Wednesday 8/20/03 Come to the Peacemaker Congress

CPTnet
August 8, 2003
CHICAGO/TORONTO: Nonviolence practicioner held hostage in Colombia to speak at Peacemaker Congress

Civil Rights veteran Dr. Bernard Lafayette, Jr., knows peacemaking is front-lines work with high risks. In 2002, leftist guerrillas took him and his Colombian co-workers hostage. The guerillas released LaFayette, but held his two friends for a year. Then, in May 2003, those friends were killed by the guerrillas during a botched rescue attempt by the Colombian government's military.

Lafayette will kick off Peacemaker Congress VII - "Uniting the Races for Homeland Security and World Peace," September 25-28 at John Knox Presbyterian church in Youngstown, OH. He will speak on "Organizing Nonviolent Struggles in an Era of Neocolonialism and Terrorism." A contemporary and co-worker of Martin Luther King, Lafayette is best known for his life-long commitment to nonviolence activism, training and education. He is currently Director of the Center for Nonviolence and Peace Studies at the University of Rhode Island.

For more than three years, Lafayette developed nonviolence training programs in the civil war-torn state of Antioquia in Colombia, where he worked with the local governor, Guillermo Gaviria. In April 2002, Gaviria and Lafayette co-led a five-day, thousand-strong, 120-mile nonviolent march from Medellin to Caicedo -- a mountain town of 7,000 that had declared itself a neutral peace community but which continued to suffer from armed group incursions. The FARC -- the largest of Colombia's guerrilla groups -- said the march would not be allowed to enter Caicedo. When Gaviria, Lafayette, a priest and a ministerial advisor went to negotiate in good faith, the guerillas took them hostage. A year after they released LaFayette and the priest, the FARC guerillas shot Gaviria and the advisor when they heard Colombian military helicopters sent to rescue the officials overhead.

In interviews after the killing, Lafayette reflected, "Sometimes it takes more courage to be nonviolent. [Gaviria] knew that there was a risk in organizing the march, but the greater risk was not ending the violence." As active peacemakers, LaFayette said, "we can't simply be concerned about what would happen to us if we went to Colombia. We have to be concerned about what would happen to the Colombian people if we didn't go."