Recibi este mensaje y me parecio oportuno divulgarlo. Salu2 Jorge Dear friends, colleagues and professors, I wish my scattered e-mails would not revolve so often around the violence in Colombia. Goods news should also be news. But this time again it is a heartbreaking event that inspires me to write to you. As the message below tells, a professor was killed this week in the Universidad de Antioquia, on campus. I will say no more as I think the message tells it all. Please distribute it among your friends. Mar=EDa Emma > >Homage to an Unsung Hero of a Bloody Civil War > >Hern=E1n Henao Delgado, a Professor of Anthropology at the University of >Antioquia in Medell=EDn, Colombia and the Director for the past five years= of >the University's Institute of Regional Studies (INER) was assassinated at >point blank range by three individuals carrying guns with silencers on >Tuesday May 4th at 4pm. His name is probably unknown to most Americans, >but he was well known in Colombia and he was dear to me. > >I first worked with Hern=E1n Henao and with several other professors at the >University of Antioquia in the late 1980s. We formed part of an >interdisciplinary seminar dedicated to thinking about, understanding and >analyzing the violence that seemed increasingly to engulf Medell=EDn and >snuff out the lives of those we loved. The summer of 1989 when I first met >Hern=E1n was a terrible time for many Colombians, but particularly for= those >who lived in Medell=EDn. Car bombs went off almost daily in densely= populated >parts of the city with no warning. Young men in the city's poorest >neighborhoods were massacred twenty or forty at a time on weekends. The >Governor of Antioquia was murdered that year, as was the regional head of >the Police. Judges who dared to reject bribes and defy death threats were >eliminated in their government offices. Academic colleagues and human >rights advocates were felled in drive by shootings. People took to calling >each other frequently in the middle of the day to tell their loved ones >that they were on their way home, had just arrived in the office or were >leaving briefly for the supermarket because otherwise inconsequential >delays were cause for mortal fear. =20 > >In the midst of so much terror and uncertainty, Hern=E1n Henao and the= other >professors at the University of Antioquia's Institute of Regional Studies >refused to cower or be silenced. They lobbied, at considerable risk to >their own lives and that of their families, to denounce the incessant >bloodshed of innocent civilians. They met and discussed and anguished over >a way to negotiate a space for tolerance, mutual respect and plurality in >an increasingly polarized society. They reached out to the victims of >violence of the right and left in other parts of Antioquia and offered them >solace, education and programs that could help them rebuild their lives >from the ashes of tragedy. Neither Hern=E1n Henao nor any of the other >participants in the Seminar on Violence believed that the massacres, >forcible physical displacement of human beings or persistent violation of >human rights that have become daily fare in Colombia were attributable to a >single cause, but all of us believed in dialogue. Hern=E1n Henao was our >moral compass. He was steadfast, unassuming and utterly devoted to >promoting peace. He was only ever intolerant or impatient with those who >dared to lose faith in the possibility of transformation through solidarity >and cooperation. > >In a 1991 interview with the Chronicle of Higher Education Hern=E1n Henao >described his mission as an effort to "connect the university to the real >world." Every day of his life from 1989 until last Tuesday when hooded >assassins left him agonizing in a pool of blood in the campus office from >which he had worked indefatigably to make Colombia a better place and >academia a relevant force in social change, he did just that.=20 > > > >How many of us who are academics here in the United States can say as much >or would be willing to pay for our beliefs with our lives? In Colombia, >where living and speaking one's beliefs can be an open invitation for >murder, academics just like Hern=E1n Henao do so every day. =20 > > >Mary Rold=E1n >Assistant Professor, Latin American History >Cornell University >450 McGraw Hall >Ithaca, New York 14853-4601 >Email: [EMAIL PROTECTED]=09 >Fax: (607) 272-0895 >
