By Haider Rizvi
10/19/2005

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Below is an excerpt of an article from One World:

Alarmed by the kidnapping of a well-known peace activist in Colombia last weekend, international aid and refugee rights groups are urging the world community to ask the Colombian government to take action against the paramilitaries involved in the incident.

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According to LWR, Orlando Valencia, a leader of the Afro-Colombian peace community of Curvarado was "disappeared" by gunmen apparently belonging to Colombia's right-wing paramilitary.

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Reports from the strife-torn Andean country indicate that every day countless innocent civilians, including peace workers like Valencia, continue to suffer from violence as a result of the ongoing armed clashes between right-wing paramilitaries, leftist guerillas, and the Colombian army.

Spanning over four decades, the armed conflict in Colombia has claimed tens of thousands of human lives and forced more than a million people to leave their ancestral homes.

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More than 50 peace communities ... are comprised of formerly displaced people living on fenced-in communal land, with homes built close together for added security. The often lack access to electricity, running water, schools, health centers, and other conveniences.

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The Colombian government has been encouraging the return of displaced people to their villages, but Refugees International, a U.S.-based group that is actively participating in humanitarian efforts in Colombia, says the official policy is not working because of the involvement of the military in relief efforts.

"The Colombian army is taking a questionable role in the return of the displaced," says Andrea Lari, a refugee advocate with the group who recently spent three months in Colombia.