Matzen also said she came home from the trip with an increased awareness of
the opportunities for action here at home.

"It was incredibly emotional to hear stories of people who have been doing
the same work I do" advocating for workers and the environment, Matzen
said, "but who have lost their lives.

"It made me realize I love my country, even though I don't agree with
everything it does, because I can take up unpopular causes and not be
threatened with losing my life."

More information about the Witness for Peace and Colombia can be found
online at http://www.witnessforpeace.org or http://www.colombiamobilization.org