Interview With Mauricio Avilés

November 1, 2005

Offices of the Presbiterio de la Costa Norte
Barranquilla, Colombia

Interviewer: Rev. Britton W. Johnston,

Accompanier for the Presbyterian Church (USA)
and the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship.

--------- Transcript ---------

Hello. My name is Mauricio Avilés. I want to give a very special greeting to the Presbyterian Peace Fellowship, and to all the brothers and sisters of the Presbyterian Church in the United States.

They've asked me to speak a little bit about my story, my experience and all that I've endured as a defender of human rights and the calling I have received to be there for the most needy people.

PPF: Where were you born?

I was born in a village called California Layé. In the Municipality of Sagundo in the Department of Córdoba. One of the seven Departments of Colombia's Atlantic Coast.

PPF: And from there your family moved to the city?

Yes. We moved to Barranquilla. There were a lot of reasons for this: violence in the region, and also the economic situation that was generated by the violence. So we decided that before things got even worse, before the violence got worse, to go to Barranquilla, the largest city on the Atlantic coast.

PPF: What was the violence like?

Paramilitarism in Colombia, as a policy of the government, got started in the Department of Córdoba. Initially, it was a matter of expropriation of lands. There were threats and deaths of community leaders. My family was living there in the village. My grandparents had some fields there.

PPF: Why did they want to take the land?

It was recognized that the situation was good for taking away people's land, to form large plantations, for social control, but also there was pressure to keep people from going out at night...and from getting up early in the morning. There were anomalous violent situations at any time of the day. It was said that in nearby towns, very ugly things were happening. Assassinations. Massacres.

PPF: What year did you leave your town?

We left at the beginning of '95. I was fourteen. This year I turned 25.

PPF: How does your story begin of confronting injustice among the authorities here in Barranquilla?

There is a background to my story.

PPF: Then let's begin with that.

The beginnings of my work with human rights was the approach of social activism of the Presbyterian Church in Barranquilla. I attended there regularly. I already knew the church. Little by little I got interested in the work that they were doing on human rights. The group that worked with human rights was based at the administrative headquarters of the Presbyterian Church in Barranquilla, where they offered workshops. And look, it wasn't just a matter of doing one more social action; it wasn't just a job; it's a life choice, it?s a very evangelical, spiritual vocation to a life of service, with a fully prophetic sensibility. This really motivated me. It began to give meaning to my life. To understand what I could do, it gave me a sense in my life that I could do something that would help many people, who lived in situations that were very close to our own in the village; situations that they couldn't avoid the way that we did. But I encountered a very risk-filled reality that the Colombian people live. To come to know this reality can be like being evangelized little by little, from the victims, by the voice of the victims. To find that it wasn't only a matter of giving a market, or giving food, giving money for a place to stay or for transportation to another city; no, it was a matter of being with them, from suffering with them. This means taking risks. It was satisfying. What we were doing was very meaningful. It made me feel abundance without receiving in return. To be able to give. This motivated me day by day, to feel the need each time to do this work more often.

PPF: How did you get in contact with the Presbyterian Church?

I got involved with a youth group in the neighborhood. Later, there were some training workshops on human rights for youth, from a Christian point of view. I was invited.

PPF: What church was it?

It was in the administrative headquarters of the Presbyterian Church. The North Coast Presbytery. From there it developed. Some people were recruited as facilitators, some people with experience on the topic of human rights. It was shared with all of us youth who were there. Little by little, we received training, as well as encouragement to address the concerns that we had. We were able to share with the victims, with the displaced. To that extent, anyone could get involved as much as they wanted.

PPF: What things specifically did you do with respect to human rights, working with the victims?

At first, it was to get to know them. To get to know them was a reality that overwhelmed me. Later, beginning to study law allowed me to begin to have those tools to give them legal advice. To learn about some concrete actions for their side in the courts. Little by little, I gained entrance to this space, within a group that was converting itself into a church ministry for human rights. Volunteers, youth and university students. We began to take time to choose this for our lives. To share with the victims, the displaced, with everyone whose human rights were vulnerable to be being violated, to see how we can help them with advice. Little by little, there was a program that specialized, not only in listening to the victims, but to carry out concrete legal actions. Later, we did this on a larger scale, as social programs, giving workshops to the communities, accompanying them, and carrying out a complete ministry of accompaniment, at least to try to do this. It was social work.

PPF: Can you give a specific example of what you did? Perhaps a lawsuit that you filed?

Well, the displaced and vulnerable population in Colombia has had their fundamental rights violated. In the case of the displaced, mostly what we did was offer training toward the right of equal protection. This is to require that fundamental rights are upheld, and some rights in particular. At least, they arrive at the city, and there are government agencies, a social safety net, required to give them help. But they weren't taking care of them. They weren't registering them, and due to that, they weren't covered by these agencies. Emergency food aid for up to three months, which is supposed to be provided; a basic kitchen, a basic place to live, just a small mattress; basic expenses; three months' rent money; as well as transportation. Generally, these things were not given them. The extent that people didn't know what rights they had, the agencies always tried to avoid giving them this. These agencies failed to fulfill their commitments. They tried to ignore the displaced population by not registering the families. In the face of this, what was necessary was to exercise the right of petition of grievances. But the agencies did not respond. They didn't attend to the people. Even as they were getting up before dawn to line up at the offices. So what we decided to do, given the emergency situation, with children living in the streets with no food; of desperate mothers who didn't know anything about city life, was to offer training.

Every week, we were able to offer up to ten or fifteen workshops. For us, given the magnitude of the problem, this wasn't much. But it was only through the workshops that they were able to get to know us, and to come to trust us so that we could put on these workshops. But the problem is much bigger than that. Then, people were being denied health care. This is a population at risk, becoming malnourished. In the areas where they live, on the banks of ditches where the water is contaminated, next to garbage dumps, living under plastic sheets—they tend to get very sick. They catch epidemics, infections; but for them, there is no health care. Or when there is health care, they don't receive medication.

There is a portion of the health care system for the displaced population that has the money to care for every one of the displaced people in this country, that is there for health care. So it was a deliberate failure. A deliberate effort to deceive people; so that this money can stay in the hands of the privatized health care system. They justified this by getting the rural poor to sign off on it.

PPF: It was a theft of public funds.

A theft of public funds. It was made legal, signed and sealed, but without fulfilling the contract for adequate health care. The peasant—generally the displaced are peasants—who is illiterate or with a minimal education, not knowing his rights, who isn't grounded in this, doesn't know how to reclaim his due; he didn't know as such what care should be given to him. He couldn't require it. We were visiting people like this, getting to know them where they were. We gained their trust, so we could listen to them and collect their stories.

After this, then, we analyzed their situation and begin to explain some of this to them, to explain what the laws consisted of, that gave them their rights. Later, convincing them to make demands on the system.

PPF: Did you manage to get services for some of the displaced?

Many times. Many times. Many times.

PPF: So you were effective.

Yes indeed. Our group began to specialize in social services, accompaniment, and legal advice. We began to specialize with the displaced communities on this. We began get various actions started. At the same time, if a case were very serious of a failure to provide services, we made a public announcement. This was a more open stand for human rights. We made direct appeal to the Public Advocate's Office, which is an agency of the public administration, which is supposed to be charged with serving the civil population on their legal rights.

We petitioned the Internal Affairs, which is the agency that investigates and disciplines government officials who are denying a legal right or who are omitting to do their duty.

PPF: What year did you discover this kind of work?

This work has certain characteristics. We were a group in formation. There were 58 young people. At that time, it was required to have the same creed. It was open, as a way of making it more ecumenical, so that all the different youth could get involved with promoting human rights. But some of the adult facilitators were threatened in 1999. What that meant was that the human rights process that was being organized was curtailed. Some of the youth became fearful. The ones who had the ability to teach and organize this work had to leave the city. The church had to re-think how to have some people to do this. But a small group of youth remained, we who wanted to continue, because we felt that there was a challenge. That the threats that had happened was precisely so that this kind of activism could never get started.

PPF: Did the adult facilitators quit working on it?

They had to go to another city. They had to leave Barranquilla.

PPF: How did they receive the threats?

The threats to both of them were similar. They were on the way home, and a motorcycle would intercept them. They told them to stop what they were doing or they would kill them. They continued working and a week later they told them to leave the city "or we will kill you." So they hid themselves, and they were looking for them all over the place. So they had to leave the city. They had no other choice.

PPF: How did you know they were looking for them?

Because they would come to the places where they lived, at their residence. Or to common locations where they used to go. Asking for them. And repeating the threats.

PPF: So, how does your story begin?

This work continued to get stronger and more effective to hold the authorities responsible and with wider participation in human rights. The human rights coalition as a group for human rights and as a ministry, we began to participate. As well as the human rights coalition of Barranquilla. Later I was elected to be the representative for the coalition in Barranquilla. At the national level, for Colombia, I represented our coalition. I was directing the group of youth volunteers.

At that time, I went to Bogotá. I had an interview with the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights, in which we asked them to visit Barranquilla to speak about the violent situation there, and the violations of human rights on the coast. Four days later, they almost disappeared me, by force. Agents of the army, soldiers in conjunction with the Administrative Security Department (DAS), the national police force, the national intelligence service; and a specialized group that was set up to fight kidnappings, known as GAULA, formed the "Jupiter Group", a group that specialized in this type of operations. They waited until I was leaving a doctor's appointment, in an SUV, they were outside waiting for me. They forced me into a vehicle without license plates. Fortunately, the doctor who had cared for me at the clinic noticed what happened and told my family. Also, they hadn't noticed that I had my cell phone with me. They brought me to the headquarters of the Second Brigade, where they locked me in a room. When they went out, I was able to call a co-worker and say, "I've been set up" I said, "I'm at the Second Brigade headquarters, and the army has me." After that, they took away my phone when they came back and saw it.

PPF: They put you in the unmarked vehicle without saying anything to you?

Well, they had weapons. They kept saying that I was a guerrilla. I was a guerrilla because I defended human rights. They said that everybody who defended human rights were guerrillas.

PPF: So what happened at the Second Brigade?

They started to interrogate me. They tried to tell me that everybody who works for human rights is a guerrilla. That all the displaced people are guerrillas, and that was why they had lost their land, and they were forced out of the rural areas. They began to say to me—it was a landowner—that because of the indictments that we had brought for human rights, the landowner said he had been arrested three times. Then they began to tell me to say how the Presbyterian Church was organized. Who were the people who were working with the displaced? Who was Rev. Milton Mejia? What does he do there? How do you work with him?

Obviously, according to the thinking that says all human rights workers are guerrillas, and the displaced are guerrillas, but that the church works for human rights with the displaced population, therefore even the church must be related to the guerrillas. Because of their pastoral work. Their ministry. Their work.

PPF: What date did this take place?

June 10, 2004. Last year.

PPF: then what happened?

They held me in isolation inside the Brigade headquarters. Outside, I knew that my family had arrived, with people from the church, lawyers. And some Catholic religious sisters with whom we had been working. They were calling on them to let me go. The army denied that they had me there. They held me isolated like that for one day. But since there were already people involved, people of the Colombia-Europe-United States Coalition, that there was a platform of groups concerned about human rights in Colombia, they began to carry out urgent actions. The Barranquilla human rights coalition did the same. The Presbyterian church began to publicize what was going on. So, that pressure made it possible for the Public Advocates office and international organizations to call the Second Brigade office directly. They said that I was confined there, and to demand that I be released. So they began to say that night, if you'll excuse the expression, "this son of a bitch, we can't do anything to him." They were repeating, "now we can't do anything to him."

PPF: Thank God.

Thank God. So with that in mind, they kept asking questions, but I knew that they were not going to beat me. That they were going to set me free. They detained me until the eleventh of June, when they sent me on to the jail.

Then they lined up a demobilized guerrilla fighter, who had begun working with the army, to testify against me, that I had been a guerrilla. So it was a pile of manipulated evidence. From there, they accused me of committing crimes. Rebellion, extortion, homicide. Conspiracy to smuggle and illegally bearing arms.

PPF: So you remained in jail?

I stayed in jail. I was there four months and ten days. And at the same time, they began to threaten the rest of my co-workers in the ministry. They threatened the Presbyterian Church. They threaten some of the leaders in the displaced community, from among the different displaced people. It was all a way to dismember the effort. And to deny their capacity to exercise their rights to legal defense, to demand my release.

PPF: So when were you released?

They accused me, and what we wanted was to argue our case. Evidence. Testimony. Witnesses. Concrete facts. That could prove I should be freed. They accused me of having placed a bomb in a shopping center. But on the date of that bomb, I was at a workshop at the North Coast Presbytery headquarters. So there were witnesses. Then they said that I belonged to the FARC and that the human rights office, which was located at the presbytery office, belonged to the FARC, and that it had existed for 8 months. We could produce documents and proofs that the human rights office had not existed for 8 months. That it was an office that was years older than that. We could bring proof of the work that we had done with displaced people. How we had formed from out of the church. What concrete activities we had been doing.

They took all this evidence and held it in suspense without making a decision on my case for four months. When they should have decided in the first month. So the court knew that there was tampering with evidence, because it had been made obvious. That it had not been a legal detention. That therefore my detention was arbitrary. Condemned under the laws, the United Nations principles. That furthermore, the prosecutor's office, by keeping me in jail like that, was committing a crime. But it was also a crime on the part of the public police soldiers that had arrested me.

In effect, they were trying to commit a crime, to maintain their threats, so that nobody could defend themselves and prove the crimes of the soldiers. It was at that point that international pressure, all the accompaniment work and solidarity with the church in the United States, all the brothers and sisters, really helped. The visit by Rev. Rick

PPF: Rick Ufford-Chase

Yes. He could sit down with the prosecutor's office

PPF: The moderator of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America visited you in jail.

He visited me in jail. But more than that, he created a commission to talk directly with the Attorney General of the Republic, or with the vice President, with the U.S. Embassy, with the Public Defenders Office, and show them my case and show them all the irregularities that turned up in it. This generated political pressure. It made it necessary for the Colombian government to respond. So it had to dismiss my case after four months and ten days. The 20th of October, 2004.

But it appears that since then the situation has worsened. They continue to assassinate people.

PPF: It was a judge, right? That released you?

It's the prosecutor's office that does investigations. In this case, the justice system in Colombia has a penal system that starts with a prosecutor's office, then the next step is an investigation in the trial, where the judge comes in. It was at the investigatory stage that I was detained. A prosecutor had accused me and issued the order for my arrest. The one that ordered my release was his boss. That was because he was required to do so.

PPF: Before telling us about your release, tell us about Alfredo Correa.

Professor Alfredo Correa Andrés was advising us in our work with the displaced population.

He did sociological studies to learn how the impact of displacement on the small farmer population was developing. He had done a study on the whole Department of the Atlántico. That is where Barranquilla is. He was doing a study on the area around the Montes de María, near the coast, the nerve center of displacements. It's from there that half of the displacements in the coastal region take place. So there were some collaborations between him and us. Seven days after I was detained, the same thing happened to Correa. We wasn't disappeared because one of his sons noticed when he went out the door. It was the same situation, with tampering with evidence, with a former guerrilla who was collaborating with the authorities and doing whatever the military wanted him to do. That is how they accused him. He couldn't walk very well. He had cystitis. But they accused him of having given military training to the FARC. He was 72 years old. But they accused him of being a FARC military trainer. That was the argument they used to justify detaining him. But because of his illness, on the 16th of July, they let him go.

I shared a cell with him. We were together. Suffering, weeping, talking; anguished. Later, having been set free, he remained in Barranquilla. He was teaching classes, because he was tenured at the Simón Bolívar University and at the University of the North. On the 17th of September, he was going home from the university, he was assassinated that afternoon. In the street. Going down the street, he was murdered.

PPF: How exactly was he assassinated?

He had hired a bodyguard. The government had offered him protective services, but the kind of protection you get from the government produces more risk and insecurity than you have to start with. It's been proven many times that the very escorts and bodyguards provided by the government are the ones who assassinate the people they're supposedly protecting. The day comes when the bodyguards can't go, or in a moment when they're not watching, that's when the killing happens. This has happened many times. So he spent his own money to hire a bodyguard. But on that day, he was walking along with his bodyguard, and a young man came up to them who had been waiting on the corner. He shot the bodyguard in the head. When he saw this, Professor Alfredo took off running. But of course he couldn't run very fast. So this guy, the assassin, walked up behind him and emptied his gun into him. Then he ran and a motorcycle came and picked him up.

PPF: What was the date?

The 17th of September, 2004.

PPF: and that was just shortly after he had gotten out of jail.

Indeed. Just a little while after he was freed from jail. So this demonstrated even more clearly what was going on. It appears, then, that everything that was going on in the church, even in relation with the work of the ministry to accompany the displaced population had to be at risk. It was clearly a threat to many people.

They were shadowing everybody. The North Coast Presbytery headquarters was being watched around the clock. My family were being watched. My mother, my father, my two brothers; my girlfriend was being watched. Coworkers in our human rights work were being watched.

PPF: How did you know they were being watched?

Because it was obvious. They went by in front of your house and took pictures. A pickup with tinted windows would lower the window, they took out a camera and were taking pictures. Or they spent the whole day on the corner across from your house watching to see who came and went. Or if my sister went out walking two blocks from the house, she had a pickup driving slowly behind her to see where they might accost her. It was very obvious persecution. It felt like being held hostage, so that the research and the demands and the evidence that we were revealing and requesting could not be accomplished.

PPF: What happened with Correa?s research?

Right now, one year after his murder, it was able to be offered in a book that recovers the research that he did in the Department of the Atlantic. This is a very useful tool for understanding how the displaced population is suffering in the Department of the Atlantic. I would say that it?s a reflection of everything that the displaced population is living, at least in the coastal area.

PPF: What is its title?

"Pistas hacia un nuevo rumbo" was the title given to the book. It is the study that he did, emphasizing the process of displacement. "Steps toward a new destination" was made possible through a collaboration with the Europe-Colombia coalition for human rights, and the Ecumenical network of Colombia. The Presbyterian church of Colombia is a part of the Ecumenical network.

PPF: Well, after you got out of jail, what did you do?

Well, since the situation had become so difficult, everything was ready for the moment when I would come out of jail, to leave the city that very moment, or day or night. I was released at eight o'clock at night. The United Nations High Commission for Human Rights had made a commitment with the director of the jail that they would escort me with their own guard, wherever I wanted to go. That was how they took me to the airport. There my brother picked me up. There was an accompaniment by the International Peace Brigade, that had been requested by the Inter-ecclesial commission of Justicia y Paz in Bogotá and by the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights. So I left for Bogotá right away on a flight from the airport. I was accompanied by the International Peace Brigade.

In Bogotá I stayed near the Presbyterian Church, but even more I stayed close to a group there that specialized in human rights situations like that. It's called the Inter-church commission for Justice and Peace [Justicia y Paz]. They took charge of my case. They kept my profile low; they hid me, while my case was being resolved in the courts.

Later, the Colombia-Europe Coalition in an assembly of organizations decided that I should meet with the United Nations Commission on Human Rights at their 61st session in 2005. That was how I managed to leave Colombia.

Let me emphasize that in spite of the fact that there was a lot of fear and a lot of gloom, I still was not very clear about what I wanted at that time. It had been a situation that didn't let me think, very gloomy and I felt that my dreams had been lost. So I rejected some of the chances to leave the country. Because it wasn't clear to me what I could hope for, or what I could do with such an opportunity. That's why I didn't go with the Colombia-Europe-United States Coalition. I went to participate in the United Nations High Commission on Human Rights instead. That allowed me to spend some time away, to get to know this commission.

PPF: Where did you go?

To Geneva. To the city of Geneva. I was there the whole time, working with the United Nations. I was also working with a team with an ecumenical coalition, of which the Colombian Red Ecumenica [Ecumenical Network] is a part. We presented my case. We presented various cases of victims, to show the degree of human rights violations in Colombia.

PPF: So when did you return to Colombia?

I returned on the 11th of May, 2005. It was then that I decided to stay in Colombia. [Note: Mauricio returned to Colombia after numerous international appeals led to the legal case against him being thrown out]

PPF: Do you still have to have protection? Are you still receiving threats?

Well, I have not received threats as such at this time. As far as protection, to the extent that I might go to a certain area, there might be more danger. But to be in the city now, where I've been staying, Bogotá, I dispense with protection. The danger has diminished a little bit. Also because it is little known, very few people know where I stay in Colombia. It's also helped for me to change my look. [one sentence deleted for security reasons].

PPF: and now what dreams do you have? What goals?

There's one thing that's very clear to me. For me, working with the most needy, with human rights and with the victims of violations of human rights, is how I must lead my life. It is a calling to service. I want to be there, I want to continue in that direction. But I feel that one goal I have toward that calling is to finish my study of law. I wasn't able to finish them last year, I couldn't graduate, and now I have to repeat the whole year. Furthermore, in the university where I was studying, some of the academic records mysteriously disappeared. So to the extent that I might want to go back to the university to resolve this situation, it might give a chance to somebody who might want to commit a violation against me, even assassinate me. That's why I haven't gone back, and I'm looking at the possibility of studying, even if it means taking the same classes over again because some of the classes I had already taken don't appear in my record.

PPF: Do you have money to go back to school?

As far as that goes, right now I've been working on a project to recover historical memory in a displaced community in Chocó. I had a contract for three months. But right now I'm unemployed. I received some help from the Red Ecuménica for my living expenses, and some help where I'm living. But it's only enough to live. So I will be looking for a way to see how I can study. Because in Colombia, practically all of them have been privatized. And the public universities have been impoverished and politicized. There's an extreme level of surveillance. So to study in a public university, where I wouldn't have to pay, would put me in serious danger. I would be at serious risk.

PPF: Have you found a university in Colombia?

Among the universities that I might consider, that have the programs I need and at a good price, is the Universidad Libre de Colombia, in the Bogotá branch, where I've been living.

PPF: Is there anything else that you might want to say? A greeting to someone?

There are many people I need to thank. For their solidarity. Their brotherhood. For all the support I've received. For the trust they've given me. For their prayers. Blessings. To each of them, I want to say thank you. For all the solidarity on the part of the church, for finding this space of brotherhood. To be able to be there and for all the support they gave me.

Little by little, I'm once again reorganizing my life. I had to endure some very difficult moments to be able to make my life again, and from there to begin working again. To work in the Ecumenical Network, where I'm presently a part of the national enabling team, making a difference to help the displaced population. And, with Justicia y Paz, where there was a more systematic approach to human rights, gathering information necessary to influence the system, filing legal cases and giving workshops to displaced people. I feel that this is my calling to service, my career.

As to what has happened in this experience, that was the way that I passed through the desert that I crossed. All of us must cross it; and it strengthened me in my faith.

PPF: What would you suggest could be done with this recording without putting you at risk?

I think that if this recording helps to give anyone hope, to keep on dreaming, or to help someone to begin to dream; it can be used publicly. In any case, I have to reestablish my life and that implies coming out publicly.