CWU Presentation To Look At Conflict In Colombia

April 26, 2005

Contact: Michael Ervin (509-963-1244/fax 509-963-1654/e-mail: ervinm@cwu.edu)

ELLENSBURG, Wash. - Colombia has been a country torn by civil strife for four decades. According to Amnesty International, the civilian population has - literally and figuratively - been caught in the crossfire in armed conflict between government security forces and their paramilitary allies, and armed opposition.

That is particularly true in the oil-rich Arauca region. Guerrillas have attempted to sabotage those resources in an attempt to extort money from the oil industry, while social and union leaders have been killed by the right-wing paramilitaries and the Colombian army, along with being rounded up in mass arrests and imprisoned on false charges.

U.S. funding of the Colombian military is contributing to the hardships there, according to Sonia Lopez, leader of the "Dawn of Women for Arauca."

She will share her personal experience concerning "Women and War in Colombia" at Central Washington University, during a free, public presentation Thursday, April 28, at 7 p.m. in Black Hall 151.

"I want people to understand the difficult situation that we were confronting," Lopez says. "We don't need any more helicopters and guns. We need decent housing, schools and health clinics. We want to work together with you to change the policies of the Colombian and United States governments so that we can finally live in peace with social justice."

Lopez, 21, has been social activist since the age of 9, when she joined the Peasant Youth Association. She would join her parents in the social movement in Arauca five years later. Lopez became the coordinator of a local chapter of the Joel Sierra Regional Human Rights Committee when she was 19 and was selected to direct its Human Rights Committee the following year.

According to the United Nations Commission on Human Rights, Sierra was among several people who served prison time in Cuba for participating in a demonstration protesting the death Luis Quevedo Remolina, who was caught and killed by guards while as he was trying to escape the country in a raft.

Lopez's CWU presentation is sponsored by university's Latin American studies program and Progressive Student Union, along with Community Action for Justice in the Americas, and the Montana Human Rights Network.