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Showing posts from April, 2008

Farmers of Garzal and feeding the hungry

Dear Friends,
Imagine being told that the home you built, or were born in, or lived in all your life is no longer legally yours and that you must leave. Further imagine that all of your relatives and neighbors are being told the same thing, and that failure to leave will result in death. This is what is happening to the communities of Garzal.

These people are now being pressured by a former owner to abandon their farms. This former owner, a cocaine producer, is using paramilitaries to threaten them. Their leader, Salvador, who is a Pentecostal pastor and their school teacher, has asked us to accompany them in their struggle to get land titles and resist expulsion from land on which they grow cacao (chocolate), bananas, and yucca. These crops are their livelihood.

So, as a way of supporting them, a CPT delegation spent three days in Garzal. We followed this with a public witness action to raise awareness of the plight of these people. It was finalized with a letter that we signed…