Contents GL 41:

• The move to Purace
• Bad treatment of ‘desplazados’ in Bogota
• Stories of violence and betrayal
• A kidnap described
• News of poisonous gold extraction in Caqueta
• FARC threatens a concerned environmentalist
• US aided paramilitary violence
• JJ asked to run therapy groups in Popayn

Physical position: The valley of the River Loro;
hamlet: "El Congreso";
nearest village (many hours away):
Belen; nearest (hot country) town:
LA PLATA; Department: Huila (bordering on Cauca);
general position: a little bit nearer the Equator than El Pato! We are several hours by bus from Neiva.

Who is here? Only myself and my 16-year-old daughter Alice. The rest are still in Tabio, enjoying all the vegetables I grew, doing theatre and planning to move in the future. Alice and I have been here one week and we have 13 vegetable beds dug, manured and planted.

We live in an old ranch-house 15 minutes walk from the river. The valley is wide and flat with hills rising steeply on each side. And that's where the miracle comes in: most of the 300 inhabitants of this valley have agreed to conserve the forest on those hills. As Maria Teresa, the Park director who persuaded us to move here said: "This time it is not a question of persuading the country-people to preserve their woodlands, it is a matter of rewarding them for doing so - and you are part of their reward."

Well, I don't think most of the people who know me at close quarters would really consider me anyone's reward, but from Day 1 our relationships with local people have been gentle and good. We are on a farm that has absolutely no food supply so I immediately instituted a system of barter: people bring us gifts of tiny quantities of food and we give them packets of seeds. There are two distinct groups of people in the valley; one is a tribe of Guambiano Indians who have their own language (which they simply call 'lengua' = 'language'), the others are 'colonos' - settlers. The valley has only been open to habitation for 50 years; before that, it was jungle. Actually, there is another tribe, a very noisy one: the howler monkeys! Their chorus welcomed us immediately, a joy to our Nature-starved ears.

The flat parts of the river-valley have been cleared for cattle and beyond the mountain range is Purace National Park: where we live is considered a 'buffer zone' for the Park and therefore very important for conservation. Evidently there are about six 'predator families' amongst the population who hunt animals and cut trees with impunity, and there is illegal traffic in wood - nothing like on the devastating scale we found in El Pato, Caquetá, but I don't like to see a single block of wood awaiting transportation. The locals evidently sell a block for 7,000 pesos (approx. 3 ½ U$) and it then resells in Neiva for 70,000! The man who has invited us to live on his 40 hectare farm wants us to teach carpentry here to make tables, chairs, windows and doors for sale to slow down the rate of tree-felling whilst still providing a living for the people. The environmental consciousness of the people here is astonishingly high - the area has obviously been a focus for much 'green' education in the past. Our function is to consolidate and extend this on the practical level with our seeds and gardens and life-style, and culturally with our theatre.

Every time I say to anyone 'If, that is, the guerrilla allow us to stay here', I am met with a dismissive gesture and remarks like 'they only come here for their holidays to fish trout in the Park.' Well, we'll see. The beauty, tranquility and potential for Life here - as well as the enormous amount of hard work involved in starting once again - are a joy to the soul and it is hard to remember this is a country involved in a savage class war. Annes's reports from Bogotá on what is suffered by other internal refugees come as a chilling reminder:

Insulting Treatment of Food-seeking Refugees in Bogota

She writes: "I went today to collect my first 'free' bag of food which the government is supposed to supply to refugees, having waded through all the months of red-tape to get it, just to see how Colombia treats its own people. I paid for it in blood, sweat and fury at the way they are dealt with. At the end of unbelievable complications, I was told to go to a very poor, dangerous area of Bogotá and arrived at the address given to find a recycling warehouse - that is, more or less a rubbish dump. Three other refugee couples were already waiting and were, as usual, being badly treated by the people in charge who were trying to tell us they knew nothing about anyone's claim. So I gathered up the other people and we all went to a public telephone where I phoned women I know in the government 'Solidarity Network' office and complained and insisted they help not only me but speak to the others couples too.

"By the time we got back to the warehouse, the people there had received telephoned orders and we got our food in 5 minutes flat. Each of us was given 2 big sacks too heavy to carry. I lived only 8 blocks away, but the others lived several hours away. We made a deal with a rubbish collector to use his hand-cart to take us to the bus-stop and we all took turns pushing it. Then I invited them in for herb tea. They were all from Caquetá and Putumayo - "our" area. They pored over a big pictorial file of pictures and information about our community that Jenny had made and they told me their stories.

First hand stories of political violence and betrayal

"One man showed me six bullet wounds. He had been living in the jungle when the paramilitaries arrived and shot him, leaving him for dead. He had recently been squatting with hundreds of other families in the Red Cross building in Bogotá but found the over-crowding too harrowing. After he left, he was called by other refugees to witness the finding of nearly 40 bodies on the outskirts of Bogotá. An official-looking person pretending to be a Government representative had come to the Red Cross building one day saying they had houses for refugees. Lots of people believed him and got on the bus provided... their ‘benefactors’ were paramilitary murderers.

"A week ago, another three people were found dead. They'd got into a jeep outside the Red Cross building driven by a man who asked them to help him to collect food for the refugees. These people are treated like vermin by all the official bodies I've come across. The war chases them wherever they try to hide: an astrology client of mine has recently told me that his uncle runs a school which accepts refugee children and that he was receiving so many threats from the military, paramilitaries and the Guerrilla that he left a message on his answer phone saying that he 'only accepted threats between 4 - 5 p.m. as the rest of the day the telephone is occupied with more important matters'. It seems the assassins had a deadly sense of humour too: the threats were now confined to the hours of 4 - 5 p.m.

Story of a Kidnap

"That same client is a person I've only just met, though I had done his chart several times in the last year at the request of his wife, his business partners and his secretary. This was because he had been kidnapped by the FARC guerrillas in Eastern Amazonas, and was held prisoner for 4 months. I asked him if it was true what I'd seen in his chart during his absence, that he was being well-treated. 'Yes,' he said, 'very well-treated.' His captors got him the food he wanted as much as possible, he was never tied or ill-treated in any way and became friends with his guards, spending most of his time playing football or helping them bring in food supplies by mule. He said he cried a lot as he missed his wife and kids and had time to think over many mistakes he'd made. I said that many people pay more for intensive therapy courses that don't work so well! He nearly fell on the floor laughing.

"He is an extremely successful civil engineer connected intimately to many top politicians and says he now understands exactly why the guerrilla army exists and sees the injustice towards the poor. He hadn't before as he's a self-made man and put poverty down to laziness! He also told me he'd never believed in astrology before either, till his partners told him that an astrologer from Ireland had predicted he'd be free at the end of February..."

News from Caqueta

Also through Annes's work, came some unexpected news from El Pato:

"The other night one of my clients told me she'd been sent by the Ministry of Education to San Vicente del Caguan to facilitate a refresher course for the teachers of the region. Part of the week-long course included each teacher giving a discourse on their own project. A tall thin teacher stood up and talked about a 'very successful eco-project he began with the help of a group of Irish and English ecologists'. Her ears pricked up as she remembered I'd said I once lived in Caquetá. She asked him the names of the foreigners, 'Jenny and Anne and many more', he said. It was Camilo of Chorreras! He then gave an impassioned speech against the injustice of us being thrown out of the region (a brave thing to do as the whole area is now an 'independent republic' run by the FARC)." Thank you, Camilo! (I wrote to him immediately - Jenny)

Many of you in Europe and elsewhere may have heard of Martin von Hildebrand, the half-German nationalized Colombian who recently received the 'Alternative Nobel' prize for his work in the Amazon. His brother Patrick also works in Colombia, is a friend of Anne's and has a research station in Southern Caquetá where he has worked as a biologist for over 20 years. Anne visited him recently when he was in Bogotá and he told her that the area where he works has recently been taken over by the FARC who have formed a new front of 400-odd men. At the same time, gold has been discovered in the River Caquetá - an environmental disaster akin to petrol discovery as Mercury, a lethal element for all river life, is used to extract the gold, not to mention the 15 dredgers that have arrived to scrape the river bottom. The prospectors pay the FARC 15 million pesos a month in protection money.

Patrick tried to alert the Ministry of the Environment to get the dredging stopped, but unfortunately, as I mentioned in the last Green Letter, Juan Mayr, the Minister for the Environment, is an environmental disaster in himself. He simply told Patrick that he could do nothing, 'it was too dangerous' and 'the dredgers are owned by the mafia'.

So Patrick tried to approach the FARC and suggested an open meeting between them, the dredger owners, the biologists and the local people so that they could discuss less damaging ways to extract gold. "Good idea", said the FARC. But the next day, Patrick received a message from them to keep his mouth shut. The last Anne heard, Patrick was returning to his base, but felt it wouldn't last long. Anne fears for his life.

In circumstances like this, only pressure from abroad can really make a difference. I have asked Mary Kelly at Atlantis, Burtonport, Co. Donegal, Ireland to co-ordinate a pressure campaign from outside and we will keep you all informed via Green Letters as soon as we have more news or details.

US aided Paramilitary Violence

On my way to this quiet valley, I passed through the ghastly hot town of Cali and stayed with some acquaintances of Anne's. One was a woman from the community called 'The New Atlantis' which I mentioned in a previous Green Letter who had had to flee because of threats from paramilitaries, who are still evidently seeking them to kill them as they are 'guilty' of sheltering fleeing peasants in their farm. 'Body-heat sensitive' night-flying reconnaissance planes kindly donated by the US to worsen the war here detected the presence of more people than normal under her roof. Many of her neighbours were murdered. If the 'logic' of this Colombian barbarity escapes you, it is purely geo-political: peasants in a guerrilla area get murdered if the paras enter and vice versa. It has been going on for 50 years with varying intensity. At the moment, it is extremely intense, and will get worse now that the US has decided to put its foot in the door (to keep it wide open for their military to enter of course).

JJ Asked to teach Reichian Therapy in Popayan

I would like to end on a gentler note: havens like this green valley do still exist and there are Colombian peasants who in the midst of such barbarity have enough sensitivity left to want to preserve them. Here we will work, till Fate dictates otherwise. We are beginning once again from scratch and have nothing, except very good spirits and health. I shall be 58 in a few days' time and feel strong and ready for anything (except the noise of traffic - a week in the town of Popayan on the way here was quite enough for me). Meanwhile, life has completed one of its strange circles: for 30 years I was a therapist of the Reichian school. The partner of Maria Teresa, the Park director who invited us here and now my very good friend, is a psychology lecturer at Popayan University and he asked me to do a talk for his students on the therapy we developed in our commune 'Atlantis'. I duly complied, though I felt myself talking through a time warp. And now I have been asked to return to run a therapeutic weekend for his mature students. I have asked for fare, food and any other help they can manage in return, to get our new Valley project underway. All the students were very interested to hear how raising one's sensitivity towards one's own feelings leads to a caring for all Nature. The group will be held on Maria Teresa's simple farm. A circle completed.

To end, we certainly need seeds now, for cool country, and just about any other help you can offer. With many thanks... now how am I going to get this letter out of this Valley...?

With love,
Jenny

Contents GL 42:

• Chainsaws in the Valley
• An invitation to Caqueta to do theatre
• US press reports give the game away
• Juan Mayr, Minister for Destruction of the Environment
• Smurfit’s Dirty Dealings
• Words on the War

Hello Everybody!

Greetings from this wet green world at 2,000 metres where we have now lived 7 weeks. Two men from our community have joined us, and the new, slightly sad looking garden is rapidly encircling the wooden house. Meanwhile we live on awful White food, relieved now and then by a tiny lettuce leaf or sprig of parsley. We have given away hundreds of packets of seeds to eager and grateful Indians (not the right word but it seems to have stuck with us blame it on Colombus!) and other settlers, mainly women: they really take food gardening seriously in this valley.

Almost from Day 1 here, we heard the chainsaws, all day every day in the mountain ranges in front of and behind us. And on Sundays, the trundling of the wood lorry, to carry the precious wood away. I reported this to the relevant person, who informed the guerrilla the only real hope of getting anything done about it. They promised to come and speak to the people concerned, as their policy is definitely: no felling except for necessary cabin building or repair.

An Invitation to return to Caqueta!

Anne reports from Bogotá that recently she attended a National Parks meeting of all the Park directors and talked at length with a man who now works in El Pato appointed after our exile from there. He said that the Parks Department in conjunction with the guerrilla have stopped all wood cutting and entry of wood lorries into El Pato. He was also tremendously keen that we should continue to help in that area. 'How can we?' asked Anne, ‘seeing that the guerrilla banned our presence’. 'Come and do theatre at the Guayabal Cultural Festival in August!' he pleaded. It was left up to him to clear our entry with the relevant authorities… This would be a tremendous event for us, to be allowed to return and re meet all our friends there. The area now falls within the 'government-approved' guerrilla zone, cleared of Army and Police so that the long peace talks may proceed. There is of course bitter opposition from Colombia's right wing to the existence of this enormous 'independent republic' and a thinly veiled American invasion is being planned under the smoke screen of 'drug crop control'. There is a massive campaign, including amongst concerned people in America, for the billions of dollars being donated by the US to the Colombian Army to be used for crop substitution and social aid to obviate the need for the peasants to grow these crops.

Revealing Snippets from the U.S. Press

An American supporter sends fascinating little snippets from local American papers, in this case one quaintly named The Commercial Appeal (Memphis), regarding Colombia. I quote: "Republicans in Congress have warned that the US risks ‘losing Colombia’ to the insurgents." Beat that for arrogance. Were you aware that the US 'owned Colombia'? The report continues: 'Even military and law enforcement officials are concerned that the US could be dragged into a long and costly struggle that may have little impact on the drug trade.' Indeed. Because affecting the famously lucrative drug trade is not the aim. Anyone who has looked properly into the matter knows that only three things will stop the human and environmental damage caused by the drug trade:

1. Legalization, so that the traffickers (which according to many reports include the CIA and definitely include members of the Colombian government and armed forces) lose their massive profits overnight;

2. Social justice for the millions of impoverished peasants who cultivate whatever will sell, obeying to the letter the cherished law of capitalism, and

3. Taking the long hard road of changing society so that life has more meaning and value and young people don't sink to using drugs in a futile attempt to find pleasure.

And as if that news isn't alarming enough, from the same newspaper, we have this delightful news: "A debilitating fungus that attacks coca plants may become a weapon in the war on South American cocaine as the UN, Colombia and Washington near an agreement to test it on the ground in Colombia." The tests would "make sure the fungus would not harm human beings or animals and would not migrate to other crops" and would take "a year or two." But "the fungus is similar to one that commonly kills tomato plants in American gardens." I think we have been here before? ..

Organic Agriculture in Cuba and Nicaragua

I think at this point I had better put in some good news (taken from an excellent little Canadian magazine called 'Smallholder'): "Cuba has, of necessity, become a leader in research and development of organic agriculture methods suitable to tropical countries. The US blockade has restricted the country's access to agricultural chemicals, so the farmers have been forced to focus on chemical free ways to fertilize crops and manage pests." Something similar happened in Nicaragua in the 80's. Organic Gardening magazine reported: "Nicaragua's ruling Sandinista Party made a commitment to clean up the country's environment and slash pesticide use. Since 1981 the country has halted the importation of lindane, leptophos, DDT, endrin and dieldrin, all of which are banned in the US but manufactured here for export. In one year alone a programme of integrated pest management enabled Nicaragua to cut imported pesticides by 45%. Meanwhile, in neighbouring Honduras, pesticide imports increased by 40%”.

“Let your food be your medicine, and let your medicine be your food.” Hippocrates “Chemical pest control, like so many of our modern practices, is a technology gone wild under the merchandising imperative.” Organic Gardening Magazine, USA

The Colombian Lower House of Parliament got together a motion of censure against J. Mayr, Minister 'for' the Environment because of his treatment of the U’wa and other Indian tribes. Seventy two voted against him and 59 supported him. BUT the motion was reversed in the upper house. Evidently feeling somewhat cocky, this two legged environmental disaster has now come up with the following gem: TO PRIVATISE THE NATIONAL PARKS. This is essentially a move against the mainly very Green Park Directors like our friend Maria Teresa Amaya. It is also noted that the 'private concern' that would take over the Parks is run by a relative of his ... The question that immediately comes to mind is: how on earth would a National Park ‘make money?’ By turning it into a Colombian equivalent of a Butlin's holiday camp?

SMURFIT’s DIRTY WASHING

Mr. Smurfit is well known in Ireland as a very successful businessman. He is the owner of Carton Colombia, a paper­making, pine and eucalyptus growing, natural forest destroying, Indian murdering Colombian firm. When our campaign began in 1995, my daughter Rebecca and her Colombian friend Magdalena Lasprilla waged war in Ireland against Smurfit, using amongst other modes the simple tactic of buying a single share in the Company in order to attend shareholders' meetings and ask awkward questions. They are both very small women. They were heavied out of the meeting, and the microphones switched off to prevent them speaking. The 'bouncers' who removed them (Irishmen) threatened to 'break their legs for them' if they continued their campaign.

By one of those strange 'chances' of Fate, a therapy patient of mine at the weekend group I ran recently in Popayan is a teacher in a school financed by Carton Colombia as part of their 'We're very Nice People Really" campaign.

Only one problem. Our informant reports, "I don't understand why, the school house looks so pretty it's built of treated wood yet there is a terrible atmosphere inside." Treated wood? Alarm bells rang in Anne's head she had just been reading about the effects of arsenic in treated wood in Organic Gardening Magazine. "What is the children's health like?" she asked quickly. "Terrible!" said our lady teacher. "They are always ill, with respiratory problems, headaches, sickness." There are several of these school buildings in the area.

We reported all this urgently to a well placed friend who said she would find a way to acquire a sample of the wood and get it tested. She said we had to move carefully as to 'cross a multinational company here means death.' Our original informant actually spoke well of the company, saying how grateful she was to get a job at all but added that it was an explicit rule that any employee giving information about the company would be fired immediately.

POLICE BRUTALITY AGAINST A FRIEND IN IRELAND

To hold one's silence in Colombia is understandable, if not advisable. But to do so in Ireland we consider politically immoral. For this reason, we had to part company from a previous supporter who was engaged in anti genetic modification activity on a Monsanto site (longhand for pulling up contaminated beetroot!). The Irish police traced this young man via the Internet and put him through hours of interrogation including physical brutality amounting to torture. We were horrified that in this case the tactics worked: the person was silenced and would not even go to a doctor to show his injuries.

"So long as Man continues to be the ruthless exploiter of lower creatures, he will never know health and peace. So long as men massacre animals, they will kill each other. He who sows the seeds of murder and pain will never reap joy and love. " Pythagoras, 6th Century B.C. (quoted in a Vegan Magazine)

Many moving responses to the news of Don Pedro's death were received from Green Letter readers; these I translated and sent to his widow. Meanwhile a chance encounter brought us the news that our farm was being doled out by the guerrilla commander who exiled us, to his local favourites. Everyone we talk to about the loss of our forests and lands in Icononzo and El Pato says that 'after the war' we will get our land back. After the war? But it has been going on for over 50 years and is not about to end. We would never go back, but we do keep insisting via the National Parks Department that these lands return to 'The Nation' one day for conservation. Maria Teresa, our Parks Director friend, is enthusiastically taking up this offer to make sure it does not get lost in some office drawer.

THE COLOMBIAN WAR

The situation here is worsening daily; the assassination of community and union leaders has been going on for decades, but now the massacre of whole communities of peasants is a regular event. The 'logic' of all this murder is popularly perceived to be 'Shut up and Survive'. Luckily there are many exceptions to this attitude: the amazing thing about Colombia is that still people come forward to take the place of their dead comrades and to carry on working. We meet so many incredible people in quiet places this is a country of unsung heroes. Personally, the more horrors I hear of, the more determined I feel to open my mouth and speak out. Ultimately it is Silence that will kill us all. I hope you will agree and will take every opportunity to make known what is happening in Colombia.

With very best wishes from this still peaceful valley. The reality of daily life is actually hours and hours of gardening, but it is a well known irony of reporting that harmony and beauty and communion with Nature don't make 'news'. However, the really important work of working with Nature's laws occupies us 7 days a week, 365 days a year!

Love and thanks to all our correspondents,
Jenny James

Contents GL 43:

• TRIS AND JAVIER MURDERED BY FARC MILITIA

This is Mary Kelly writing from our sailing boat, Atlantis Adventure in Baltimore, Co. Cork, Eire. I'm writing this Green letter at Jenny's request, as she would find it extremely difficult to write about something so close and personal.

Most of you will already know by now of the terrible tragedy that has struck our community. In early July, Tristan (18), Jenny's grandson, and his friend Javier (19) were murdered in Hoya Grande, Tolima. Tristan was about to come to Ireland to help us in our work here. He went with Javier to say goodbye to his younger brother Brendan, who lives with an adopted family near our 'lost' farm in Tolima. They disappeared without a trace. For many days Anne was frantically trying to get news from friends in the area.

On July 28th, Louise and I were working on our boat in West Cork when we received a message to phone Anne in Icononzo. At first it seemed that Tristan and Javier had been kidnapped. Anne was moving heaven and earth trying to get information. Nobody would speak. Louise and I were worried sick. Then came an E-mail from Anne. I can hardly bear to put into writing that we know there is no hope for the boys. They were killed by FARC militia the same night that they left Brendan's house. They have been gone a month. No word of a demand for kidnap money. These boys are dead. You will have to do what we are doing - cry, mourn, disbelieve, try to take it in and then fight.

Anne writes:

Jenny phoned me from Popayan. From when she first got the news, she never believed there was any hope. She came immediately to Bogota, and we have been making things public with a vengeance ever since against the Hoya Grande FARC militia and Gonzalo, the FARC commander who threw us off our farm with threats. We have to fight like hell against the media not to let them use it to wreck the peace talks between the Government and the FARC.

Two news teams took us to Icononzo to talk to Javier's parents. These simple people were beautiful, though they have every reason to blame us for their son’s death, as he begged Tris not to go to Hoya Grande where they died, but Tris was determined to see his brother, and Javier’s loyalty as a friend made him go too.

We will never know what they suffered in their last moments. We will keep fighting until somehow we've done something with their deaths, though of course it is impossible to ever fill the gap. Mostly we struggle to take it in, that we will never see them again.”

Please help us MAKE A FUSS. Pull out the stops now, and make sure you emphasise that you don't want their deaths to be used to help the Yanks justify their violence in Colombia. Over here in Ireland, Louise and I were grief stricken and horrified to imagine the obviously violent death they suffered. Completely numbed and pale from many sleepless nights, we huddled together with our small boat crew and went over and over the details and began to let in the terrible truth.

Neither Louise nor I had met Javier, who was Alice's boyfriend, but we knew from letters that he was a very fine and strong young man.

I was one of the midwives at Tristan's homebirth in Co. Donegal 18 years ago. Louise, his auntie, is exactly one year older, and shared the same birthday, April 22nd. Visiting friends and sharing the awful news was our first step in accepting their deaths.

We were visited by Telefis na Gaeilge (an Irish T.V. Station). By coincidence they were repeating for the fourth time their short documentary (in Irish) made on our farm in Caquetá 4 years ago. That night on the 6 o'clock news, they showed an interview with Louise and myself at Burtonport, and shots of Innishfree Island, Tristan's birthplace.

They told of Jenny's journey from Innisfree to Colombia with her 3 young daughters and then showed beautiful pictures of Jenny, Tristan and the rest of our group in Caqueta. In the background ‘Escuchame’ (Listen to me) was playing, a rock song written by Jenny and sung for Tristan in the mime theatre show La Mariposa (The butterfly). Through mime and music, this story tells of a city man (played by Tristan) who goes to the countryside one day and falls in love with Nature, symbolised by a beautiful butterfly (danced by Katie) who tells him that her world is being destroyed by man. Returning to the city, he struggles to tell people this truth, but is cruelly killed in his efforts to make them listen. Escuchame is the last recording we have of Tristan. He was one of the most talented members of our Theatre group. We will never forget his memorable shows, and we will never stop our efforts to get people to listen to the message of them.

Many old friends came to a fund-raising night held in Burtonport. Local people who remembered Tristan were so shocked and moved to inquire more deeply about the situation in Colombia. Here in Ireland, cushioned by the Celtic Tiger, people feel falsely secure and very removed from the real world. Through Tristan's death they were able to get a glimpse of Colombia's violent political situation and as Donegal borders on Northern Ireland, people were able to grasp certain similarities and the more complex details of a very dirty civil war. In every press interview we emphasised the insanity of Plan Colombia 'Americas Aid' package of 1.3 billion dollars largely destined for the Paramilitary backed Colombian Army. As Jenny recently wrote:

PLAN COLOMBIA = PLAN MASSACRE

Tristan's death moved many old friends to re-connect with us. Becky, Tristan's mother, who has been out of contact with us for some time, has returned to our group, devastated by the news. She joined us in Dublin at a vigil outside the U.S. Embassy on 30th August, the day Clinton went to clinch his deal with the corrupt politicians in Colombia. This event was organised by friends and family of Irish Priest Fr. Brendan Forde who is under death threat by the Paramilitaries in Colombia. (Louise and I knew Brendan in Ireland and actively campaigned with him against the hidden arms trade here in the not–so-Emerald Isle). In La Union, Antioquia, he has taken a courageous stand, refusing to leave the village where several local people have recently been brutally murdered. Brendan's family are campaigning hugely in Ireland and America using the situation to draw attention to the evils of Plan Colombia.

At first the organisers of the event (mainly Christian!) were uncomfortable about our strong presence outside the Embassy. We had enormous posters of Tristan saying he was murdered by the effects of U.S. violence in Colombia. Just seeing the word ‘murdered’ was too much for some people. We politely complied to take down the posters only because Louise and Becky were given a chance to address the public. They spoke very emotionally and very simply and many people were very moved. Louise spoke about all the positive aspects of Colombia and why it's worth fighting for such a beautiful country. She sang Colombia Hermosa, an incredibly moving song written by Katie (when she was 14) expressing her love for a country that has given her a beautiful life. Many people moved by this song came to sympathise with the terrible loss of two members of our group - and of course were curious as to why we had been required to take down our posters! Louise quietly mentioned this fact in the opening words of her speech.

On the evening news, we heard that Clinton (not surprisingly) was greeted with bombs as he arrived in Cartagena, Colombia!

We are asking everyone to please speak out and expose the real agenda of the U.S. Almost everyday, now, Colombia is in the Irish News.

We spoke to Jenny by telephone. She is inconsolable with grief as she brought up Tristan and watched him grow and develop into a very talented young man. We are very grateful to everyone who has helped us through this incredible time of loss, and are overwhelmed by all the kindness, love and also the donations of financial support received.

Anne and Jenny are leaving no stone unturned in the investigative work and we have heard that the FARC have arrested two men believed to be responsible for the murders (the High Command of the FARC by no means always agrees with what its militia or individual commanders do). There is much work to be done.

If any of you would have time to write to the relevant authorities asking for an investigation into the deaths, we would be very grateful.

There is no Irish Embassy in Colombia. The Embassy in Mexico is responsible for Irish Citizens, and we are pushing the Irish Authorities very hard to make enquiries and call for the recovery of the bodies.

Finally, I'd like to close with a short poem, written by Louise. Her words help ease the pain in this heaviest and darkest time within the History of Atlantis.

Tristan is with us every moment
In a way, stronger than before.
Our love for him and each other shines so brightly
Darkness can't rule any more.
In honour of him and our children
We shall put an end to this deadly war
To change this world and make it better.
Is what we have come here for.

With Love and Thanks,
Mary Kelly

Contents of GL 44:

• AFTERMATH OF TRIS & JAVIER’S MURDERS
• Learning to give up Hope
• Anne visits the FARC High Command
• Private grief and Public Action

It happened the day after my last Green Letter. Most of you will know from Mary Kelly already. On Sunday 9th July, my grandson Tristan and my son-in-law, Javier, both 18, were murdered in Hoya Grande, Icononzo, about half an hour from where we used to live.

Tristan was about to go to Ireland and wanted to say goodbye to his half-brother who lives with a peasant family there. He did say goodbye. Javier, who is native to the Icononzo area, went to say goodbye to his parents as he had made the decision to join our community and come south with us.

I am having to write very coldly and factually, else I would never be able to write this letter at all. Anne first noticed something was wrong when the boys didn't turn up for a theatre engagement a week later. Tristan has always been one of our best actors, a very moving, natural mime artist; a conjurer, comic, dancer and acrobat, unicycle and juggling expert. Also one of the most hardworking and mature youngsters I have ever come across. For many years he was brought up in our community alongside my 3 Irish daughters, technically his ‘aunties’, as their brother.

Javier joined us in the moment of our forcible removal from Icononzo by the guerrilla a year ago by helping Anne get our old bus unstuck from a mud-patch. A beautiful-looking tall darkskinned boy, it didn't require a psychic to predict that he would fall for my rather gorgeous blonde daughters and they for him. This caused some internal drama and tragic soap-opera situations in our community as there were two of them and only one of him.

Now I have two teenage widows who are also young aunties who have lost their eldest nephew brought up as their brother. Of the grownups, if you can measure pain, Anne is perhaps the hardest hit, as she was deeply involved with all the children, their theatre, their welfare, their difficulties and their solutions in the five months I was away in the South setting up our new farm. It was she who gave them the OK to go to Icononzo, saying, "If anyone gives you any trouble, you just tell them I've spoken to the High Command of the guerrilla in San Vicente and that they're going to investigate why we were thrown out, because the order certainly didn't come from them."

She thought she was handing them a strong weapon. Although we may never know what really happened, this could just have been what sealed their terrible fate: that this band of guerrilla-gone-wrong got the wind up and tried to frighten us all off by murdering our kids. They dealt us an unhealable blow, but they got the wrong people if they thought this would shut us up.

When I first got the news on our new farm down south that the boys had been kidnapped, I entered an unreal world suspended in limbo. We heard Anne had gone to Icononzo to investigate. My heart and breathing had stopped; when I thought of writing to Tris to tell him how much we all loved and cared about him, I knew I would not be writing to anyone, I could feel no-one at the other end; and I began to prepare myself for news of his death. Then when I heard Anne had returned after a week in Icononzo and after questioning the leader of the probable murderers, without the boys, I knew there was no hope. It was evening on a moonless night, we had practically no money and I was ill. I called Ned and said, "Please help me to reach Popayan" (a town 6 hours away by vehicle where we have friends who would lend money).

We set off in the muddy darkness and walked 11 hours, all through the cold wet night of the high mountains, till the first bus of day picked us up and immediately, on hearing from Ned what had just happened, agreed to take us half price to Popayan. It had been a night I will never forget. Every time exhaustion and my illness forced me to lie down (in the rain, on the road) and fitful slumber would invade me for a few moments, I would jolt immediately awake with horrible images of Tris’s pale dead wounded face filling my consciousness.

It was 1.0 a.m. when I finally reached Anne in Bogota two days later. We cried together and then we began to work, phoning all through that first night every person, press agency, institution we could find awake. Until that moment, Anne had worked only privately in case there was a spark of hope of saving the boys. But her meeting with the leader of the assassins in Icononzo and his absurd and brutish lying had left her in no doubt. She was probably very near the boys' bodies as she watched him wriggle and concoct and contradict himself and attempt to threaten her.

For days, weeks, we cried, agonized, philosophied, went to hell, came back fighting, phoning always phoning: the Red Cross, the FARC HQ, the Press, the United Nations, talking on TV, on radio, to newspapers, to the Public Prosecutor, to the leaders of the Communist Party, to people on the street and on buses who recognized us from TV news programmes, to neighbours and friends and ex-friends who rallied round with love and help. There was also a tiny but startling minority of people, some of them blood relatives, who chose this moment of tragedy to display their meanest side, but the vast majority of people were breathtakingly caring and loving, including many complete strangers such as the religious lady who stopped me on the street to say, "I saw you on the telly. The Lord will bring you justice for the loss of your son." Still weakened with pain, I gasped, "I hope so" and staggered home, hanging on to my strong daughter Alice who at only 17 was like a mother to me in this situation. A little man who sells newspapers on the corner of Anne's street refused payment when she went to buy a paper with our report in it and has continued to refuse payment ever since. People we barely knew asked what they could do to help and brought us the food we asked for as Anne was so busy she had no time to work for money. Several professional people have offered us bereavement therapy, including the widow of a human rights worker, Ernesto Jesus Gonzalez, whose murder at the hands of paramilitaries was reported in an earlier Green Letter. We say yes to them all.

LEARNING TO GIVE UP HOPE

The nights were the worst. I would collapse exhausted and Anne would be left to her own private hell of self-recrimination and doubt as I fell asleep first; then I would wake at some unearthly hour to the disbelief of a new day and torture myself for several hours before Anne woke up. I gave myself the task of convincing the children and Javier's parents in Icononzo to give up hope, that hope only prolonged the inevitable agony of knowing that Tris and Javier were gone forever. It was my way of trying to believe it myself. We were powerless to help our boys, but we could help all the other people bound in terror and silence in that region of Tolima, peasants so used to being cowed by both sides in the war, that in a sense they had actually caused our kids' deaths with their short-sighted silence over the deaths of their own people.

Don Pedro, our beloved friend, was murdered by the same gang, so was the local nurse and her husband, killed after Tris and Javier. Gonzalo, the brutish commander who forced us out of the area - so people say, to steal our farm - and his cohort, a peasant neighbour called Anita de Jesus Caro and her 2 delinquent sons, together with a large band of 'milicianos' using the FARC name and weapons, were running the region as a private enterprise, murdering anyone who stood in their way. Don Pedro died for opening his mouth. He told a close friend of ours in Icononzo days before he died, "If I am killed, there is only one person responsible: Anita." We are equally sure it was her who concocted pseudo-reasons to get us thrown out as she had shown hostility for our every move throughout the years. And we have every reason to believe she was implicated in instigating the murder of our boys. War always gives a moment of terrible power to embittered souls.

Gonzalo and two of the ringleaders have been hauled up by the FARC leadership for questioning. Three of the other killers have fled to Bogota. Alarm bells rang when we heard this: those fleeing FARC justice often join the opposite, truly psychopathic band of the paramilitaries. As we were by now so well-known visually through outspoken TV appearances where we committed the unforgiveable Colombian sin of naming names, and our girls were there on TV too, singing Katie's moving songs, we immediately set about closing down our farm in Tabio and transporting the kids to a place of relative safety.

Anne and I will remain in Bogota as there still remains an enormous amount of political and personal work to be done in the aftermath of this tragedy. Later, when we have scraped the bottom of every avenue open to us and when we have gathered together the necessary pesos, we will all move south for a period of recovery on our (for now) peaceful farm near Purace National Park.

ANNE VISITS THE FARC HIGH COMMAND

Anne returned for a second visit to San Vicente del Caguan, HQ of the FARC guerrillas, to talk to the commander of the Tolima area, Adan Izquierdo. She reported him to be a serious, attentive, concerned man who guaranteed us both a thorough investigation and fully supported our return to Hoya Grande to seek what I never want to find: the boys' bodies.

One week after this meeting, to Anne's disbelief, she saw on the TV news that Adan Izquierdo had been killed in an accident in the 'Zona de Despeje' - the large demilitarized zone run by the FARC while the slow peace talks take place with the Government. She phoned the High Comand (on a free line provided by the Government - farce continues to rule in Colombia) and was told that Alfonso Cano, Number One after the now very old FARC founder, Marulanda, would now be in charge of our case. Alfonso Cano is someone that even many of those opposed to the FARC cannot help respecting.

Going through Tris’s Possessions and Saying Goodbye

Now, on Sept. 1st and about to leave Tabio for the second time, I am endeavouring to bring on the future, something I thought I could never find the strength or meaning to do. I have gone through Tristan's clothes, found his books in Spanish on marine engineering, astral navigation and sea-diving which he was studying to be a useful member of our sailing boat team in Ireland. I have looked at his book on mime, which he hardly needed, given his natural talent. I have noted the immaculate way he kept his possessions (the other kids are scruffy little devils), I have seen his queer spelling (academic subjects did not come easily to him), I have given away his possessions to those most deserving, I have slept under his duvet and I have called his name out loud when alone in helpless desperation; I have agonized a hundred times, as have we all, over the terror the boys must have felt when they realized they were trapped by murderous lunatics; I have tortured myself over the morality of having the kids here in the first place and I have wept over Katie's unfinished song about him. She can get no further than the line: "I will never forgive the years they stole from you." Nor will any of us.

Tris is recorded many times on tape and theatre videos. I am edging towards a plan for continuing our artistic work without him, which at first I thought we could never bear to do: by creating a whole new theatre dedicated to him, using a background screen of him larger than life - which he now is - while the rest of the youngsters sing, dance and relate to him on stage. Without this acknowledgement, we cannot move forward.

A couple of the youngest kids and our one ramaining Colombian boy will go to Ireland; the rest of us are opting to stay in Colombia through the war ahead and to go where we are most needed: to the area the Americans in their infinite arrogance and stupidity are about to attack: the 'Zona de Despeje', where they are using the excuse of their fictitious 'war on drugs' to re-arm the corrupt Colombian Army, backed by totally ruthless paramilitaries, to seek and destroy the peasant army (the FARC) and, of course, an indiscriminate number of peasants who just happen to be in the way. The paradox of the Colombian situation is that for all its hideous mistakes (like allowing too much local power to commanders so that a monster like Gonzalo can cause havoc), and in spite of our terrible personal grief, the FARC is the only force in Colombia that we know of that is seriously capable of bringing about a vital radical change.

The irony of our situation will invite disbelief: we have lost two farms and forest reserves and now two cherished young men to maverick FARC commanders. And yet we are thinking of accepting their serious and repeated request to go and help them with drug-crop substitution and organic and ecological agriculture, on the basis of them bringing full justice in our case, plus our respect for the serious nature of their leaders which is in stark contrast to the brainless gunmen we – but most especially Tris and Javier - had the misfortune to cross at local level.

Each young person in our community will have a choice to return to the relative safety of Europe, or to continue the work we have started in this desperate country. On television, we were asked time after time: will you all be leaving Colombia now? We answered: "No, our children's blood on this land ties us to this country more than ever before."

When all the sharp and crippling pain of a new and violent death has dulled just a little, the mind's clouds begin to clear. We know Tristan wanted to live, to find a girlfriend, to go to Ireland to seek his roots; he cared not one whit for politics, he hated the FARC; and he frequently disagreed with his granny's choices. He was careful, conservative and materialistic. We were absolutely respectful of his differences and were doing our all to facilitate his return to Ireland. Several people, including Javier's parents, the adoptive parents of Tris' half-brother called Julio and Baudelina, and our friend Gilberto, who sheltered us for many weeks near Icononzo when we were forced to leave our own farm, - all of them the last people to see the boys alive and happy – had all begged Tris not to go out that fatal night, begged him to wait at least till light of day. Even Javier said they shouldn't go. But Tris was a Taurus, strong, stubborn and determined and, like so many other boys of his age, he walked himself and his friend into a sudden, horrific, senseless death.

Private Agony and Public Action

We have all died with our boys, over and over again. But now we must live. And living for those of us left in this tiny community means recycling even the lads’ deaths. We have an incredibly strong weapon in our hands: we are known now throughout Colombia, we are marked forever. We have instant access to the media. A single phone-call can get us an interview on TV. The FARC are bending over backwards to see justice done. They are well aware that had we chosen to, we could have handed the British and American governments an immediate excuse to get even more aggressive in their intervention. It seems hideous to talk in a utilitarian fashion about the deaths of our kids - but what exactly is the alternative? To sob in private, agonize in a private hell forever; flee Colombia, avoid reading all future news of the country we love and end up in useless limbo. This is what many frightened Colombians have done. And the killing goes on, and so does the silence.

Tris, forgive us. We were not there to save you, to stand in front of your self- appointed executioners and say: 'You'll have to kill us first, you shortsighted cowards.' We let you go off on your young man's adventure, and like many a young mountaineer, motorcyclist or soldier, you were cut down before you began to live. And now your strange grandmother who never could give you all you needed, and your talented little aunts, and your carers and helpers amongst the grownups, are going to work with those whom the black and white media would love to label the Devils in this story, to try and bring some sense to this chaotic war.

Colombia is more diverse than the US Government mind. The truth of this country is subtle, sophisticated, ever surprising, deep and hopeful amidst all the death and destruction. And so, Tris, we are choosing to continue to walk into the eye of the hurricane to honour you, your sacrifice, and our chosen path.

I would like to end with the last words from Khalil Gibran's 'The Prophet':

'A little while, a moment of rest upon the wind, and another woman shall bear me.'

I don't really believe this Tris; I tend to think hopeless Hope has created all religions. But I want to, Tris, I want to.

Our love to you and Javier forever,
Jenny

Contents of GL 45:

• Spine-chilling rumours of the boys’ last moments
• Sharing Grief with Strangers
• Daring to Move On
• Tris’s Last Letter

Calling you all by writing frequently, sharing, talking with everyone we meet, is our only consolation. The boys died all over again for us when finally a week ago we heard an eye witness account of the mind numbing horrific way they were slaughtered: in a macabre twisted 'public trial' attended by terrorized villagers who had known Tristan all his life. "These are the bastards who bring strangers to our area," was the accusation by the drunken ringleaders. Tristan and Javier had their hands tied. It was night time. One woman called out, "No, don't kill him, he grew up here," but they swore at her and threatened her to silence. Tristan was killed first, his throat slit. Then his head cut off. Javier had to see that. Then he died the same way. Then their bodies were soaked with petrol and burned to leave no trace.

I write this mechanically, like a zombie, watching these words appear on the screen. When Anne first phoned this news through, I nearly blacked out and lay shuddering and sobbing on the bed, holding bunches of young sobbing girls in my arms. Rafael, who went on Tristan's second to last journey, their first holiday, to Northern Colombia recently, took longer to understand as we were speaking English and he is a black Colombian. Then he too collapsed. It could easily have been him that accompanied Tristan, instead of Javier.

The FARC have executed the two ringleaders but the three who actually performed the hideous killing (where on earth did they find the adrenaline to kill two beautiful boys?) are still hiding in Bogotá. And presumably the commander, Gonzalo, who initiated this barbaric nonsense, is still free. As I write, Anne is in San Vicente, the guerrilla HQ, doing a 'sit in' until getting further justice done. She has been there 10 days so far; it is not unwillingness on the part of the FARC, but the fact that they are on the verge of a worsened war because of the threatened American invasion, that is causing the delay. We have made the decision that even if Anne is unsuccessful in getting an armed escort, we women and girls will go back to where Tris and Javier died in any case, to talk to everyone and erect a stone where they died, also and most importantly to share our grief with Javier's parents who live in a hamlet nearby.

This must all seem totally unreal to my European readers. It seems unreal to us right here in Colombia. The sun still shines, the chickens run round, we eat dinner, the girls sing, we do theatre, we wash up and go to sleep and wake up again to The Knowledge. We walk past the huge photos of Tristan (we have none of Javier I hardly knew him) on the wall; he smiles out gently at us. There is no future, just an everlasting present of absorption, disbelief, private and public tears, moments of laughter perhaps when 1 recall some amusing act of Tris (a great piss taking comedian); and we miss, not only Tris and Javier, but our peasant life in the deep countryside. We are living on a farm akin to a posh English park with the kindest landlord of all time who cries and shares with us. Until we can put this matter to rest, we cannot return to our home near Puracé National Park, though one by one, as a few pesos are earned we send the children there to join the others who are growing our future food.

Sharing Grief with Strangers

Once again, we are preparing and composting a huge garden, though the food we have planted will not be for us. And our theatre work continues, not by choice we have no heart for it but to pay for our journey here by working for the candidate for Mayor who lent his vehicles. He and a 'green' councillor of his visited us one day, the girls sang a couple of moving songs, we talked of the deaths and the next moment the councillor was crying in my arms, for he too had lost a young brother, murdered, a couple of years back ... Some days later, after performing a fairly sophisticated little programme (considering there are only 6 of us left from our original theatre crew) in an old people's home just hours after hearing the final grisly news about our boys, we were talking to the head nurse as we redressed in the toilets, feeling stunned by the images in our heads. She was in tears telling of atrocities she had been forced to witness and expressing her gratitude for our theatre show. She kept repeating, "Thank you so much for living in Colombia and please never leave. Remember that not all of us are violent." That particular day, few of us could be counted amongst the non violent. Even 15 year-old Katie, the sunniest soul imaginable, said she would happily kill. This kind of violence makes potential killers of all of us, though for myself, 1 would prefer that the murderers had to live for ever seeing and feeling and being faced with what they have done and its effect, not only on the dead, but on all who loved them. A vain and pointless phantasy.

Irish Ambassador Comes from Mexico to Visit Us

The Irish Ambassador in Mexico Ireland's nearest Embassy kindly came to Colombia and visited Anne. He most astonishingly made the following request: that if there are ever any further tragedies involving Irish people in Colombia, could he ask for our help as he and the Red Cross people were in agreement that in terms of contacts and investigations, we had moved our case quicker than any diplomatic channels ever could! The rest of his comments, though absolutely confidential, show a very human man and a fine antidote to the icy, hostile and arrogant phone call I had from the British Ambassador in the early days of our agony.

Tris’s Last Letter

While clearing out the very last of Tristan's little private belongings here in Pacho, I came across the last letter he wrote home in April while staying on an island on Colombia's north coast. Although brought up vegetarian, he and Rafa had been forced through hunger to accept work with fishermen. Tris writes:

“Today a fisherman caught a turtle. It was such a beautiful gigantic thing and they killed it. It makes me feel like never fishing again in my life.

"The fishermen chuck all their plastic bags all over the place and it goes into the sea. I pick up bags of this rubbish and take it to the mainland.

“One day we were crossing a road when we heard a crash and it was a motorbike and a small bus; of course the man on the motorbike was the most hurt. It was such a horrible feeling to think that these things happen all the time ... Sometimes 1 feel fed up when I'm tired and hungry and hot ... adventures are not easy and not always good fun…”

What shall grow of this?
We do not know
Great mystery
Great pain
The Reaper sows
Something grows
(sent by Karin Schnurpfeil of Germany)

Where death appears to be
A central certainty,
There is another door opening,
Another dawn, another spring,
Another song .
(found in Organic Gardening magazine)

How to step forwards into a Green future, we really don't know, though we keep working mechanically all the time. And each evening, we meet together with Jose, our generous benefactor who has given us his farm as refuge and a place of mental convalescence... and Katie's songs flow…

Its hard to believe/It seems impossible/to get it into my mind/and say goodbye/to the last hope… But your death won't hide behind silence/ I've had enough of death and violence.... How can they not feel/how can they kill/and then live on/as if nothing is wrong? ..

And I read poems we have written in the past and poems sent by our helpers, and strange words found in old books ...

And they said, with gentle voices:
We are ghosts of the departed,
Souls of those who once were with you.
Cries of grief and lamentation
Reach us in the Blessed Islands;
Cries of anguish from the living,
Calling back their friends departed,
Sadden us with useless sorrow.
Therefore have we come to try you
... Speak of it to all the people,
That henceforward and for ever
They no more with lamentations
Sadden the souls of the departed
In the Islands of the Blessed
Do not lay such heavy burdens
In the graves of those you bury ..
(from The Song of Hiawatha by H.W. Longfellow).

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