Life Onboard LAST UPDATE  March 19, 2010
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February 7, 2010 Michael Joseph and Human Rights Accompaniment – A simple action that saves lives
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Mr Joseph’s documentation work with the Peace Commission is published in an annual report to alert international organizations and foreign governments about human rights violations in Colombia.

In the days before Michael Joseph boarded Peace Boat – in Cape Town, South Africa – news was breaking in Colombia that a mass grave of more than 2000 bodies was discovered. According to the Colombian Permanent Human Rights Committee, this is the largest such site in the history of Latin America. But this wasn’t a burial ground from an ancient conflict or even the remains of a period known as La Violencia (the violence), which took place between 1948 and 1960 and had a death count of more than 200,000 people. The corpses uncovered in the town of La Macarena (200km south of Bogotá) were all people killed in the last five years of Colombia’s ongoing civil war between the government - with the help of paramilitaries, and leftist guerrilla groups.

Both sides claim to be fighting for the good of the people, but as evident from this discovery, the conflict isn’t saving lives. A number of international organizations working in Colombia and throughout Latin America are, however, offering protection to individuals and communities without taking up arms.
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Human rights activists and community leaders, such as the late Luis Eduardo Guerra, are frequent victims of violent attacks in Colombia. (Photo courtesy of Michael Joseph)
Mr Joseph has been involved in human rights accompaniment and human rights violation documentation for almost 15 years; he currently works with the Peace Commission of the Evangelical Council of Colombia. Accompaniment, he says, is preventative, non-violent protection of individuals who are under threat of politically-motivated attacks or extrajudicial killings. “The goal of accompaniment is not that you can eliminate that danger, but you can create a safe space for activists to do their work.” Community leaders, human rights defenders, labour union organizers and witnesses to political attacks are some of the people who are most under threat of violence.
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Rosindo Romero, a community organizer and religious leader Mr Joseph visits regularly, is alive because of international accompaniment. The police, who were in collusion with paramilitary groups, did nothing to protect him after his life was threatened in 2007. (Photo courtesy of Michael Joseph)
Accompaniers protect individuals and groups – over short or long periods, depending on the situation – by providing a foreign presence in a domestic conflict situation. “It might have a simple meaning, but it can have some profound impacts,” he says, adding accompaniers are not mediators or bodyguards. In countries such as Colombia, perpetrators of violent attacks want as little outside attention as possible for intimidation to be effective. Not only do accompaniers act as a deterrent, they also observe the situation and report to other organizations – governments and humanitarian groups – about what’s happening on the ground. It’s as much about encouragement, as it is protection: Accompaniers must be obvious enough to stop aggression while still allowing those they’re protecting to continue their work effectively.
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A vigil outside the US Embassy in Bogotá in 2000 caught the attention of media and the US Ministry of Defence. (Photo courtesy of Michael Joseph)
Human rights accompaniment gained momentum in Central America during the 1980s. The conflicts going on in the region at the time – in Guatemala, Nicaragua and El Salvador – were heavily influenced by US foreign policy. “People in the US felt a responsibility for what was happening in Central America.” He explains, for example, that in Guatemala accompaniment began with two people from Peace Brigades International (PBI) going to the country and offering to help however they could. Police “backed off” after realising there was an international presence in communities where they were threatening people for speaking out against human rights violations. Now, organizations such as PBI and Witness for Peace , both of which Mr Joseph has worked for, as well as Non-Violent Peace Force – of which Peace Boat is a member - operate throughout Latin America and other regions of the world.

There are risks involved in accompaniment, especially in Colombia. “In Colombia, a lot of it breaks down to whether the risks are coming down from paramilitaries or guerrillas or the Colombian army. Generally the paramilitaries and the Colombian army would not want to hurt an American citizen because (the government) would come down on them very hard.” The guerrillas – the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, or FARC – aren’t as susceptible to such pressure and have been known to kidnap or kill foreigners. Because of this, accompaniers have to choose which situations to get involved in. “If the FARC is threatening groups or individuals, accompaniment could, in fact, make the situation more dangerous. I constantly have to analyze that,” he says.
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Accompaniment, Mr Joseph says, puts you in touch with some very inspiring people and helps build a global support network for human rights work.
Mr Joseph told 68th Voyage participants accompaniment doesn’t always require physical presence. He refers to one aspect of accompaniment – political accompaniment – as a global movement; trying to spread the word of human rights work to other parts of the planet. He encouraged his audience to change their minds about what they’re trying to achieve by travelling around the world. Instead of going someplace just to learn something new, he suggested participants take the simple step of thinking about what their visit to an organization means for the work being done there and that they share their thoughts with friends and family back home. Many human rights activists work in remote places, often with little support: They need the encouragement of their story being told and to know people care about the work that they do.