Specials DIVERSITY EMPLOYERS MAGAZINE Spring 2011 - Anniversary Commemorative Issue Hispanic American Village Jobs Center Featured bilingual and other opportunities for all levels   Alliances Meet more IMDiversity Employment Opportunity Network allies

Foro Digest: A Consequence of the War

Reports from the World Social Forum in Caracas

By Roberto Lovato, New America Media

CARACAS, Venezuela - Jan 27, 2006 - I'm trying to make things connect -- and failing. In front of a computer terminal beneath the tent housing the World Social Forum (Foro) press and tech office on an air force base, I’m attempting to write, to explain, to document what I learned from dozens of activists and thinkers who are probing deeply into the nexus between militarism and migration in the Americas. I’m failing.

The dirty air, the ubiquitous Spanish and noisy helicopters distract me and I’m back 15 years to wartime El Salvador. Old images of the displaced and refugee campesino communities I worked with in conflicted zones draw me away.

I look to my right and see a little girl in braids and folded up brown jeans sitting at the terminal next to me. She watches intently and smiles and then walks over to me.

“My brother just hanged himself at 11 in the morning yesterday” she says matter-of-factly. I’m taken aback and wonder if she’s playing, kidding or something.

Dumbfounded by what she said and rushing to get the militarism and migration story out, I soldier on, typing feverishly about what I learned at the Foro today when a soft, deep female voice behind me says, “Es consecuencia de la guerra” (It’s a consequence of the war).

I look behind me and see a black woman, Nancy Rambal. She is a friend of the mother of the little girl whose name is Grace. She´s watching Grace while surfing at another terminal. Nancy tells me that she´s visiting her friend Maria, Grace´s mom from Colombia. I ask Nancy what she means about the consecuencia and the suicide and she tells me ¨Maria fled to Venezuela after being persecuted, tortured and jailed for 2 years by the government in Colombia. She and her husband were accused of being ‘subversivos’ , now you call them ‘teroristas’. Her (Grace’s) father was killed by the government in Colombia. So she (Maria) had no choice but to take her children and leave.¨

I look at the pain in Nancy´s eyes and an old sadness takes hold of me. It´s like an extension, a variation on the theme of Latin American tragedy that first gripped me in El Salvador. The zeitgeist of hope filling the dirty air surrounding the Foro fades.

Grace interrupts us and says, ¨I can´t get in. I can´t get the name and code (password) to see the last message my brother left me.¨

“Aldair was the older one. 13. He absorbed a lot of the terror, the psychosis of war and the effects of having to leave under these conditions,” says Nancy who had originally planned to attend the Foro as one of the many distractions of her vacation. She continues, ¨He also suffered here in Caracas where other kids made fun of him because of his color, because he was from another country.”

Though she is neither an official Foro participant nor a ¨persona politica¨ (political person) Nancy does have what many a Foro delegate calls an ¨analisis politico de la situacion” (political analysis of the situation). ¨Most people migrate because of the war and poverty. The (Colombian) government follows the directions of the United States (government.) That´s what Plan Colombia is about. I find myself agreeing with much of what I´ve heard here – and I didn´t expect to,¨ says the middle class professional who´s wearing a sleeveless silk summer shirt and matching pants.

As Nancy and Grace prepare to leave, I look down at all the notes I have and realize I´m not going to tell the story about militarism and migration I had planned on telling today. The many interviews I conducted will have to wait. I wanted to write about how the Ecuadorian women I met who are fighting against the US military base that displaces them and forces the migration of thousands of their compatriots near the port city of Manta; I also wanted share what I learned from a brilliant expert on hemispheric migration about how the US trade and military foreign policy are the primary drivers of South to South (Colombians, Bolivians, etc. to Venezuela, Chile, etc.) and South to North (as in US) migration.

I´ll have to probe deeper into the political, analytical connections between militarism and migration at another time.

Speaking to Grace and Nancy stirs not just sadness. It also reminds me of why I'm here: to be inspired by and give solidarity to people I know to be courageous in the face of daunting conditions. As she hugs me and walks away Grace says, ¨Adios, Roberto. I'll see you. I have to be strong for my brother.¨

Another World is Possible.

--RL

NAM contributor Roberto Lovato is attending the World Social Forum in Caracas, where more than 60,000 people, half of them from outside Venezuela, have gathered for the annual event. His impressions will be posted throughout the week.