The day I spend at the Salón Comunal, Tiberio Córdoba makes clear why the process here has become a model initiative for other areas of the city. A talented mediator, he lets people yell, then uses humor to help the parties understand each other. He never takes sides but, with verbal agility and anecdote, moves back and forth, showing respect to each point of view.

Tiberio's first case today is a woman whose grievance is that her child's father left her for another woman. She blames her boy's impending blindness from glaucoma on his father's infidelity, insisting that without his child support she cannot afford medical treatment. She confides that she's been considering hiring a contract killer to solve her problem.

Tiberio helps her separate her anger and pain from the child's very urgent health problems. He tells her that he can't make the man live up to his responsibilities, but that he can help find funding for her son’s medical treatment. The woman is eventually convinced that violence won't solve anything and leaves, relieved that her son's sight may be saved. At the end Tiberio painstakingly hand writes an account of the case in a ledger--the only record of the resolutions he has won.

As the day continues, I see that the lack of a computer isn't the only impediment Tiberio faces. Some mediations can be lengthy and the waiting area outside the office is noisy. There are interruptions. Tiberio must periodically shoo away curious children and adults who peep into the room's small window.

Walking through the barrio with Tiberio, I realize that he is a kind of de- facto mayor. He visits recently-arrived internal refugees, talks to shopkeepers, is always on the lookout for ways to help. He is greeted everywhere with obvious respect and warmth. When someone affectionately calls him Negro instead of using his name, I seize the moment to ask about race relations.

"Afro-Colombians are the sleeping giant of this country," he tells me. "Our problem is that our community has been divided, and has a colonized inferior mentality. White Colombians have no interest in changing this. We have to do it ourselves. The indigenous community has a much stronger sense of identity and injustice. They have also received well-deserved international support for their struggle. But black Colombians have been passive, struggling just for physical survival. The next step for us is race pride and removing our own internal barriers to advancement. Then we will confront the real face of Colombian racism."

"Sometimes I wonder how long I'm going to live," he confides. "You can't be a community activist in this country and hope to live long. I was in the army. I was a police officer for a number of years. But this work is the hardest and most satisfying and probably the most dangerous I've done. When you try to make change, you always make enemies."

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