Francisco Campo (centre) during an event in the city of Barrancabermeja in 2001. [Photo: Julien Menghini]

Article published in the special Newsletter '15 years of PBI', October 2009

Chiara Gambardella, volunteer from Italy (2008-9)

In 1994 PBI opens an office in Barrancabermeja and three volunteers begin to accompany the President of CREDHOS.

Francisco Campo is a political activist who worked in the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) from 1987 until 2004.  He is currently a member of the Nation Corporation in Barrancabermeja. An attempt was made on Francisco’s life in 1989 and this forced him to leave Barrancabermeja.  Nevertheless, he returned to work with CREDHOS as a rural human rights promoter and then as vice president from 1995. PBI has accompanied CREDHOS since 1994.

PBI: Why did CREDHOS ask PBI for accompaniment?

Francisco Campo: The decade from 1986 to 1996 was a very tough period in the Magdalena Medio, in particular the period between 1987 and 1992, when the Armada 007 network was active.  This was an intelligence network that worked with hired assassins and in collaboration with the Nueva Granada Army Battalion. They were known as «death squadrons».

This «dark age» began with the assassination of Leonardo Posada Pedraza in 1986.  He was a representative of the Patriotic Union Party in Congress. CREDHOS was born in this context in the year 1987. The organisation’s desire to expose those implicated in this criminal network had a high cost. CREDHOS lost six of its members between 1991 and 1992, and almost the entire management committee was forced to leave the city, and in some cases the country. In 1993 an assembly was held for the purpose of restructuring the management committee of CREDHOS.  At the assembly we made the decision to request accompaniment from PBI.  This was at the suggestion of Father Javier Giraldo as well as members of the Association of Family Members of the Detained and Disappeared (ASFADDES).

PBI: What do you remember about the relationship between CREDHOS and the first PBI team?

FC: In 1994 the first PBI team arrived in Barrancabermeja.  There were only three people: Javier Navarro (Spain), Nicole (France) and Jenny (USA).  They would work on a rotational basis: spending the day in the CREDHOS office, in the PBI house or accompanying Osiris Bayther, who was the President of the organisation at that time and at very high risk.  We built up a relationship of fellowship and of total integration with these individuals. It was also a very romantic time: citizens from the West would leave their homes and life projects to go to the «Third World»  in order to accompany individuals who, in turn, were putting themselves at risk to accompany other people. It was a challenge for them, trying to understand our particular outlook on life put them in a state of permanent uncertainty but that eventually resulted in the creation of a very close bond.

PBI: What do you think the accompaniment of PBI meant for CREDHOS?