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Columbian Torture Survivor Tells His Story
Posted by Blogdolfo on May 16, 2008

DIE FAST AND QUIET
WHEN THEY
INTERROGATE YOU
OR LIVE SO LONG
THAT THEY ARE ASHAMED
TO HURT YOU ANYMORE
- Jenny Holzer

Juancho stood in front of his parents apartment complex and entered. The receptionist offered to announce him, but Juancho refused. He walked up a flight of stairs and knocked on the door.

"He's alive!" Screamed his sister while she threw her arms around him.
  
His family hadn't seen him for four months. In those four months Juancho was tortured and detained by the Colombian guerilla, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia – People’s Army, (FARC). The Bogota native has been living in the United States for over seven years under political asylum.

According to the Office of Immigration Statistics of the Department of Defense the number of Columbian asylees in the United States in 2006 was 2,964, making up 11.4% of all asylees in the country. However the number of asylees has decreased in recent years, in 2004 there were 4,368 and in 2005 they were 3,361.

While most people get involved with the guerrilla for the political ideologies, the dream of owning and operating his own business is what caused Juancho to become involved with the guerilla. He had started his own cleaning company and another selling communication technology throughout the world.
  
"My error with the guerilla was that I had the brilliant idea to generate work and employment without their permission,"Juancho said sarcastically. "I didn't know that I needed their permission."

When a man entered Juancho's office he treated him like any other potential client, until the man identified himself as a FARC member. He explained to Juancho that he had not asked for permission to operate a business. Juancho replied that he had done everything necessary through the government. The man then ordered him to go to a restaurant and order his favorite food, if not they would kill him.

"He told me to order steak with yuca and fried banana," Juancho said. "They knew what my favorite."

Juancho followed through with his orders and arrived at the restaurant by bus. Once there he took a seat while the restaurant filled up and ate his yuca. Suddenly someone said "its time" and everyone in the restaurant stood up. They took Juancho into a car and after some miles they pulled over. They had to travel by horse. His hands were tied and a black bag was placed over his head. At which point breathing became difficult and the heat only made it worse.

The group and Juancho arrived to a mansion in the middle of the jungle. The path to the mansion was so narrow the horses couldn't venture towards it. Once inside, Juancho, was treated like a guest and felt as comfortable as he could, given the circumstances.

He had a meeting with the guerilla leader, who Juancho refuses to name, who explained that he needed to pay the FARC. The guerilla leader, fourth in command, told him that they were a government within the government, with their own arms and financial groups. Paying them wasn't a problem for Juancho.

"I was having a moral conflict because I didn't want to pay for bullets that would shed blood over my country," he said.
 
One day later, Juancho made the trek back home remembering what he experienced in the mansion as a mini-kidnapping that would not be his last.

In exactly a week he was visited by the paramilitary who informed him that they knew he was paying the FARC and that Juancho needed to pay them the same amount. This made Juancho immediately suspicious.

"First off it was how soon they came to see me," Juancho said, "and secondly why the same amount?"

Three days after the military visited him and told him that since Juancho was paying the guerilla and the paramilitary, he had to also pay them for protection. They also asked for the same amount the other two groups asked for.

"Those who understand what was happening internally know that the war is a mock battle", said Juancho, who studied the violence in Columbia in college. "That's how violent were are that we have a major in the study of the violence of our country."
 
Juancho explained how these three organizations were working together. The military calls the guerilla and tells them that at 7 p.m. they are to shoot in a certain place. They have fifteen minutes until the military arrives. The military then shoots to where the guerilla was and to the media it looks like they're fighting against the guerilla.
 
Peace is not in the interest of the military, Juancho said, because they get paid double when they're in conflict. The guerilla, the paramilitary and the army are fighting no one.

"Then theres 35 million idiots getting shot at, believing that the military is defending (the people of Columbia)," Juancho said.

Juancho began planning how he would get out of his predicament alive without supporting the corruption that plagued the nation. In two months he dissolved his companies causing them and him to become bankrupt.
 
The FARC wasn't happy because Juancho intended to outsmart them. One day as he walked down the street an SUV drove up to him and the guerilla kidnapped him. He traveled on the floor of SUV.

They took him to a house in an unknown area and placed him in a room where they told him that since he no longer had the company's he didn't need to pay them anymore, but that he still had to pay them for the months he owed them. The most important reason he was being kept was to make an example out of him to show what happens when you attempt to mock the FARC.

"You are going to learn your lesson, no one makes a mockery of the guerilla," they told him.
 
Juancho knew that he wasn't in Bogota because the house was hot and Bogota was cold. His bare room smelled of waste, vomit and death.
 
He was always tied up and beat everyday, but he considered himself in a better position than the other people in the house. He could hear when woman were being raped, when people were being tortured and when they were beating someone to death.
 
Juancho could hear when they were torturing people while they had their family members on the phone. It hurt him to hear them suffer because in the time that he was there the people became his family.

Juancho wasn't sure if it was a good thing that his family was never called. The guerilla didn't call because they weren't holding him for ransom. The fact that he only ate once a day didn't bother Juancho, but the fact that he didn't have the liberty to go to the restroom by himself did. Not having freedom is one of the worst feelings in the world, he affirmed.

Juancho defined torture as simply not being able to see his family and know that they're fine. The abuse he received was an addition to his torture.

His faith in god and his attempts of making the best out of his circumstances is what helped him perceveer. During his time there Juancho would tell jokes, sing and talk to his fellow prisoners.

"But it was hard when we were interrupted because someone was being beaten to death," he said.

The FARC used scare tactice to control their captives, knowing this Juancho tried not to let the abuse get the best of him, something that bugged the guerilla. He would also sing, pray and talk to his captors as well. He would ask them how many people they had killed and reminded them that they could never take the deaths off them.

"This is all a game, there is no war," Juancho would tell the guerrila members. "A war does not last this long. World War II lasted for five or six years and ours has lasted for 60 years."

One day a new guerilla member that was very violent arrived at the house and began beating Juancho eveyday. The third day Juancho broke his ties and began chocking his aggresor. While he was chocking him, Juancho would kick the guerilla member's body with his knee.
 
"What does it feel like? What does it feel like?" Juancho would ask him. "I'm not going to kill you because im not a murderer, but I want you to know what it feels like."

The scars on his hands are a testament to the price he payed for the incident. The guerrila came in and tried to stab him, Juancho would grab the blade with his bare hand. Then they grabbed his hand and began to saw away at his thumb so he would learn his lesson. They stopped cutting after they cut through part of his bone.

Four months after he was captured they ordered him to shower and change into new clothes. Blindfolded they took him in a car to Bogota where he was ordered to sit in a bench in a park for two hours and afterwards take a bus home. They warned him that if he left before the two hours he would be killed. He sat there for four hours.

Juancho filed for political asylum and was surprised at the speed he was granted political asylum. Now in the United States he has a family and works in Virginia to help the Latino community. He also payed of his dept to the guerilla once he arrived to the U.S.

It's been more than seven years and the memories are as fresh to him as if they happened yesterday. To him the violence he lived through is a reflection of the state of his country.

"It's very sad when the people in power, the politicians in power begin to worry more about filling their pockets with money," Juancho said, "without realizing what is happening around them."

 

 

Twelve-year-old Kevin Prada, protested at the May Day Marches in Downtown Los Angeles against the raids by Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE).

Raids in Van Nuys Negatively Affect Children
Posted by Blogdolfo on May 13, 2008

I UPDATED MY PREVIOUS STORY ON THE EFFECT THAT RAIDS HAVE ON CHILDREN WITH THE RAIDS IN VAN NUYS. MAKES YOU WONDER WHAT KIND OF WORLD WE LIVE IN WHERE YOU NEED A STUDY TO TELL YOU THAT RAIDS ARE HARMING THE CHILDREN OF THOSE DETAINED.

It has been more than two months since Jessica's mom was detained by Immigration and Customs Enforcement in an immigration raid in Van Nuys, but to her it feels like just yesterday that she watched her mom drive off in an unmarked van.

Several hours later Maria returned to Micro Solutions Enterprises, where she was detained, and was reunited with her daughter. Although Jessica strives to be her mom's support, she says she feels nervous and anxious since the raids.

"You always look worried," Jessica said, "You're always looking at your cell phone and think that while your at school they will come and pick (your mom) up."

Maria notices that her daughter has become distant and at times rebellious since the raid, during which 144 people were taken into custody.

"I don't think they would conduct raids if they knew the damage they were causing our children," Maria said in regards to ICE. "I don't have any family here. What's going to happen to her?"

Jessica, however, is far from being alone. More than 3 million children born in the U.S. have at least one undocumented parent, according to a study conducted by the Urban Institute titled "Paying the Price: The Impact of Immigration Raids on America's Children."

The study focused on the mental and health disorders that children develop after their parents are seized in a raid. It also found that for every two detained adults, one child was left behind. Two-thirds of the children were under age 10.

The first-of-its-kind report found that nearly all of the children in the study exhibited negative emotional and behavioral reactions. For some, it led to depression, post-traumatic stress disorder, separation anxiety and, in one child, suicidal thoughts.†

"The raids have a destabilizing impact on children's families, schools and social network," said report co-author Rosa Maria Castaneda. "All of these influences play a critical factor in all of these children's well-being."

The study followed 30 affected families for months after raids in New Bedford, Mass.; Greeley, Colo.; and Grand Island, Neb., last year. A total of 912 people were arrested and 506 children were directly affected.
           
Apart from documenting the distress that some children go through, the study also offered recommendations to the Department of Homeland Security and, more specifically, to ICE.

Among its recommendations, the study says that single parents and primary caregivers should be released by ICE early enough in the day so that their children do not experience disruptions in care. Also, it recommended that the detainees have access to counsel, and advise them of their right to confer with their country's consular office.

However, Lori K. Haley, spokesperson for ICE, said that these recommendations are unnecessary.

"ICE conducts enforcement raids lawfully and professionally and humanly," Haley said. "We take extraordinary steps to identify and act on humanitarian concerns with illegal immigrants who are arrested."

Haley referred to a set of guidelines that ICE released titled Guidelines for Identifying Humanitarian Concerns among Administrative Arrestees When Conducting Worksite Enforcement Operations.

These guidelines were released following the arrest of 350 workers last March at the Michael Bianco factory in New Bedford, Mass., during which an infant underwent serious malnutrition after his mother, who breastfed, was not released for a few days.

"Since the New Bedford raids, our offices have been working closely with ICE to develop guidelines on humanitarian screening for workers arrested in immigration raids," said Sen. Edward M. Kennedy and Congressman William D. Delahunt in a statement. "We hope these guidelines will ensure that pregnant women, nursing mothers, and sole caregivers will no longer be subject to detention."

Haley said that the extent of negative effects that the children of detained parents undergo are not accurately depicted in the study "Paying the Price" and added that ICE is not aware of any of those cases.

"We find it disturbing that some groups continue to use children as media props in support of their illegal immigration agenda's," Haley said. "Frankly we found that in the past the issues regarding humanitarian concerns that advocates of illegal immigration raise are often greatly exaggerated and not based in fact or truth."

"We understand that the arrested criminal and other violators might have a negative impact on their family," Haley said. "The responsibility for any negative consequences lies squarely with the violator.”

Maria, however, doesn't feel like she was a criminal for being in the United States.

"The only thing we came here to do is work," Maria said. "We're not delinquents like ICE wants to treat us and they should think about the damage they cause our children, who were born here."

Earl Cronin, a resident of Prince William County, Va., where some of the nation's harshest local immigration laws were passed back in October of 2007, doesn't buy into studies like these.

"No one forced these people to come here, they chose to come of their own free will, they chose to come knowing that they were violating our immigration laws," Cronin said. "If they're here illegally I have no sympathy for them, not even for their children."

Amid the recent raids in Van Nuys, Torrance and Downtown Los Angeles, The Urban Institute has decided to continue their research in the area.

“I think we are studying some of the same things," said Castaneda. "We are sure that children are being affected in some of the same ways found in the other sights."

So far they have interviewed some twenty-five families and will continue to conduct more. Although researchers have come to no conclusions, so far they have found that one-third of detained parents had underage children.

“We could see that in Van Nuys families were released more promptly," Castaneda said. “A very interesting twist is that this is the first time in the study that (ICE) used bracelets to monitor families."

Parents noted being treated differently by everyone, including their children. Castaneda noted that the bracelets are socially isolating and ostracizing those who wear them.

"We also plan to expand to different types of arrests conducted by ICE," Castaneda said, since the previous study only looked at workplace raids. "In Van Nuys one of the things that interested us is some of the workers were arrested at home on the same day of the raid."

Researchers are also taking a closer look at the effects the raids had on the overall family and resiliency among the children.

In Chatsworth not all of the children exhibited negative traits. Eunice, 15, saw it as a harsh wake up call. While she barely passed her freshman year of high school, her father's six-day detention caused her to take her education more seriously.

"It might be a good thing because it can wake people up from the life they're living," said Eunice, who was in detention the day her father was caught in the raid, "but in the long run it's just harsh and pretty cruel."

However Eunice did note a difference in her nine-year-old sister, Karen, who at first didn't quite grasp the situation. It wasn't until her father, Raul, 36, was gone for several nights that she understood the severity of the situation.

"She would smile and she would laugh," Eunice said, "but it was just different, something about her different."

The financial hardships have put a strain on the family, especially the girls’ mother who is the sole income provider. Because of this she asked to remain anonymous. Raul notes that she is constantly nervous, stressed out and angry.

“We’ve had to rent out one of the rooms in order to pay the rent,” Raul said referring to a middle-aged woman who quietly entered a nearby room.

Raul now tries to spend as much time with his daughters as possible seeing as how his future in the United States might be cut short. Even so he tries not to worry his youngest daughter.

Karen doesn't really understand the situation. All she knows is that her dad was arrested by the police for being at work.

Which begs her to ask the question: "Why did you take my dad?