I want to be more like Jhonatan.
He just took on the
Colombian Armed Forces and won. He used only nonviolence grounded in faith. He
didn't seek to take on the Colombian Army - they picked a fight with him. He
just sought to keep the faith. He had right on his side, and he knew it.
In my next to last post here,
I asked for your support to help us #freeJhonatan. He had been forcibly
recruited by the Colombian Army in March 2013. The Colombian Armed Forces
believed that because Colombia has mandatory military service for all young men
(with a few exceptions) that they had the right to take Jhonatan against his
will. But Jhonatan told them something else... that fighting wars and taking
lives was against God's will. Jhonatan said that he was a Christian and that
Jesus said we should love our enemies, not kill them, so he refused to serve.
At this point, Jhonatan didn't know that international law and the Colombian
constitution both guarantee any individual's right to freedom of conscience.
The Colombian Army
shipped him off to a remote outpost in Colombia's eastern plains, near the
border with Venezuela, a region where leftist guerrillas and rightwing
neo-paramilitary armies control territory and regularly skirmish with the
Colombian Army. Jhonatan was ridiculed for his faith. He was told that he must
be confused because other Christians happily took up arms. Jhonatan kept saying
no.
Eventually Jhonatan
and his fellow recruits were given a brief home-leave. He decided to not return
to the base. In the eyes of the army he had gone AWOL. In Jhonatan's eyes this
was the only way to keep the army from continuing to violate his freedom of
conscience. By now Jhonatan understood that he was a C.O. and he had rights in
Colombia.
Jhonatan once again
enrolled in his hometown university and began studying mechanical engineering.
Then on September 4th he was stopped by police outside the university and asked
for his i.d. The army had put out a warrant for his arrest, and the police
detained him on the spot. What the army didn't know was that in the interim, with
the help of the CO project at Justapaz - a Mennonite peacebuilding and advocacy
organization - Jhonatan had appealed for his release and his case had made it
all the way to the Constitutional Court.
The following day the
police turned Jhonatan over to the Army and he was held at the Nueva Granada
Battalion in Barrancabermeja. Two weeks later, the Constitutional Court ruled
that the army was in fact violating his inalienable right to freedom of
conscience and religious freedom ordering his immediate release. Shortly
thereafter Jhonatan walked out of the military prison into his mother’s embrace
and into a spotlight that he had never sought. TV cameras from all the major
stations in Colombia were there to record his story.
Jhonatan's case came
about at a crucial time. Just as the Colombian government and Colombia's
largest guerrilla group are nearing the completion of a second year of
negotiations, and the country is seriously contemplating the possibility of
ending this armed conflict. Jhonatan and many other Colombian COs, both
Christian and secular, are saying they want nothing to do with the fighting.
Jhonatan reminds me that Micah's encouragement "to act justly and
to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God", in war zones such as Colombia and the streets of the United States can be truly revolutionary. I want to be more like Jhonatan.
3 comments:
Yes, war is terrible. In our time there is no certainty that life will be quiet and serene. The media every day tell us about different armed conflicts. Today, studying the blogs, I found one interesting news on the website https://quivo.co. Here in Turkey today come armed clashes over policy. Dissatisfied with the government the people took up arms. It's very scary, despite the fact that everything happens in a foreign country. Do you agree with me? I hope this will happen as rarely as possible. It is best to not happen at all. Militares intentan dar golpe de Estado en Turquía! Learn more about it here - https://quivo.co/14547-militares-intentan-dar-golpe-de-estado-en-turquia.html
War brings nothing than devastation and suffering. It doesn't help to resolve conflicts. War undermines economics, breaks families, ruins lives. But not only war can make people live on the street. Economic crisis leads to decreasing of the level of living, leaves people without home and food. The article i've read https://quivo.co/19584-increible-drama-de-una-familia-por-una-mala-racha-economica-su-historia-te-dejara-conmovido.html plunged me into shock.
Such a terrible murder of two innocent woman:
https://quivo.co/20705-sanguinario-asesinato-dos-mujeres.html
Also this site have a lot of news: good ones, and terrible ones. Some can really make your mood better and some can make you think about pain just like this one.
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