Call and appeal of the Women and Peoples of the Americas

Colombia was adorned with the faces of women and girls, boys and men, faces which were full of hopes, dreams, experiences, struggles and resistance. Participants from Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, Peru, Ecuador, Venezuela, El Salvador, Honduras, Haiti, Guatemala, Cuba, Mexico, the United States, Canada, Spain, France, Italy, Belgium and Germany also joined us, along with others from different regions of Colombia, such as Nariño, Cauca, Valle, Huila, Chocó, Antioquia, Tolima, Cundinamarca, Bogotá, Magdalena Medio,  Bolívar, Santander, Norte de Santander, Arauca and Atlántico, to take part in the Women's and People’s International Summit of the Americas Against Militarization, held from August 16th to 23rd.

Now more than ever, this meeting showed how the current threat of a World War reverberates with repercussions in different places, how humanity is struggling for survival and for other remaining ways of life. This meeting took place at a time when North American imperialism is planning and conducting aggressive recolonization strategies to reposition itself in an attempt to recover from the great crisis of its capitalist system.  The despoliation of the people’s wealth and the violation of human rights through militarization is the chosen path, using mass media communications as its ideological and cultural connection.

Colombia is a vast territory with mineral wealth, oil, energy resources, water, biodiversity, wildlife, traditional and ancestral knowledge of indigenous, black and rural peoples, which are nowadays sought-after and exploited by transnational companies that are only interested in their shameful and inhuman earnings, for which they feed and strengthen the militarization, war, uprooting, despoliation and death that are so harmful to the people and their territories; this dominant logic has been extended and applied all over our America.

This country is has a great diversity of indigenous, Afro-descendant, mixed-race, rural and urban populations who are tired of the war and violence that has affected the country for over 50 years and caused the displacement of 4.5 million people and the death, disappearance and imprisonment of thousands more. These communities and people resist with courage and creativity, through processes that strive for sovereignty over their bodies, territories and food. They stand strong in their own organizational, cultural and spiritual identities, with their own world views and, as central themes, unity and the pursuit and exercise of a decent way of life, autonomy, self-determination and sovereignty.

Women, who are the protagonists of these processes, have been the stronghold of their people, despite suffering the direct impacts of violence, poverty, exclusion and discrimination, which in social, political, economic and armed conflicts means exploitation, destitution, sexual violence, violation of sexual freedom and other basic human rights, along with displacement, persecution and death.

This meeting enabled the organization of humanitarian missions of solidarity in the various regions of the country, allowing for an exchange of experiences and discussions among the participants (women and Colombian rural and urban communities). During these visits, not only was it possible to understand the concrete reality but also to give it a face and to put names to those who have directly undergone the process of militarization and engaged in resistance in their territories and their daily lives, to defend their economic and geostrategic interests. This opportunity allowed the international community to continue its denunciation of the terrible violations of human rights, which have reached abusive levels in Colombia, particularly in practices called “false positives”: that is, connecting innocent people to falsified evidence, to justify their murder and imprisonment, forced disappearance and displacement, which shows that this country is not in a post-conflict stage, as assured by the government.   

Over the course of two days, the experiences of resistance of women, the Colombian people and the continent were exchanged; the impact of militarization was denounced; and the conviction that we have had enough of the culture of oppression, exploitation and death espoused by patriarchal, racist capitalism was reaffirmed.

From this meeting, we spoke to the world, in a collective spirit of justice, respect and continental solidarity, to reiterate our commitment as women and peoples struggling against militarization, and positioned ourselves in order to:

• Fight for justice for women and to stop violence, intimidation, control and the use of women as Spoils of War.
• Firmly reject the American imperialist strategy to militarize our lives, territories and wishes in its efforts to control the wealth and awareness of our countries. We say, “Go home, Military Yankees, away from Latin America and the Caribbean.”     
• Reject the presence of North American military bases in our countries and territories, demanding their immediate withdrawal.
• Fight against the interference of armies of occupation, such as MINUSTAH in Haiti.
• Fight for the closing of military bases all over Abya Yala, against the mega-energy projects, oil and mineral exploitation, the privatization of water and the despoliation of the land, which benefit large transnational companies today.
• Reject the impending military intervention threatened in Costa Rica with more than 7,000 American troops and 46 warships.
• Reject the attempts to destabilize the legitimate government of Venezuela and the repeated affronts to the Venezuelan people.
• Reiterate our solidarity with the national resistance in Honduras, merged with the FNRP, which directs its policy and actions toward the re-establishment of the nation, and which, more immediately, calls for a Democratic Popular National Constituent Assembly. For that reason, we also urge the state governments and the peoples of the world not to recognize the regime of Porfirio Lobo, who is a supporter of the coup d’état and of policies of violating the human rights of Hondurans who continued fighting.
• Condemn the criminalization of the struggles of the people, which criminalization means the death and repression of women and men and their organization.
• Condemn the anti-immigrant policy of the United States, strengthening the fight against the border wall.
• Condemn Alvaro Uribe Velez’s nomination to the commission investigating the crime committed by the Israeli government against the humanitarian flotilla to Palestine.
• Carry on the struggle for the release of five Cuban comrades unfairly imprisoned in the United States today.
• Support the action of the World March of Women in the Republic of Congo on October 17th.
• We support December 10th as Continental Campaign against Foreign Military Bases Day.
• We welcome the decisions made at the Assembly of Social Movements during the 6th Americas Social Forum held in Paraguay. We also support the decisions made at the 1st and 2nd Hemispheric Meetings against Militarization in Chiapas and Honduras.
• We commit to energizing and driving the 6th Hemispheric Meeting against Militarization.
• We join with the Continental Campaign against Militarization.

For Colombia, we call upon the continent and the world to:

• Uphold the proposal for a negotiated political solution to social and armed domestic conflict in Colombia.
• Strengthen and rebuild the social movements as political subjects that are essential for peace.
• Drive, energize and support women and peoples locally, regionally, nationally and internationally in the pursuit of truth, justice, reparations and the prevention of recurrence.
•  Encourage unity, awareness, organization, alternative communication and mobilization as important points for autonomy, struggles and resistance.
• Participate in and support the people’s congress called for by the national social and community resistance group, for October 8th to 12th, 2010.

Today, we reassert our commitment to a life of dignity, the defense of our territories, our sovereignty, autonomy, self-determination, culture and ancestry as social movements, in the belief that the fight against militarization and the presence of military bases is an essential cornerstone of peace.

Barrancabermeja, Colombia - August 23, 2010