Potluck for Peace, Solidarity, and Justice in Colombia

Join us as we share food and listen to Marcos drop some knowledge about Human Rights, Peace and Justice in Colombia. He wiill be in Cleveland to talk about the work his work with the Christian Peacemaker Teams and the challenges faced by the rural communities and human rights workers and organizations There are 7.7 million people displaced since 1985 according to the Colombian government. 2017 saw the implementation of the Peace Accords between the Colombian national government and the FARC, the largest of the revolutionary guerilla organizations. 2017 also saw slightly over 300 human rights defenders murdered worldwide, 121 of those deaths happened in Colombia, compared to 60 in 2016.[1] 2018 has shown little improvement.

Marcos will share stories about the safe havens that CAHUCOPANA [2] (Corporation of Humanitarian Action for Coexistence and Peace in Northeastern Antioquia) has built to host and shelter social leaders and human rights defenders who have been threatened. CAHUCOPANA is asking the Colombian government to officially recognize those safe havens or refuges and requesting the State to provide collective protective mechanisms. CPT-Col has been accompanying CAHUCOPANA since 2008 because an international presence can increase the space of security for its leadership.

Bio: Marcos received an Aeronautical Engineering degree from The National University of La Plata (NULP) (Argentina) in 2006, a master’s degree in Space and Aeronautics after studying in Germany, UK and France 2009-2011, and a master’s degree in human rights from The National University of La Plata in 2016. He worked as teacher and researcher in applied sciences, in the field of space technology at NULP till 2016. He has worked extensively in the defense of human rights with marginalized communities in his country and in regions where armed conflict is present and under military occupation. He volunteered with grassroots social organizations in his city, accompanying land and human rights defense processes from a psycho social and legal perspective. Marcos' first contact with CPT was in 2013 during his three-months service with the Ecumenical Accompaniment Programme in Palestine and Israel - EAPPI (www.eappi.org) - an ecumenical initiative from the World Council of Churches (www.oimoumene.org). He served with the EAPPI team in the city of Hebron where CPT has had a continuous presence since 1995. The two organizations cooperate in the daily tasks, accompaniment and monitoring human rights abuses. Since then, he coordinated the EAPPI committee in Argentina and represented it at the WCC (2014 to 2017).

[1] https://www.theguardian.com/global-development/2018/may/01/2017-deadliest-year-on-record-colombian-human-rights-defenders
[2] https://pbicolombia.org/cahucopana/