Pubdate: Sun, 17 Feb 2002
Source: Chapel Hill News (NC)
Copyright: 2002 Chapel Hill News
Contact:  http://www.chapelhillnews.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/1081
Author: Virginia Knapp, Staff Writer

VISIT TO COLOMBIA PRESENTS OPPORTUNITIES FOR ACTION

Witness For Peace Member Brings Back First-Hand Accounts Of The Effects Of 
U.S. Drug War On South American Country.

HILLSBOROUGH -- As Jena Matzen clicks through slides of her recent trip to 
Colombia with the Witness for Peace program, a number of doleful themes 
spring forth:

Murder.

Deforestation.

Economic ruin.

Yet for every story and picture that presents a bleak outlook for the 
future of the South American country, Matzen sounds a drumbeat of hope that 
raised awareness in the United States can stop the devastation taking place 
there.

"My hope is that the U.S. would be involved in a supportive, peaceful role 
in the peace process and not engaging in what is to me terrorism," Matzen 
said about the U.S. role in funding anti-narcotics initiatives in Colombia, 
which is wracked by civil war. "In the end it's really about, we're not 
doing right by the Colombian people."

Matzen will speak about her trip to Colombia at 5 p.m. today at CHICLE, the 
Chapel Hill Institute for Cultural and Language Education, at 412 W. 
Franklin St.

Matzen, an Orange County resident, was one of about 40 participants from 
across the United States who took part in the trip with the Witness for 
Peace program, a nonpartisan group that arranges many visits such as this 
one to Mexico, Central and South America for human rights awareness.

"The idea is to get U.S. citizens down to see the impact of U.S. policy and 
then come home and work to change that policy from militarization and 
oppression to one of peace," said Gail Phares, a founder of Witness for 
Peace who works in Raleigh.

The delegation went to Colombia in January to talk with labor organizers 
and farmers about how U.S. funds spent on military intervention in the drug 
war affect their lives.

Matzen said she saw areas where military planes had indiscriminately 
sprayed pesticides on subsistence crops instead of the coca plants the 
effort was supposed to target. Farmers spoke of losing their black pepper, 
corn and beans to the pesticide planes even when one man had erected a 
flagpole with a white flag on top to show the pilots he had no coca on his 
ground.

"This man did everything he could possibly do, even waving surrender, but 
it was futile," Matzen said. "What is so tragic is that you have people 
that sign pacts with the government (for economic assistance) and are 
working on eradication of coca plants, and they get wiped out."

While the government claims the spraying is not toxic to humans, Matzen 
said a family told her of a baby who had died after being sprayed and of 
livestock that also died.

The weeklong trip to Colombia tied together Matzen's longtime interest in 
environmental issues with her more recent work for farmworkers' rights. She 
is a freelance lawyer and previously worked for Farmworkers Legal Services 
and the Immigrants Legal Assistance Project. She is also on the board of El 
Pueblo, El Centro Latino and the Orange County Human Rights Commission.

In college, Matzen also helped found the Institute for Regional 
Conservation, a nonprofit group based in Florida that works on 
bio-diversity and environmental issues in the Southeast and the Amazon in 
South America.

As a representative of that group, Matzen spent five months traveling the 
Amazon, which gave her a background on environmental issues in South 
America that she also used on the trip to Colombia.

"The people who are getting sprayed and wiped out are moving into the 
rainforest areas and cutting it down," Matzen said. "The people are really 
the victims in this."

Both Matzen and the Witness for Peace program advocate that drug war money 
should be spent on expanding drug treatment in the United State to decrease 
the market for cocaine. They also support improving Colombia's 
infrastructure and domestic markets for other crops so farmers don't have 
to depend on coca to make money.

Matzen also said she came home from the trip with an increased awareness of 
the opportunities for action here at home.

"It was incredibly emotional to hear stories of people who have been doing 
the same work I do" advocating for workers and the environment, Matzen 
said, "but who have lost their lives.

"It made me realize I love my country, even though I don't agree with 
everything it does, because I can take up unpopular causes and not be 
threatened with losing my life."

More information about the Witness for Peace and Colombia can be found 
online at http://www.witnessforpeace.org or http://www.colombiamobilization.org
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MAP posted-by: Terry Liittschwager