“PBI taught me the value of solidarity”: field volunteer Scott Pearce reflects on his time with PBI in Colombia

Published by Brent Patterson on

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As Peace Brigades International approaches its 40th anniversary in 2021, we are sharing the reflections of past volunteers from Canada who accompanied at-risk defenders in various PBI project countries over the years.

Scott Pearce, who now lives in Toronto, accompanied defenders through the Peace Brigades International-Colombia Project in 2000.

Scott tells us: “PBI taught me the value of solidarity. When political violence targets human rights defenders and anyone brave enough to speak out, building a strong network of solidarity–at the local level and the international level–is the most effective response. And on a personal level, this network of solidarity allows one to persevere against what seem like insurmountable odds.”

And in this older interview (likely from 2001) with PBI, Scott says: “I began being politically aware in high school, worked to save old growth forests in BC. I read some Chomsky, Turning the Tide, and started to think about and study the history of Latin America. I heard about [PBI] by word of mouth and it was the perfect fit for me.”

Soldiers capture two youth

In that PBI interview, Pearce recounts this story:

We were walking up from the town center of San Jose up towards the outlying hamlet of La Union, which is also part of the peace community, and one of the local farmers came running towards us and told us that further up the trail there was a group of soldiers that had captured two youths and were questioning them, and he was worried that they might be disappeared.

We continued up the trail, and we came across the soldiers, we didn’t see the youths.

My PBI colleague was Eva Scarfe, one of the longest serving PBI members, she was in Guatemala for years, remarkable woman, she said in the middle of chatting that ‘We heard there was trouble in the area, a couple of youths, what can you tell us about this?’

The soldiers looked a little stunned and went to talk to their commander and came back, and we kept talking with them, but we weren’t going to leave until we found out how those youths were. Five minutes later, they just released these two boys, and we hadn’t made any demands at all.

We found out later that they’d had one of them tied to a tree blindfolded and were waving a machete in front of his face, threatening him. People said, if you hadn’t been there, something bad could have happened.

Photo: Eva Scarfe remains an active member of PBI, currently supporting the work of PBI-Honduras and PBI-Nicaragua. 

Paramilitary raid on Peace Community

In the photo at the top of this article, Scott is standing beside Gildardo, a member of the Peace Community of San Jose de Apartado.

Scott shares: “The picture was taken the morning after paramilitary forces attacked San Jose de Apartado and set fire to many buildings. You can actually see the burn marks on the wall behind us and part of the burned roof top is lying on top of the pool table.”

Providing further context to this experience, Eva Scarfe says:

I remember a time when Scott and a Swiss volunteer called Hans were in San José when the paramilitaries raided the town. On all previous raids, they had killed people, but this time no-one got killed. I attribute this to the excellent work of the two volunteers.

I was in the PBI house in Turbo when this happened. Scott’s role was to hide among the sacks of coffee and cocoa beans in the cooperative store, with PBI’s secret emergency telephone, and relay the information minute by minute to us in Turbo (a dangerous role, because if the paras had searched the store and found him, they would have been very angry).

I remember we were asking anxiously ‘can you hear shots being fired?’ because that would have meant people were being killed. And Scott was answering ‘I’m hearing a lot of noise, sounds like explosions, but I can’t be sure about shots.’

While we kept one line open for Scott, with the other we were calling our local emergency support network, and relaying the information to the office in Bogotá, from where it went out to the world. The result of the raid was that nearly half the houses in San José were burnt down, but no-one died.

PBI-Colombia’s 25th anniversary in Toronto

On November 2, 2019, Scott joined a reflection/celebration in Toronto of the 25th anniversary of PBI-Colombia.

This was during a PBI-Canada organized advocacy tour with Ivan Madero from the Regional Corporation for the Defence of Human Rights (CREDHOS) and Julia Figueroa and Andrea Nocove from the Luis Carlos Perez Lawyers’ Collective (CCALCP). They were accompanied on that advocacy tour by Javier Garate from PBI-Colombia (now a member of the PBI-Canada Board of Directors).

The gathering was at the home of Luis van Isschot, another long time member of PBI. (A profile of his PBI experience can be read here).

Please consider making an online donation to PBI-Canada to help us with our continuing outreach efforts to find volunteers to accompany defenders. Accompaniment continues to be critically needed in helping to make space for peace.

PBI interview with Scott (likely from around 2001).


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