Padre Joakin's visit to Grand Rapids - May 12, 2004
The following is a description of Padre Joakin's visist to Grand Rapids MI in April of 2004 written by a Grand Rapids CSN member.
“Cordialísimo saludo.” With that warm phrase of salutation, Padre Joakín rose from the dinner table to greet me for the first time. The moment one meets Joakin, one is struck by the quiet strength of his dignified presence, a strength that has enabled him to work alongside Colombia’s courageous peace communities in their struggles for life, dignity, and justice.
Joakin began his talk to a small but rapt audience at Grand Rapids’ Fountain Street Church with a personal narrative. In that narrative he described himself as the figurative child of two transformational events in the history of Latin America: the Cuban Revolution of 1959 and the decisive adoption of “a preferential option for the poor” by Latin America’s Catholic Bishops in Medellín, Colombia, in 1968.
After explaining the ways in which these two events brought hope to millions of his fellow Latin Americans, Joakin went on to describe how privileged and anti-democratic sectors across the whole region have continuously sought to stymie such hopes. He went on to note that in his own country, those sectors have colluded with the armed forces, and, more recently, with paramilitary formations, to further entrench their privilege and power and to deny the rightful social, economic, and political aspirations of the overwhelming majority of Colombians.
Padre Joakin also denounced the intervention of United States’ governments—both Democrat and Republican—in Colombia’s internal affairs. He had particularly harsh words to say about the Plan Colombia, which was launched by the Clinton Administration and has been upheld by its successor. Far from helping to address the root causes of Colombia’s crisis, Joakin noted, the Plan has only served to further militarize and exacerbate the armed conflict that is ripping apart the country’s fragile social order. Joakin also remarked that some Colombians fear that the Bush Administration seeks to provoke new conflicts along Colombia’s borders. By doing so, he suggested, the US government could intervene in the affairs of Venezuela, Brazil, and Ecuador under the pretext of fighting the war on drugs.
Joakin dismissed the notion that the US is serious about ridding Colombia of the cocaine trade. If it were, he said, then the Bush Administration would be forced to confront the fact that the US is the world’s largest market for cocaine. It would also have to crack down on the illegal drug rings and legal financial institutions that are the main beneficiaries of drug trafficking. Furthermore, Joakin observed, although the drug trade does serve to complicate and aggravate the crisis in Colombia, it is by no means a root cause of that conflict. Absent the drug trade, the war would rage still.
Padre Joakin concluded his wide-ranging explanation of the causes of the conflict in Colombia on a hopeful note. He informed the audience that he is privileged to work with brave villagers who have declared themselves neutral in the midst of a brutal war in which peasants are often forced at gunpoint to side with one or another of the country’s various armed actors. These communities, he observed, harbor within themselves the hope of social transformation. Theirs is a vision of peace with justice, an affirmation of the value of life in the presence of politically and economically motivated death. In closing, Padre Joakin urged his North American audience to support the courageous stance taken by the peace communities and do everything within its power to ensure that US policy towards his country is not motivated by naked economic considerations or by cold geo-political calculations but by the desire to help genuine democracy and social justice take root in his martyred country.