The Role of Children as Peace-makers in Colombia
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Development. Copyright © 2000 The Society for International Development. SAGE Publications (London, Thousand Oaks, CA and New Delhi), 1011-6370 (200003) 43:1; 40–45; 011886.
Children’s Rights in Conflict and Peace
The Role of Children as Peace-makers in Colombia SARA CAMERON
ABSTRACT Sara Cameron reports on the Children’s Movement for Peace in Colombia which, with the support of organizations like UNICEF, has put into practice the fundamental principles of child rights and participation. Cameron shows how the Convention on the Rights of the Child gave the power to these children to protest against war in ways that have profoundly transformed communities across the country. She argues that the Children’s Movement for Peace provides many lessons for other countries and communities in conflict for children to exert a strong influence on adults to make peace. KEYWORDS ballots; community; guerrilla war; peace carnivals
Introduction In 1995 the mayor of the beleaguered, war-torn municipality of Aguachica in eastern Colombia announced that a referendum would be held asking residents to choose, quite simply, whether they wanted war or peace. Aguachica had become a microcosm of Colombia’s decades-long guerrilla war. Guerrillas and paramilitaries fought each other by attacking anyone they believed guilty of supporting the other side. Husbands were slaughtered in front of wives, parents in front of children, community leaders in front of entire villages. Many families had been forced out of their homes by violence. Shortly after the announcement of the municipal referendum – the first of its kind anywhere in Colombia – a group of children went to the mayor to ask if they could also take part. With the mayor’s blessing they set off around the town, singing peace songs, condemning violence and urging children to come out and choose peace. Many children took part in that historic ballot in Aguachica, but their votes were seen as purely symbolic and were never even counted.
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Cameron: Children as Peace-Makers in Colombia Violence in Colombia and the Declaration of the Children of Apartadó The war began in 1948 with a brutal conflict between the two main political parties that escalated into a guerrilla war in the mid-1960s. In the 1980s right-wing paramilitaries entered the war and are responsible for most of the worst human rights violations. The guerrillas profess to be fighting a war of social justice, opposed to the extreme inequalities in Colombian society – yet the rural poor, the intended beneficiaries of the struggle, have always been its major victims: • Since 1985, 1,500,000 people have been displaced from their homes by violence, out of which over half are children (CODHES, 1999). • In 1998, the rate of displacement rose by 20 percent over 1997 figures; eight households were displaced by violence every hour (CODHES, 1999). • Sixty percent of displaced children drop out of school (Truyol, 1999). • There have been over 5000 kidnappings since 1995 (El Espectador, 1999: 6A; Reuters,
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