It's been two years now. In March 1999, my partner Terence Unity Freitas and two Native American colleagues were kidnapped and assassinated by left-wing guerrillas in northeastern Colombia while exiting U'wa indigenous land coveted byUS oil giant Occidental Petroleum (Oxy).

I write to you as the girlfriend of Terance Freitas, one of the three human rights workers kidnapped and assassinated last March while working with the U'wa indigenous community of oil-rich northeastern Columbia.

Mercy is my new friend. I can scarcely remember another time in my life during which mercy has been a central figure. Today, it is getting me through.

I used to coordinate a program for an environmental legal assistance organization in Palawan, Philippines. In 1997, the organization, ELAC, was invited to teach community paralegal skills to the Corona Tagbanua, an island tribe in the northern tipoff the province.