Chocolate of Peace is a documentary film that depicts the struggle of the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó, and their fight to remain neutral in the face of the Colombian armed conflict.
“Most people are ignorant about the work of farmers. They just go to the supermarket and take what they need… It would be nice if someone drinking that hot chocolate also knew its story and how it got there… This cacao is the product of a struggle, which has taken the lives of many people. It has taken time but it has also been the strength for us to carry on, and we have achieved it in the midst of war.”
~ Bladaimir Arteaga, Farmer from the Peace Community of San José de Apartadó
From the seed, to the product, the documentary uses cacao production as the narrative thread that takes us through the Community’s stories of violence and resilience.
People in this area have been farming cacao for generations. It is a long process that takes dedication – a love of the profession and a love of the countryside – from preparing the land, sewing the seed, the work of harvesting it, opening it, carrying it, drying it and then processing it. It’s the life’s work of the people living within the Peace Community in Urabá, in the north west of Colombia, close to the Panamanian border.
María Brígida González is an artist that lost her 15 year old daughter in the conflict. She now paints the histories of the Community to maintain their memories. “We came to these lands, this region of Urabá in 1967, looking for new horizons. Urabá was like a promised land… However, there has always been paramilitarism here since the 1960s… the banana companies were the boss and they had the ‘mano negra’ – black hand. That was the name of the paramilitary back then, the death squads.”
In the documentary interviewees reminisce about the early days of the co-op formed in San José and the surrounding hamlets, and the formation of the Patriotic Union. They would organise street parties and fairs to raise money for their schools, health centre and community spaces. They had a great sense of joy living there.
However, in 1996, paramilitary carried out a massacre and killed all the leaders of the Community Council. They killed the chair, who was a Patriotic Union councillor. Over the 80s and 90s around 5000 members of the Patriotic Union were assassinated with impunity by an alliance between politicians, military and paramilitaries. In 1987 Jaime Pardo Leal, the Patriotic Union presidential candidate, was assassinated. Thousands of people accompanied his coffin in Bogotá. At this point all social movements in the area were declared military targets.
On 23 March 1997, the remaining hamlets that were not displaced, came together to create the neutral Peace Community of San José de Apartadó.
Neutrality meant you couldn’t be part of any armed group. You couldn’t give information to armed groups, you couldn’t sell them anything, you couldn’t bear arms or store munitions. You couldn’t have anything to do with them. Not to one side, nor the other. The problem was that the guerrilla and the paramilitary believed them to be on the other side.
A week after the Community was founded the military and paramilitary caused the mass displacement of all the settlements.
One farmer described this moment, “I had never lived through forced displacement before. In the moment that we abandoned our home, when we were on the path towards San José, I didn’t know where I was going, where I was going to end up, I didn’t have any money. I was carrying a little girl who was only one week old… we ended up in San José… it was a very difficult situation… outside of the village there were guerrilla who killed, paramilitaries who killed, and the army who protected the paramilitaries so that they could kill.”
They began farming in large groups of 50 or more to prevent individuals or small groups being disappeared. Another massacre happened on 21 February 2005. They chopped many people up with machetes and poisoned the river, which killed the pigs, the chickens, the fish, any animal that drank the water died. They killed many children of a very young age.
With a horrific history of struggle, the Community remains defiant and with hope. A member of the community explains that they “want to build life where there has been so much war. Cultivate love where there has been so much hatred. Ask for justice but without vengeance. Build dignity, where others have wanted to take our dignity from us. And defend our territory, because that is the life of each one of us.”
Their plight came to the attention of British company Lush Cosmetics. Now every year the community sells the company 100 tonnes of cacao. They buy cacao at a fair trade price to produce the Peace Massage Bar. Alongside the NGO Peace Brigades International (PBI) they have given international visibility to the community.
Chocolate of Peace was produced in Colombia and the United Kingdom by Gwen Burnyeat and Pablo Mejía Trujillo, in 1996. The documentary is available to view on Vimeo.
Further Information
Community of Peace of San José de Apartadó, has operated since 23 March 1997. Their vision is “Lets all go forward with love and a lot of love”.
www.cdpsanjose.org
T: @cdpsanjose
Chocolate of Peace was produced in Colombia and the United Kingdom by Gwen Burnyeat and Pablo Mejía Trujillo, in 2016. The film was produced with the full permission and in close collaboration with the members with the Community of Peace of San José de Apartadó.
www.chocolatedepaz.com
T: @chocolatedepaz
Peace Brigades International (PBI) was founded in 1981. The NGO provides protection, support and recognition to local human rights defenders who work in areas of repression and conflict and have requested support. PBI believe that lasting transformation of conflicts cannot come from outside, but must be based on the capacity and desires of local people. They have worked in Nicaragua, El Salvador, Sri Lanka, North America, Haiti, Nepal and the Balkans and have current field projects in Colombia, Guatemala, Honduras, Indonesia, Kenya, Mexico and Nepal.
www.pbicolombia.org
T: @PBIColombia
*Main article image is a still from the official trailer to Chocolate of Peace. ©Chocolate of Peace, 2016
