LAEN ENERO-ABRIL

Latin American Ecumenical News January-April 2010 • No. 1

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Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence.

Proverb 12,17

Information Service of the Latin American Council of Churches

Higher School of Theology (EST) community in São Leopoldo, Brazil, joins in climate justice vigil December 14, 2009 (ALC)

People walk between the ruins of Puerto Principe after the earthquake.

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CLAI prepares second phase of response to earthquake in Haiti Santo Domingo, February 17, 2010 (ALC) he challenges ahead are already visible. Apart from the destruction of Haiti’s infrastructure, the earthquake has left a high number of amputees, orphans, widows and displaced people. The numbers tell of some 350 thousand persons displaced to the Dominican Republic. What awaits them there is pain, grieving, poverty and marginalization. Because of that, the CLAI Dominican Republic National Roundtable, along with other churches and ecumenical organizations, has said that attending to this displaced population is one of the challenges of the second phase following the earthquake.

The churches and ecumenical organizations have proposed that support be given to: - The setting up of a Center for Assistance and Ombudsman Services

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for the Displaced by the Earthquake, that will offer psychological, medical, and legal attention to the displaced. The center will do a detailed mapping out of the actions and services already being developed by the churches and ecumenical organizations, in favor of the coordinating and identifying of the areas in which a hand of solidarity is needed. The map will facilitate a more effective orientation of the food and medicine campaigns that many churches and ecumenical organizations are carrying out.

- The Women and Gender Justice Pastoral Ministry will offer accompaniment and consolation in the border hospitals.

- The CLAI Youth Pastoral Ministry will organize volunteer services with the purpose of facilitating direct cooperation in Haiti.

- The promotion, in coordination with the leadership of the Haitian churches, of the installation

of water treatment plants, supported by CLAI’s Program for Environmental Citizenship.

- Carry out a gathering in the Dominican Republic of religious and community leaders from Haiti, to assist them in working through their own pain and burdens. In addition, the gathering will foster the strengthening of ties between Haitian and Dominican Republic pastors.

According to the Rev. Nilton Giese, CLAI General Secretary, in a statement released on February 5, “these proposals are to be implemented as part of a strategy for respecting local networks and leadership. Thus, the proposal of a Center for Assistance is not to set up something new, but rather to serve those who are already working in solidarity with Haiti.”

Source: Latin American Council of Churches, CLAI: www.claiweb.org

On December 12, in São Leopoldo, Brazil, the graduating classes of the faculties of the Higher School of Theology (EST), along with family members and relatives, teachers, and guests, joined in a candlelight vigil urging the world authorities gathered in Copenhagen to adopt a “real deal” for the saving of the planet from a climatic disaster.

The vigil took place during the thanksgiving service on the occasion of the graduation of eleven theology students and four music therapy students, held in the Hall of Mirrors in São Leopoldo. The ceremony was honored by the presence of the Rev. Walter Altmann, President of the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB) and a Moderator of the World Council of Churches (WCC).

“Today is a special day for you, but it can also be a special day for humanity,” EST Rector, Oneide Bobsin, told the graduating classes.

“Academic knowledge, what is known about people and public policies, needs to cooperate in the search a better model for an effective civilization,” added Bobsin.

People all over the world, in more than 130 countries, demonstrated in streets, squares and avenues on Saturday, in a candle-

Workers union leaders suffer repression Tegucigalpa, February 23, 2010 (ALC)

“We are viewing with great concern that the murders and violations are now directed against workers union leaders. Vanesa Zepeda was killed a week ago, Porfírio Ponce suffered threats and his home was sacked, and now, Julio Fúnez Benitez,” informs Pastor Franklin David del Cid, of the Agape Christian Church of Tegucigalpa, and correspondent for the Ecumenical Watch on

Human Rights in Honduras, of the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI).

Del Cid reports that on Monday, February 15, when approaching his house in the Brisas de Olancho neighborhood, 55 year old Julio Fúnez Benítez, a workers union leader and member of the Movement of National Resistance, was approached by two men on a motorcycle who shot and killed him, increasing the number of martyrs in Honduras.

Nearby where the crime was committed, there is a police station and, as in other cases, nothing was done. Julio was a member of the Autonomous National Aqueducts

and Sewers Workers Union. He is survived by his widow and three daughters.

Pastor del Cid had to go to the hospital to identify the dead workers union leader, who had been shot in the foot, thorax and head. “Close to his were two other dead bodies, also victims of the state of criminality,” he reports.

“While bullies kill common people in the streets, in the church temples they continue singing romantic hymns and uttering sermons, having to do with what life will be like in heaven,” says Pastor del Cid, who admitted that he was tired of seeing so much oppression on the streets of Tegucigalpa.

Honduras repression (Honduras Resists)

light vigil, asking for a “real deal”.

Nobel Prize winner Desmond Tutu and the former United Nations commissioner for Human Rights, Mary Robinson, led a special vigil in front of the meeting place of the negotiations for a climate justice agreement in Copenhagen.

“We need an agreement that is ambitious enough to leave a planet safe for us all .That it be fair for the poorest countries that did not cause the climate change but are suffering most from it,” pointed out the representative of Service for Peace (Serpaz), Marie Ann Wangen Krahn, at the thanksgiving service.

A “real deal” needs to foresee the allocation of 200 billion dollars for the financing of climate policies on the part of the poorest countries, the decrease of carbon emissions to 350 parts for million by 2015, and be enforceable. The campaign for a “real deal” is an initiative of the global network Avaaz.org, made up of 3.6 million people mobilized for a fairer and peaceful world. Avaaz means “voice” in many languages.

Climate justice candlelight vigil in Copenhagen (Ana Libisch IPS)

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

2 CLAI News

Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) delegates visit and observe the situation in Honduras

By Franklin David del Cid* Tegucigalpa, January 28, 2010 (ALC) n Tuesday, January 19, in the facilities of the Christian Development Commission (CCD), the visiting ELCA commission, coordinated by the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), met with members of the CLAI Honduras National Roundtable. At the meeting, attorney Leonel Casco, Coordinator of the Ecumenical Watch on Human Rights of CLAI, explained to the visitors the work being carried out by the Ecumenical Watch in its two months of operation.

Casco told of the situation of the deterioration of human rights in Honduras and of how the state institutions (military, police, judges, attorneys, representatives and others), have become the main violators of such rights. Also, he broached the matter of the participation of the Christian churches, both in favor of and against the political-military coup d’etat.

Specific cases were briefly commented on, such as the support to peasants whose lands have been expropriated, and who have been physically beaten, imprisoned, have had their belongings destroyed, and some who have even been murdered; the help to persons who have had to

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The Secretariat and Board of Directors of CLAI.

How will CLAI walk in 2010?

Panama City uring 2009 the work of CLAI was to affirm spaces for consultation and direct participation of the churches, which we call the CLAI National Roundtables, and twenty were organized. The first stage was the discussion of objectives and functions. The National Roundtables do not replace the Board of Directors of CLAI, but are areas of consultation, dialogue and accompaniment to CLAI activities in the country or region. The decision maker in CLAI is the General Assembly and then the Board of Directors.

To promote greater participation and due to the difficulty facing the large geographical distances, some countries created sub-roundtables for dialogue. The most visible achievement so far is that, through these spaces of ecumenical dialogue, churches again recognize that they are one in Christ. These tables for dialogue integrate the CLAI churches and member agencies, the continental or regional secretaries and coordinators in the given country, the CLAI board members resident in the country, and those in CLAI national programs. A National Roundtable may decide to also invite non-member churches and agencies, but their participation will have an advisory status, with the right to speak and participate in planned activities. When making decisions about who will participate in CLAI activities outside of the country, this corresponds only to members.

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However, the Roundtable may decide to include the participation of those who are not members of CLAI. The National Roundtables will be challenged by regional secretaries to suggest topics and emphasis of work, but the final decision on the Work Plan corresponds to the Board of Directors, as proposed by the secretariat and agreed on by the CLAI general secretary.

Some of the themes and strategic challenges that have been emphasized in CLAI for 2010, stemming from the challenges offered by the National Roundtables, are: * The situation of women in terms of the growing violence, exclusion, discrimination and gender inequality. * Natural resources of land and water, the social, economic and ecological impacts caused by climate change and the serious environmental pollution caused by the operation of open-pit mining. * Indigenous and Afro-descendant populations due to the violation of their fundamental rights to land and territory, the living-out of their cultures, and their ongoing struggles against discrimination, racism and extreme poverty, and for respect and recognition of their spirituality. * Youth and the manipulation from the media, as a social sector co-opted by consumerism, neohedonism, widespread violence and their clear disappointment in the area of politics, its leadership and the entire political scene. * Migration for reasons of survival, which puts migrants in situations vulnerable to the violation of their human rights, physical violence and human trafficking, and family disintegration.

The main objectives of CLAI, according to article 3 of its Constitution, are: a. To promote the unity of God’s people in Latin America as an expression and sign of the unity of Latin American peoples. b. To manifest the unity that we have in Christ, recognizing the richness represented by the diversity of traditions, confessions and expressions of faith, reflection, teaching, proclamation and service, taking into account Latin American realities and identities. c. To help its members to discov-

er their own identity and commitment as Christians in the Latin American reality in the search for an order of justice and fraternity. d. To encourage and support its members in the task of evangelization, as a sign of their fidelity to Christ’s command and presence within the Latin American peoples. e. To promote theological and pastoral reflection and dialogue about the mission and Christian witness in the continent and the rest of the world.

Given these objectives, during 2010 we intend to achieve the following goals: * Renewal of the ecumenical movement: Prioritize the participation of new generations and voices from the National Roundtables.

Work in formation and encourage the participation of young theologians as no less than 30% of the total participants. * Formation for propagation and transformation: Develope a culture of follow-up and preparation of training materials that can be used in local groups of churches and ecumenical bodies, not to just inform but to provide tools for multiplication and transformation. * Interaction with other ecumenical actors, other sectors of civil society, and between programs: The work of CLAI does not only strive to be an ecclesial witness of better quality and breadth, but also a better political and socio-economic context in which the churches are inserted. Therefore, the incidence and interdisciplinary cooperation with ecumenical bodies in civil society and government are important and should be sought. * Strategic alliances: Many denominational families and churches in the North seek to have an impact in Latin America through their programs. The search for alliances in areas such as external debt, the new financial order, climate justice, and natural resource extraction will be a priority for 2010. * Public-political impact: With the support of the representation of the WCC in the assembly of the United Nations we will work with the issue of public and political impact.

Visit the CLAI website regularly to accompany the monitoring of these work proposals during 2010.

leave the country as political refugees, and the pastoral and humanitarian accompaniment to the families of the deceased, all occurring as consequences of the overthrow of the democratically government.

The elected Coordinator of the Ecumenical Watch urged the visitors to share with the churches of their country this information and to share their particular experiences of the situation in Honduras.

Besides the work of the CLAI Ecumenical Watch, organized groups such as the Pastoral and Ministerial Network continue to permanently monitor the respect for human rights in Honduras. On January 18, this group at one of its ordinary meetings traced out the necessary lines so as to provide for the continuity of the Ecumenical Watch, and to begin processes of increasing awareness within the Evangelical community, on behalf of those who are excluded and oppressed. Pastor Rigoberto Ulloa, Coordinator of the Pastoral and Ministerial Network, urged the members to seek out spaces to spread a pastoral ministry that is more practical and less theoretical, more human and less “a religion of Pharisees.” *Pastor of the Agape Christian Church, Human Rights Procurator, and member of the CLAI Ecumenical Watch.

Strict security measures for the installation of Honduras’ new President Lobo (EFE ALC)

CLAI pays tribute to Honduran human rights leader Quito n the celebration marking the close of the CLAI Board of Directors meeting in Quito on February 12, the ecumenical organization publicly acknowledged Dr. Andrés Pavón, president of the Human Rights Committee of Honduras, as a person who has given a prophetic witness for the defense of democracy in Honduras. “We admire his prophetic attitude in Honduran society, in the midst of the terror, violence and injustice aimed at the poorest sectors,” said Bishop Julio Murray in handing over to Dr. Pavón a diploma of recognition from CLAI. Dr. Andrés Pavón was one of the persons authorized by the de facto government of Honduras to bring food to the occupants of the Brazilian Embassy in Tegucigalpa. “President Manuel Zelaya and the other occu-

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pants of the Brazilian embassy were afraid of their food being poisoned and so I was recognized as a trustworthy person for the job,” said Dr. Pavón to representatives of 14 countries in Latin America and the Caribbean meeting in Quito.

The situation in Honduras has upset the entire international community due to the coup d’état on June 28, 2009. CLAI reaffirmed its position that democratic conflicts should be solved with democratic instruments rather than military force as was the case in Honduras.

Dr. Pavón was in Quito accompanied by Mr. Leonel Casco, coordinator of the Human Rights Observatory of CLAI Churches in Honduras. In addition to the CLAI meeting, they were also with law students at the Latin American Christian University in Quito.

Pastoral Letter of the Latin American Council of Churches reaffirms commitment to ecumenism in a continent mobilized “As he approached Jerusalem and saw the city, he wept over it.” Luke 19:41 Dear sisters and brothers: e greet you as the Board of Directors and Secretariat of the Latin American Council of Churches, in the love with which we have been filled by our Lord Jesus Christ who is our strength in the midst of difficulties and hope in the face of discouragement that might arise in the context of uncertainty and change in which we live.

We have celebrated our annual working meeting of February 9 to 12, in Quito, Ecuador. During these days, we have rejoiced in the reunion, renewed faith and commitment and been strengthened in the task that we are daily called to and motivated for. Every day we prayed and reflected together on the elements of creation and, once again, the following task has sounded in our ears: to promote unity, dialogue and cooperation in order to bear witness to our faith through the raw and challenging reality presented to us by the situation of our Latin American and Caribbean countries.

We live in different times than those which scarred our institutional life in the recent past. Even amid the difficulties that prevent us from doing everything that we wish, we have reaffirmed the commitment that unites us, whether as members of the Board of Directors or the secretariat and support staff. We have worked on a new triennial plan, reflecting on the current situation of the ecumenical movement.

Part of our task was also to review the situation with which we are confronted every day concerning the mission in Latin America and the Caribbean. The arbitrary interruption of the institutional and democratic life in Honduras, which we thought we had overcome in the institutional and political life of Latin America and the Caribbean, impelled the creation of the Ecumenical Observatory of CLAI Churches in Honduras. We also see changes that harbor hopes, though not free from threats, as in Bolivia,

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CLAI youth workshop, El Quisco, Chile (ALC)

CLAI youth, gathered in Chile, commit themselves to the building of peace

By Víctor Liza Jaramillo Santiago, December 17, 2009 (ALC)

From December 4-6, the CLAI youth pastoral ministry in Chile held a workshop called “Young People Participating in the Building of a Culture of Peace,” sponsored by the World Council of Churches with the support of the Youth Pastoral Ministry Coordination of the CLAI Andean Region. The workshop, which took place in El Quisco (two hours from Santiago), was attended by young people from churches in Santiago and Concepción. he support given, as presenters and facilitators,

by Alberto Vásquez and Florence Guinle of the Keys of the Youth for Christ Program of Uruguay was also important. At the gathering, the facilitators worked through with the participants, the

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“Hands for Good Care” material, produced by Keys and the CLAI Communications Department.

This material is used for workshops and dynamics with children and adolescents.

After exploring the situations in which these groups are mistreated and thinking about how to bring about “good care” for them, the facilitators presented the “Vaccination Against Abuse Campaign”, which consists of committing people to the fostering of “Good Care”, signing a “vaccination certificate”, and receiving a “dose” that can be in the form of a candy. This “Vaccination Against Abuse Campaign” can be carried out in public places such as parks and squares, and people of different ages can take part in it.

At the end of the workshop, Johanna Oñate, Youth Pastoral Ministry Coordinator for Chile, and the participants, committed themselves to promoting the matter in the churches, and the holding of similar workshops in other places of the country, such as Concepción and Santiago.

Paraguay and Uruguay and initiatives of political responses to social, political and economic demands which still fail to be fully met, as in the cases of Ecuador and Venezuela.

In the midst of these situations, there are others which still persist despite the many cries and protests.

The sustained economic blockade that the United States government has unfairly imposed on the Cuban people for more than 50 years is a good example.

Furthermore, we are surprised by the callousness of the U.S. government in continuing to impede the visits of their five Cuban prisoners by the prisoner’s wives, children and family. Cuban churches pray for the long-awaited family reunion.

Equally important and noteworthy to highlight is the awakening and struggle of indigenous peoples for their rights and, in particular, that of the Mapuche in Chile.

These examples, together with others, are indicators of a continent that is mobilized and continues in the quest that allows for the reconnection with fullness, even amid the tears and pain. With the abundance of work, fullness in health, environmental and ecological wholeness and, indeed, the fullness of community where the rights of each and every person do not need to be claimed but instead fully lived, where “love and truth meet, justice and peace kiss, the truth breaks forth from the earth and justice looks down from heaven.” (cf.

Psalm 85:10-11).

Now, and as if the problems and challenges we had to meet throughout the year were not enough, in January we were surprised by a new disaster: the earthquake that devastated the Haitian people. It would seem that the unexpected, incalculable and frightening phenomenon was the last thing missing in order to finish our realization of where decades of subjugation, slavery, authoritarianism and militarization as a strategy of control over poverty has led. Amid this dramatic situation, we have been moved by the words of the sisters of the Church of Haiti in a testimony collected by the Latin American network of women:

“Friends, in this moment solidarity is the only encouragement, solidarity is the only force which will succeed in containing the silence of pain and encourage our sisters to watching for the future.” We want to answer this call and, in this regard, we welcome the efforts that our churches and international ecumenical community are making to meet the needs of our brothers and sisters on the island. In particular, we encourage the CLAI Churches in Latin America and the Caribbean to continue working with the Churches of the Dominican Republic in its efforts to support the Care Center for the displaced at the border with Haiti. Our prayers and committed solidarity accompany these efforts to restore health and living amid so much need, pain and absence.

Dear sisters, Dear brothers: As we approach the reality of our peoples, we can not but feel like the Lord when he comes to Jerusalem. God visits us again and again despite our resistance to the message of justice, mercy, and peace that He asks us to bring to fruition in the construction of a community of peoples and nations pleasing to his eyes. While many are the aches and cries of those for whom we weep, we know that after the cross we have the promise of the resurrection that will ensure an end to the tears and cries with which we live and by which we are daily confronted.

In this time of grace we want to wish you peace and wellbeing. We pray for the work and ministry of the churches and agencies that, together, we can be useful tools to serve the Kingdom that our Lord Jesus Christ announces and after the realization of which we walk. Let us be consistent in word and deed so that the Lord, as the Psalmist says, confirms “the work of our hands” (Psalm 90:17b).

We commend ourselves to God who in Christ has called us. We know we will not be deprived of his Spirit. He encourages us and sustains us on the road!

In the year when we remember the 30th anniversary of the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero.

CLAI-Costa Rica National Roundtable Pastoral Letter to the Churches and people of Haiti San José hat the grace of our good God and the power of his Spirit be full in your hearts and in the confidence of his promises: “For the groan of the needy I arise, says God” (Psalm 12:8).

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A little over a month has passed since the January 13th tragedy, but the cry of pain and hope continues to be heard, to be present in the prayers and in the solidarity of the churches and agencies of the CLAI-Costa Rica National Roundtable.

We note with great sadness the information about thousands of deaths, the destruction of homes, buildings and infrastructure in Haiti, the foreign occupation and militariza-

tion, the trafficking of children, the insufficient food distribution and international cooperation, a biased and opportunistic reconstruction proposal, and the folly of some preachers who speak of a “divine punishment”.

From our experience of faith, from a rereading of the Bible and from our witness of communion in the Spirit we encourage you: * For the love of God is revealed, firstly and abundantly in the smallest and most vulnerable of history. (Ex. 3:7; Dt. 10:17-19; Ps. 12:5; Mic. 2:1-3; Lk. 4:14-19, 10:25-37; Gal. 2:10) * For human pain never is, was or will be cause for celebration or caused by the God of life in which we believe and we find in Scripture and salvation history. (Gen. 9:8-11; Jn. 3:16)

* For the will of God is for the salvation of all, understood as full life, dignity, peace with justice, and starting with the “despised” and “forgotten” of the world. (Gen. 2:9; Psalm 34:11-15; Isaiah 42:1-4; Jn. 10:10) * For the church of Jesus Christ is called to a faithful following in solidarity with people in their pain: by providing pastoral care, providing food and necessary items, announcing hope and denouncing incongruities and abuses of any kind. * For the Haitian people hold the love and respect of the churches who believe in the God of life; the Haitian people are not alone, for we accompany them on a permanent basis so that one day soon the expression that it “is the poorest country on the continent”

will disappear forever. * For our prayers rise every moment for the dear people of Haiti, seeking new forms of active solidarity in their struggle to defend life and for the confirmation of hope.

We feel in the Spirit of Christ that: * Any theological interpretation or assessment on the current and historical situation in Haiti as “divine punishment” does not come from our Lord Jesus Christ. * All theological-religious messages of a sacrificial and retributive nature concerning the situation of the Haitian people and other peoples are far from the will of God. * Our Master Christ Jesus gave us many examples of solidarity, always clinging to the supreme interest of the

wellbeing of the people and rejecting the opportunism and individual interests, whether they occur in Haiti by a government or by an international aid agency. * Any assistance (religious or nonreligious, material or not, economic or not, local or not) whose aim is to get some kind of selfish advantage, exploiting the suffering of the Haitian people, “has forsaken the right way, and gone astray” (I Pet. 2:15) and is not acceptable in the eyes of our Savior.

In the communion of the Spirit of Jesus of Nazareth, CLAI-Costa Rica National Roundtable Rev. Roger Cabezas President

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

CLAI News 3

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

4 Haiti

A sense of family: the quiet, localized efforts of Haitians assisting fellow Haitians

By Chris Herlinger/ March 12, 2010 (Church World Service)

As Fontil Louiner sees it, faced with the reality of damaged homes and lost income, he and more than two dozen family members and friends had no alternative but to pull up stakes and leave the Haitian capital of Port-au-Prince. “We had no other choice. We couldn’t stay,” said the 39-yearold video technician who recently returned to his hometown of Petite Riviere, in the northern department of Artibonite. But in doing so - and helping establish a 500 meals-a-day feeding program in Petite Riviere Louiner not only became part of a wider exodus out of Port-au-Prince; he also became part of a story that has often been overlooked in the rush of recent images and narratives of international aid workers assisting Haitians. hile those images and stories convey part of the reality of the global response to the recent earthquake in Haiti, another reality is often ignored by outsiders: the quiet, localized efforts of Haitians like Louiner who are assisting fellow Haitians.

According to the United Nations, more than 500,000 people have left Port-au-Prince for outlying provinces – or, departments, as they are called in Haiti. Among the most popular destinations during the initial weeks following the January 12 quake has been Artibonite, where an estimated 162,500 arrived – including Louiner and 30 friends and family members. Louiner was not a stranger returning home to Petite Riviere, which was not hit by the quake. Though Louiner had worked in Port-au-Prince for 20 years, he had maintained his ties with his home town by serving, since 2004, as a part-time manager and DJ of a local radio station, Family Radio.

The station is committed to not only playing music but providing a useful public service function, airing news and educational programming. That is no small role – in Haiti, radio is a significant social player, with some calling it the “engine of society.” Family Radio has ties with CONHANE, a consortium of Haitian community-based agencies that, in turn, has a relationship with Service Chretien d’Haiti, a long-time partner of Church World Service. In the past, the station had worked with CONHANE in responding to floods in the region.

Now, in the wake of the earthquake and the sudden arrival of

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Displaced from Port-au-Prince, Fontil Louiner has helped to establish a community meal program for 500 others displaced by the January earthquake (Nils Carstensen CWS) thousands - by some estimates, about 8,000 have arrived in Petite Riviere in recent weeks - the station has served the role of galvanizing public support for a grass-roots-run meals program. Working with CONHANE and another radio station, RTA, Family Radio has sent out an appeal for food donations and for money to pay for food. One of the appeals goes like this: “If you have a family of six people, please donate a goblet of rice.”

The effort has paid off, with local residents dropping off rice, other foods and cash donations in order to provide 500 meals daily for the displaced Port-au-Prince residents, many - though not all - of whom have ties to the region.

Station employees and volunteers provide the meals at a feeding center located adjacent to the Family Radio offices and studio.

“We know they need these meals,” Louiner said, but added that among all – employees, volunteers, those benefiting – “there is a lot of sharing.” Louiner and his Family Radio colleagues know this is far from a permanent solution to the displacement issue; what the future holds for the displaced, who are staying in family homes, in tents and public spaces like schools, is still not clear.

“Nobody knows how long we’ll be here,” Louiner said of the experiences of the displaced. “But we do know it’s not possible to go back to Port-au-Prince.” Louiner downplays any possible tensions between the new arrivals and the community, saying the arrivals have been warmly welcomed. “They’ve become ‘naturalized’ citizens here,” he said, a feeling he and other family members have experienced themselves.

“We’re very proud to be back here.”

Another example of Haiti’s indigenous self-help activities can be found in the southern coastal city of Jacmel which, like Port-au-Prince, was badly affected by the quake but whose efforts to recover from the disaster have not received the same level of attention as those of the capital. Still, locally-based efforts have made a difference as this colonial city begins to recover from the quake.

From the first day, the Haitian non-governmental organization KROSE, a partner of ACT Alliance

Diakonie member Katastrophenhilfe, mobilized a network of workers and volunteers that did everything from assessing damage to providing emergency assistance. Work has focused on two camps within Jacmel that to an outsider’s eyes are noticeably cleaner and better organized than most of the displacement sites elsewhere in Haiti.

Tents provided by Diakonie are one reason for that; another is that KROSE’S local ties in Jacmel put it in a good position to assist in running the camps. “There is nothing we can do if we don’t have a relationship with local authorities and residents,” said Gerald Mathurin, KROSE director. “It’s a whole process.” That means everything from involving camp residents in the maintenance of the sites to having local Boy Scouts volunteer in the camps to deliver water.

The efforts of a non-Haitian humanitarian group like Diakone need to mesh with local realities, Mathurin said. “All of these efforts have to find roots in a local base.

Without that local base, the situation would be far worse. There has to be ‘synergy,’” he said. Care must also be given to uphold notions particularly dear to Haitians: participation and dignity. Dignity is a watchword in Haiti, and to some in Jacmel, that means staying together as a community and not moving into the displacement camps.

Among “Groupes Solidarités,” or solidarity groups, friends and neighbors decided that it made more sense to stay together, even on borrowed land and space, and in conditions that are noticeably more exposed than those of the camps, in order to have access to their homes, which have been either damaged or destroyed. Their numbers are not small. There are typically between 50 and 200 people in the solidarity groups, and in Jacmel alone there are more than 400 solidarity groups, representing an estimated total of some 31,505 persons.

“There are some people who want to see their house everyday,” said Francilaire Jeudi, 34, a leader of a solidarity group staying in and around the grounds of Jacmel’s Wesleyan (Methodist) Church which is receiving assistance from KROSE and the World Food Program. “Even if you can’t go into it, you want to see it.”

While conceding their stay on the church grounds could be months, and stretch out even further, the members of this solidarity group are determined to remain together within the city rather than relocate to a displacement site on Jacmel’s outskirts. “This place is better than the camp because here we can organize ourselves,” said Thifaut Jean, another community leader. “Here,” said Francilaire Jeudi, “we’re one family.”

Source: Church World Service, CWS: http://www.churchworldservice.org/

Peasant farmers, Haiti.

(Roberto Guerra Upside Down World)

A future for agriculture, a future for Haiti

By Beverly Bell Puerto Príncipe, March 4, 2010 (Upside Down World)

“We plant but we can’t produce or market. We plant but we have no food to eat.

We want agriculture to improve so our country can live and so we peasants can live, too.” - Rilo Petithomme, peasant organizer from St. Marc, Haiti hat would it take to transform Haiti’s economy such that its role in the global economy is no longer that of providing cheap labor for sweatshops?

What would it take for hunger to no longer be the norm, for the country no longer to depend on imports and hand-outs, and for Port-au-Prince’s slums no longer to contain 85% of the city’s residents? What would it take for the hundreds of thousands left homeless by the earthquake to have a secure life, with income?

According to Haitian peasant organizations, at the core of the solutions is a commitment on the part of the government to support family agriculture, with policies to make the commitment a reality.

Haiti is the only country in the hemisphere which is still majority rural. Estimates of the percentage of Haiti’s citizens who remain farmers span from 60.5% (UN, 2006) to 80% (the figure used by peasant groups).

Despite that, food imports currently constitute 57% of what Haitians consume (World Bank, 2008). It didn’t used to be that way; policy choices made it so. In the 1980s, the U.S. and international financial institutions pressured Haiti to lower tariffs on food imports, leading to a flood of cheap food with which Haitian farmers could not compete. At the same time, U.S.A.I.D. and others pressured Haiti to orient its production toward export, leaving farmers vulnerable to shifting costs of sugar and coffee on the world market.

Because of the poor state of their production and marketing and the lack of basic services, 88% of the rural population lives in poverty, 67% in extreme poverty (UNDP, 2004). Things have grown worse for them since the 2008 hurricane season, when four storms battered Haiti in three weeks, destroying more than 70% of agri-

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culture and most rural roads, bridges, and other infrastructure needed for production and marketing. At least during the earthquake, only one farming area, around Jacmel, was badly damaged.

There is a direct relationship between the state of agriculture and the earthquake’s high toll in deaths, injuries, and homelessness.

The quake was so destructive because more than three million people were jammed into a city meant for a 200,000 to 250,000, with most living in extremely precarious and overcrowded housing.

This is partly due to the demise of peasant agriculture over the past three decades, which has forced small producers to move to the capitol to enter the ranks of the sweatshop and informal sectors. It is also due, in part, to the fact that government services effectively do not exist for those in the countryside. ID cards, universities, specialized health care, and much else is available exclusively, or almost exclusively, in what Haitians call the Republic of Port-au-Prince, forcing many to visit or live there to meet their needs.

“It’s not houses which will rebuild Haiti, it’s investing in the agriculture sector,” says Rosnel Jean-Baptiste of Tèt Kole Ti Peyizan Ayisyen (Heads Together Small Peasant Farmers of Haiti). Those interviewed for this article, including dozens of peasant farmers from five organizations as well as economists and development experts, agree that the current moment offers opportunities for secure employment for the majority, rural development, diminished hunger, and resettlement with employment of those displaced from earthquake-hit areas.

If reinforced, agriculture could help feed the nation, which is currently suffering a dire food crisis.

More than 2.4 million Haitians are estimated to be food-insecure.

Acute malnutrition among children under the age 5 is 9% and chronic malnutrition for that age group is 24% (World Food Program, 2010). The poverty is political in origin, largely due to World Bank and IMF conditions on loans which have squeezed the poor, and free trade policies which have made it impossible for farmers to grow enough food to meet the needs. Securing adequate and Continue on page 11

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

Church and Society 5

Resurgence in Cuba: Matanzas Seminary addresses leadership needs of rapidly growing church April 2, 1990 is described by Christians in Cuba as “a turning point.” That day — shortly after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Cuba’s main patron since the 1959 revolution — Fidel Castro met with 70 church leaders, including those of the Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cuba (IPRC) and following the gathering changed one word in the Cuban constitution: Cuba officially became a “secular” rather than “atheist” state. That single change — which signaled that the Cuban government was now neutral rather than hostile to the church — opened the floodgates to renewed life and mission in the church that continues to this day.

By Jerry L. Van Marter Havana, March 31, 2010 (Presbyterian News Service)

owhere is the resurgence of the church — with all its opportunities and challenges — felt with more optimism and urgency than at the Matanzas Evangelical Theological Seminary, seminary president and Presbyterian Reformed Church in Cuba (IPRC) Elder Reinerio ArceValentin told a group of 15 leaders from the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)’s Synod on March 16.

The group, led by the Rev. Jose Luis Casal — executive presbyter for Tres Rios Presbytery who grew up in Cuba and pastored on the island until the late 1980s — was on a 10-day continuing education trip to learn more about Presbyterians in Cuba and how U.S. Presbyterians can partner with them. The group also included General Assembly Stated Clerk Gradye Parsons and this reporter.

“Our mission is missiological,” Arce told the group. “Our task is to train leaders and teachers in response to the needs expressed by our churches.”

Those needs are overwhelming.

The IPRC encompasses 32 organized churches and at least 15 informal fellowships — developing congregations planted by existing churches. Most congregations also include a number of “house churches” or prayer groups that meet regularly in members’ homes. To serve these rapidly growing congregations, the IPRC – founded by a Cuban expatriate, Evaristo Callao, coming back from the U.S. in 1890 – has just 23 pastors, “So pastoral care is a tense situation,” Arce said.

Matanzas Seminary — founded in 1946 by Presbyterians and Methodists and soon joined

by Episcopalians and Quakers — is one of 13 theological seminaries on the island but is the only ecumenical school. It currently enrolls 300 students in at least

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Gradye Parsonspresentsa plaque to Reinerio Arce-Valentin, president of Matanzas Evangelical Theological Seminary (PC USA)

five programs, but only 26 are in the full-time three-year residential program, the shortest track to ordination. The largest number of students are in the semi-residential program, in which students spent four one-week sessions on campus for five years.

“This is our most popular program because many churches (which pay for students to attend) cannot afford the fulltime program,” Arce noted.

The seminary’s largest nonresidential program is called “Biblical and Theological Training for Leaders.” The “highly ecumenical” program gathers students in local churches for 12 courses on Bible and theology. “The classes are taught by seminary graduates wherever possible,” Arce noted. The newest and most rapidly growing seminary offering is a training program for Sunday school teachers, Arce said. “Our churches are growing fast with many, many children and young people and our churches just don’t have enough teachers,” Arce said, adding that the seminary has trained more than 150 teachers so far “and we have so many requests for others.”

Theological education at Matanzas Seminary is very practical. All students work in churches on weekends and engage in service projects during the week in addition to their studies.

Students support community centers, HIV/AIDS programs, orphanages and hospitals and clinics throughout the island.

With Cubans facing chronic food shortages, the seminary has

turned a sizable portion of its campus into a state-of-the-art organic garden, furnishing fresh produce to the seminary and to local schools and selling the surplus at low cost to people in the community. Each morning, local residents line up outside a gate near one corner of the campus to stock up. “The garden is not selfsustaining financially,” Arce said, “but God will provide.” The government has lifted up the seminary’s garden as a model of selfsustainable agriculture for other communities.

With the per-student permonth cost of seminary equal to the cost of food for three days, “our financial situation is always a struggle,” noted Arce. Forty percent of the school’s budget comes from the PC(USA) — support from local churches, presbyteries, the Outreach Foundation, the Cuba Connection led by longtime Cuba mission advocate Dean Lewis in Santa Fe, and Extra Commitment Opportunity accounts administered by the Presbyterian Foundation. The Synod of the Sun group brought seven laptop computers as gifts for the seminary.

“The PC(USA) is our mother church so we feel very close,” Arce said. “Through all the circumstances we are one church.” The seminary also receives support from European and Canadian Protestants. “Keeping our doors open is a big juggling act,” Arce said, “but we are faithful and confident and thankful for our friends because more and more the power of the Presbyterian Church is concentrated at the seminary, where churches come to express their needs and we are called by God to meet them.”

That such challenges and opportunities even exist for Cuban Presbyterians seems like a miracle, said Francisco “Pancho” Marrero, general secretary of the IPRC. ”In the first years of the revolution, even the people who didn’t flee Cuba stayed away from the churches in fear,” he said, “but there was always a small group that kept the church alive. After the Soviet collapse, the revolutionaries realized there was something missing. The church could not be prepared for the mass influx of people back into the churches.

“It has been a difficult process but one that gives us satisfaction,” Marrero said, “because we’ve faced up to challenges we never thought we’d meet.”

Ecumenical vigil, San Isidro, Cabañas, El Salvador.

(Geovani Montalvo Upside Down World)

Salvadorans hold ecumenical vigil to honor fallen anti-mining activists

By Geovani Montalvo January 17, 2010 (upsidedownworld.org)

On January 8 and 9, family and friends of environmentalists killed in the town of San Isidro, Cabañas, gathered in solidarity with their fallen loved ones at a public ecumenical and artistic commemoration. Those gathered attributed the recent assassinations of three environmental activists to a generalized repression targeted at those opposed to the re-opening of the “El Dorado” gold mine by the Vancouver, BCbased Pacific Rim Mining Corporation. The company has denied any role in the murders. amiro Rivera Gómez was killed on 20 December 2009 in the Trinidad community, despite being under witness protection at the time. Two police stood guard in the back of his pick-up as he was shot. Ramiro was a friend of Marcelo Gustavo Rivera (no relation), who was killed June 28 in San Isidro, Cabañas. A week after the murder of Ramiro, on December 26, Dora Alicia Recinos was killed, also in the Trinidad community. She was eight months pregnant with a son, who would have been Enmanuel Recinos.

“If we look at how these crimes have occurred, the resources used, they have mobilized logistics and communications, and weaponry that was used, no doubt for us this is the result of a deliberate process, properly planned, duly paid,” says Edgardo Mira of the Center for Research on Investment and Trade (CEICOM). ”As the Prosecutor [for the Defense of Human Rights, Oscar Luna] said, there is negligence on the part of the investigators and police [in their investigation],” said Vidalina Morales, from the Association for Economic and Social Development (ADES).

Vidalina hails from the Santa

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Marta community, and says she expects more from the new government.

“We are here to express our solidarity with our martyred compañeros who were killed because they are defending life here in El Salvador,” said Ricardo Navarro, president of the Salvadoran Center for Appropriate Technology (CESTA) Friends of the Earth El Salvador. ”We are aware that their death was caused by their opposition to polluting projects, such as mining,” claims Navarro.

Pacific Rim denied allegations of the company’s involvement in a statement on their website. “We demand a competent investigation; we demand that [Pacific Rim] participate in this process, allowing investigations and not assuming an attitude of wanting to blame others. Above all, Pacific Rim [must not be] presented nationally and internationally as victims of this process,” says Mira of CEICOM. ”It should be noted that Members of the Legislative Assembly, namely, the current Assembly president Ciro Cruz Zepeda and his political group, the PCN [National Conciliation Party] also has supported mining here in El Salvador, and therefore, they also share the criminal responsibility for the 4 deaths that have occurred,” added Navarro from CESTA. “President (Funes) said he would support us, but we hope to pass a law banning metal mining.

It is urgent, that through a presidential decree or legislation, to stop mining exploration and that exploration permits no longer exist,” urged Francisco Pineda, coordinator of the Environmental Committee of Cabañas.

The commemoration was organized by the “National Roundtable Against Metal Mining,” a coalition of Salvadoran organizations and social movements. During the event there was heavy security presence, especially for environmental leaders in the area who continue to live under threats of violence.

(This report was edited and fact checked by Jason Wallach.)

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

6 Latin American News

Unprecedented gender parity in Bolivia’s new cabinet

By Franz Chávez La Paz, January 28, 2010 (Inter Press Service News Agency) vo Morales began his second term as president of Bolivia by swearing in a cabinet made up of an equal number of women and men - unprecedented in this South American nation with a strong patriarchal tradition. “My great dream has come true: half of the members of my cabinet are women, and half are men,” said a visibly moved Morales when he presented his new team of ministers Saturday, the day after he was sworn in to a second term. “This was an impressive surprise,” Jimena Leonardo, one of the heads of the Bartolina Sisa federation of peasant women of La Paz, told IPS. Three of the 10 female members of the cabinet are indigenous social activists.

The 50 year-old Morales, the first indigenous president in this country where Amerindians make up over 60 percent of the population, said that since his days as a rural trade union leader, he had stressed the need for women’s participation in top posts to be “chacha-warmi”, which means roughly fifty-fifty in Aymara, his mother tongue.

Bolivia has thus become the second country in Latin America, after Chile, to have a cabinet with gender parity, said Mónica Novillo, head of advocacy and lobbying for the Coordinadora de la Mujer, a Bolivian umbrella organization of more than 200 women’s groups. Referring to the new constitution that took effect in February 2009, Novillo told IPS that “this was a promise that President Morales made when the new constitution was enacted, which has been fulfilled with the swearing in of the new cabinet.”

Noting that the women in his 20 member cabinet include “singers, lawyers, activists and social leaders, economists, doctors and workers,” the president highlighted the fact that Bolivia will have a female labor minister for the first time ever while calling on trade unionists not to protest the historic appointment.

Novillo pointed out that there are now twice as many women in Morales’ cabinet, compared to his first term, which began in January 2006. The leftist leader was reelected - to a five instead of tour year term under the new constitution - in an unparalleled landslide victory, with 64 percent of the vote, on Dec. 6. She added that gender parity in the three branches of the state is a long-time

E

Zulma Yugar, Minister of Cultures, Bolivia.

(Press Office, Government Palace, Bolivia)

demand of the women’s movement.

The new constitution, which guarantees equal rights for men and women, empowers both women and the country’s historically downtrodden indigenous majority.

The naming of 10 women ministers was preceded by the election of a female legislator, Ana María Romero of the governing Movement to Socialism (MAS) party, as the powerful president of the Senate another milestone for gender equality touted by Morales. The proportion of women in the new parliament - in which the total number of legislators was expanded under the new constitution - will be double what it was in the previous Congress: 46 out of 166 seats (28 percent), compared to 22 out of 157 seats (14 percent).

In appointing his new cabinet, Morales had to respond to conflicting pressures from the various social movements that make up his support base and from his supporters among the middle class and intellectuals. He also apparently made a small concession to his adversaries by replacing his interior and defense ministers and chief of staff, who were extremely unpopular among the opposition. But seven ministers stayed on, including three who were considered key to the success of his first administration: the ministers of economy and finance, autonomy, and foreign relations.

Bolivian women’s organizations have been celebrating the new cabinet as a far-reaching achievement in a country where machismo runs deep. Women have quietly made headway in politics as part of the process of change that brought Morales to power. But only now is the strength of their participation since 2006 gaining recognition, under the leadership of indigenous and com-

munity activists from poor rural and urban areas in the country’s western highlands region.

Leonardo is one of them - a farmer who led thousands of peasant women as they showed their strength in roadblocks, days-long marches along highways, and protest demonstrations that formed part of the struggle against the free market economic policies implemented by governments between 1985 and 2005.

Researchers and indigenous thinkers say the major changes seen in Bolivia over the last four years are largely due to the strength and drive of women. But up to now, the women’s movement had not taken a front seat role. When he announced his new cabinet, Morales also said that Bolivian women’s social conscience, patriotism and dedication to defending national interests, as well as the respect he feels for his mother, sister and daughter, were factors in his decision to break with a long history of discrimination against women.

The female members of the cabinet include popular folk singer and activist Zulma Yugar in the Ministry of Culture; lawyer and former ombudswoman Nardi Suxo as the anti-corruption minister; U.S.trained economist Elba Viviana Caro in the Ministry of Development Planning; Antonia Rodríguez, the head of an association of women artisans, as Minister of Productive Development; Nilda Copa, a leader of the Bartolina Sisa federation of peasant women of Tarija, in the Justice Ministry; and Carmen Trujillo as Minister of Labor and Social Security. Others are Dr. Sonia Polo as Minister of Health and Sports; María Esther Udaeta as Environment Minister; Nemesia Chacollo, a leader of the Bartolina Sisa federation of peasant women of La Paz, as Minister of Rural Development and Land; and Minister of Legal Defense Elizabeth Arismendi.

But the organizations that make up the Coordinadora de la Mujer have no intention of resting on their laurels, and have already launched a campaign to achieve gender equity at the municipal and regional levels, demanding that half of the candidates fielded by political parties in the April local and provincial elections be women.

Source: Inter Press Service News Agency, IPS: http://www.ipsnews.net/latin.asp

World Social Forum turns 10 as participants call for new forms of development.

(Hamilton F.P. Farias FSM2010)

World Social Forum (WSF) at 10

By José Pedro Martins Porto Alegre, February 21, 2010 (Latinamerica Press)

n the wake of the global economic crisis, social movements made a renewed call for justice at the 10th annual World Social Forum in Porto Alegre, Brazil. The forum, held this year on January 25-29, has for a decade served as an arena for alternatives to globalization by civil society and social movements that counters the World Economic Forum, held in Davos, Switzerland.

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“If before movements and civil society were fragmented, there is much more unity and activities today,” said Brazilian businessman Oded Grajew, one of the founders of the forum. Grajew and other participants, which totaled 35,000 from 39 countries, said the global economic meltdown of 2008 is just one more example that the mainstream economic model has failed and its heavy reign on society has brought social, economic and environmental consequences.

Lula takes center stage “I’m aware that Davos no longer has the glamour that people thought it had in 2003,” said President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva. Lula did not travel to Davos, where he was awarded with the

first-ever “Global Statesman” award, due to a case of hypertension. His words were met with loud applause before 7,000 forum participants in Porto Alegre.

Lula, who has long been publicly critical of rich countries’ failure to effectively fight poverty, is still facing a hefty list of demands from his constituency, including land reform, as elections in October approach and Lula works to bring his successor to office.

“Necessary and urgent” Portuguese sociologist Boaventura de Sousa Santos, one of the most vocal participants in the World Social Forum, suggested changing the event’s theme to “Another World is Necessary and Urgent” from “Another World is Possible.”

Participants reiterated their commitment to fight deforestation, agrochemicals and monoculture.

“We know that these triumphs will come from the organized people’s struggle,” said the event’s final declaration, referring to defense of the environment.

Brazilian social movements, in particular, called for greater unity in the country’s struggle to improve income distribution, fight poverty and defend the environment. Participants also called for an end to military bases in Latin America and the Caribbean and safe and sane environmental policies.

Source: Latinamerica Press: http://www.lapress.org/index.asp

United Church of Canada call to end killings of anti-mining activists in El Salvador

By Jim Hodgson February 14, 2010 (United Church of Canada)

he call is to act to defend members of a United Church partner organiza-

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tion and others from threats directed against community leaders concerned about the ecological impacts of a gold mining project. Since June 2009, four people have been murdered and

threats continue against leaders of the Santa Marta Association for Economic and Social Development (ADES), a non-governmental organization that is a partner of The United

Church of Canada.

Background The Santa Marta Association for Economic and Social Development (ADES), a nongovernmental organization that

is a partner of The United Church of Canada, works closely with the journalists of Radio Victoria, the Cabañas Environment Committee, and Continue on page 7

Who cares about the victims of forced displacement in Colombia?

By Helda Martínez February 1, 2010 (Inter Press Service News Agency) “Why is the government, which is so generous towards the richest sectors of the economy, so stingy towards the displaced?” asked activist Marco Romero at the presentation of a new report on the dire situation faced by the millions of Colombians who have been forced out of their rural homes by the country’s nearly half-century old armed conflict. Romero, the director of the Consultancy for Human Rights and Displacement (CODHES), was alluding to things like a recent scandal over 113 million dollars in tax-free farm subsidies handed out over the last three years to wealthy business families, some of whom are not even involved in agriculture, under the government’s Agro Ingreso Seguro program.

Many of the beneficiaries have made sizeable campaign contributions towards the re-election of right-wing President Álvaro Uribe to a third term in office. The Ministry of Agriculture is one of the focuses of the investigation by the Attorney General’s Office.

The activist was also referring to recent tax cuts for the tobacco industry adopted by the Uribe administration and the huge tax breaks it offers foreign investors. But Romero’s criticism, voiced during this week’s release of the report “¿Salto estratégico, o salto al vacío?” (“Strategic Leap, or Leap into the Void?”), an overview of forced displacement in Colombia between 2002 and 2009, also alluded to society’s indifference towards the throngs of poor peasant farmers trying to scratch out a living as street vendors or manual laborers in the cities.

The report by CODHES, one of Colombia’s most respected human rights groups, says 49 percent of the displaced have been forced off their land during the Uribe administration, whose controversial “democratic security policy” has drawn criticism from human rights groups.

Indifference marks the plight faced by the nearly five million people forcibly displaced in Colombia over the last 25 years, including 2.4 million displaced from 2002 - when Uribe’s first term started - to 2009.

Based on data from Colombia’s Catholic Church and bishops’ conference, the public prosecutor’s office and the government department in charge of providing aid to the internally displaced, Acción Social, as well as daily monitoring of the media, CODHES estimates that 290,000 people were displaced in different regions of the country in 2009, “as a result of the conflict and other expressions of violence.”

In this South American country, which has one of the largest populations of internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the world, along with the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Iraq and Sudan, people have been forcibly displaced in 69 of the total 1,119 municipalities. But the hardest hit areas are the northwestern

Repression in Aguán imminent, denounces the Unified Peasant Movement (MUCA) April 5, 2010 (Honduras: Human Rights)

The Unified Peasant Movement of Aguán, to the Honduran people and national and international human rights organizations, denounces:

Improvised shelters in Tercer Milenio park, Bogotá, Colombia, 2009.

(Helda Martí nez IPS)

province of Antioquia, a paramilitary stronghold (45,800 IDPs), and the war-torn southwestern province of Nariño (26,000 IDPs), where coca crop spraying has been stepped up in the last few years.

The largest numbers of IDPs have fled to Bogotá, whose reputation as a relatively safer city and the fact that it is the largest city in the country make it the biggest magnet for those seeking safety and a way to make a living. And although the latest CODHES figures point to a 24 percent drop in the number of people displaced in 2009 compared to 2008, the situation remains serious.

The report says it is appalling that “civilians in Colombia are still forced to flee from the constant aggression from illegal armed groups, and in many cases from agents of the state who due to action, omission, incapacity or complicity fail to guarantee the basic rights to life, honor and assets as the constitution stipulates.”

Rural populations of black and indigenous people are the most heavily affected by forced displacement, especially in areas where oil palm plantations are expanding.

“It’s true that there have been advances for some segments of society, but not for everyone, which casts into doubt the democratic component of (the government’s) security policy,” says the report. The humanitarian and human rights crisis caused by displacement will lead to “a leap into the void” unless there is some change in terms of “the internal conflict, theft of land, emergence of new armed groups, increase in illegal drug crops, fragmentation of drug cartels, and a rural development model that accentuates inequality and deepens social injustice in the countryside,” it adds.

Between 1999 and 2007, some 5.5 million hectares of land were seized from 380,000 peasant families, according to the Encuesta Nacional de Verificación, a national survey that periodically follows up on the government’s compliance with a landmark 2004 Constitutional Court ruling. In its unprecedented legal decision, known as T-025, the Court ruled that there were massive violations of the constitutional rights of those displaced from their land by all parties to the conflict - far-right paramilitaries, left-wing guerrillas, and gov-

ernment forces - and that the government is legally bound to guarantee respect for IDPs’ rights to health, education, housing, emergency humanitarian aid, and food security.

However, in 2009, public policies once again failed to live up to the Constitutional Court order, said CODHES president Jorge Rojas. That was born out by the fact that the rural population shrank by one million people over the last five years, to 9.3 million people.

“Under the current administration, the rural population has declined by at least nine percent, due to causes attributed to the violence and armed conflict and, to a lesser extent, the predominant rural development model,” said Romero.

Among the causes of the rural exodus, the report mentions the resurgence of “demobilized” paramilitary groups seeking to consolidate control over land taken from peasant farmers. In addition, the paramilitaries “control the drug trade, take over the local institutions, and impose guns and money as forms of political control,” said Romero.

In second place in terms of numbers of IDPs are disputed areas where the state is carrying out a military offensive against the FARC (Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia) and smaller ELN (National Liberation Army) guerrillas, which are trying to regroup after the setbacks suffered in the past few years. The third cause of displacement is aerial spraying and forced manual eradication of drug crops by the military, reports CODHES. The only options available to IDPs are joining one of the illegal armed groups, fleeing to Bogotá or some other city or to a neighboring country, or trying to find land to grow coca or opium poppies, thus becoming part of the weakest link in the drug trafficking chain. But people are also fleeing growing levels of urban violence, especially in Antioquia’s provincial capital, Medellín, Valle del Cauca’s capital Cali, and Bogotá.

In the meantime, the constant threats against activists and organizations working on behalf of the IDPs, including CODHES, continue.

Source: Inter Press Service News Agency, IPS: http://www.ipsnews.net/latin.asp

1. The murder of our colleague Miguel Angel Alonso, farmer, is part of the new strategy of extermination of MUCA by landowners Miguel Facusse, Reinaldo Canales and René Morales, with the participation of the army, national police and the naval base of Puerto Castilla.

2. Paramilitary, military, and police groups are being trained in the fourth infantry battalion in La Ceiba Atlántida under the command of Billy Joya in the premises of the Atlantic factory exporter in the Quebrada community, in the Tocoa municipality, and in the installations of the 15th Battalion in the Rio Claro community, Trujillo municipality, Colon department.

3. Beginning in April, the occupied land will be intervened militarily, in a violent and bloody way, with the installation of mines and traps.

This repression is being called Operation Thunder and includes measures such as the arrest and assassination of MUCA and National Resistance Front leaders as well as

the mass detention of peasants and farmers.

4. The police and army vehicles operating in Colon use the landowners’ private cars, are armed with AK47s, use ski masks and conduct daily operations with paramilitary forces against the MUCA. 5.-We hold the landowners, the national army, the national police, and the current government accountable for the deaths that have already occurred and for the innocent blood that could run with the development of Operation Thunder.

Tocoa, Colon, Honduras, April 2, 2010 Source: Honduras: Human Rights: http://hondurashumanrights.wordpress.com/

Aguán Belongs To Us (MUCA)

United Church of Canada…

From page 6

others concerned about the ecological impact of a proposed gold mining project in the Cabañas department of northern El Salvador. However, since last June, community leaders from the region of Cabañas and Santa Marta have come under serious threat related to their resistance.

Salvadoran President Maurio Funes, who opposed the mining project during his presidential campaign, has reiterated his support for the community, assuring Salvadorans that he will not succumb to pressure from the mining industry. Local police authorities and the former Attorney General have classified these murder cases as common crimes. Salvadorans are fearful and outraged by the continued violence, but also by the inability and unwillingness of the police and the office of the attorney general to protect community activists and halt the violence.

As people of faith, we must stand together in solidarity with our sisters and brothers who work for ecological justice and human rights and in defense of their communities in El

Salvador. The needs of the people and the Earth must be put before business and profit. We ask you to call on the Salvadoran government to ensure that the threats and violence are stopped and that an exhaustive investigation of these crimes and their motives be carried out.

The Attorney General and Salvadoran authorities are being urged to: •carry out impartial, exhaustive, and effective investigations into the assassination of Marcelo Rivera, Ramiro Rivera, Felícita Echevarría, and Dora Alicia Sorto, and bring those responsible to justice •ensure the safety and protection of all members of the Santa Marta Association for Economic and Social Development (ADES), the Cabanas Environmental Committee, other community activists and their relatives •guarantee the rights of environmental and human rights activists to dissent and peaceful protest

Source: United Church of Canada: http://www.united-church.ca/

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

Latin American News 7

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

8 Indigenous Issues

Indigenous women form the first community of Abya Yala theologians

Indigenous groups, post-Copenhagen

Berlin, El Salvador, January 6, 2010 (ALC)

Lima, February 4, 2010 (Latinamerica Press)

J

ust prior to the VI Continental Gathering of Indian Theology held in El Salvador recently, the first gathering of Indigenous Women Abya Yala Theologians took place, with the theme, “United to support the community”. At the gathering it was decided that the Community of Abya Yala Indigenous Women Theologians be formed, and a closing statement was issued. Women of the Aymara, Quechua, Kichua, Náhuatl, Mayan Quichè, Maya Kakchiquel, Qom, Kaigang peoples, together with sisters in solidarity with the process of reflection and action, gathered in the municipality of Berlin, El Salvador, on November 29 and 30, 2009.

“We recognize ourselves as being descendents of the millennial cultures, inheritors of the grandmothers and grandfathers who were valiant fighters and martyrs, such as Bartolina Sisa, Gregoria Apaza, Micaela Bastidas, Tomasa Tito, Digna Ochoa, Commander Ramona, Transita Amaguaña, and Dolores Cacuango, who were murdered, raped, humiliated, tortured, disappeared, and exiled for defending life, the earth, children, justice and the right to life of the indigenous peoples. We are also live seeds of anonymous women, mothers and daughters, who day after day cultivated our ancestral knowledge and transmitted culture from generation to generation, such as Rigoberta Menchu, Rosa Ribeiro, Domitila Chungara. We are inheritors of the history of oppression, perseverance and resistance of our peoples.

“We recognize ourselves as being caretakers of the natural and ancestral seeds, cultivators of the earth and of the struggles of the

Indigenous groups from 14 countries around the region sought to take advantage of and defend their traditions and teachings to combat climate change in the second Latin American summit on Climate Change Impacts on Indigenous Peoples: Post held Copenhagen, January 25-26 in Lima.

Faces of Indigenous Women (ALER ALC) excluded peoples, generators and recreators of life and of the community, transmitters of natural medicine and sacred wisdom, preservers of the balance and harmony of Pachamama, Nan Uleu, Tlalli, Pats, ‘Enauacna. We recognize that the ancestral spirituality moves through our bodies and integrates the family and is expressed in the language, dress, manners, music, dances, festivities, symbols, rites, and the myths that give us the energy to continue on the way,” say the women in the final declaration of the gathering.

The theologians dialogued on theology, the Bible and pastoral concerns from the understanding and experience of indigenous women.

“We understood that there is the necessity to broaden the way of understanding theology, the biblical hermeneutics and the pastoral perspectives, seriously incorporating our cosmovisions, cultural codes, symbolic manifestations, and spiritualities. We also understood that there is the need to recover the broken and burnt threads and to creatively knit multicolored mantels that go beyond the institutions and

make us an open, welcoming and hospitable community.

“We raise our voice of hopeful struggle and we urge humanity to build and follow alternative paradigms of life, beginning with our life as indigenous and our cosmovisions based on the Suma Qamaña, Sumaj Kawsay, Ñandereko, Da Nca’alaxa ‘Enauac, Inh Fé Tupe, Xochitlalpan, Endanazaaca, Buen vivir (‘Good living’) or Vida Plena (‘Full Life’) for a world where other worlds have room as well,” they underline.

They summon the other indigenous sisters and others in solidarity with their cause to join in the new community. Likewise, they invite the indigenous brothers and others in solidarity with the indigenous cause to see, to hear and to support the different voices and experiences of the indigenous women, to respect their processes and to assume their word in the theological, biblical and pastoral building as a community, with respect and welcome. “We glimpse a colorful world, with the smell of the damp earth, with flavors and different colors,” they end by saying.

Indigenous group kicks out oil company in Ecuador Quito, February 12, 2010 (Latinamerica Press) he Sarayaku Kichwa indigenous group in Ecuador’s Amazon jungle saw a happy ending to its 14-year struggle to end two oil giants’ presence on its land. In December, Argentina’s Compañía General de Combustibles, a subsidiary of US oil company Chevron, and Burlington Resources, of the United States, agreed to end their oil

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contracts with the government amid pressure from the local indigenous community.

The government had granted the two companies a concession to explore and drill on two lots in the area in 1996, without consulting the Sarayaku community, in the Pastaza province.

The concession violated an agreement signed seven years earlier in which the government guaranteed the Sarayaku community’s rights to

Soldiers with CGC engineer, Sarayaku, Ecuador.

(Giovanny Acción Fotográfica Argentina Indymedia)

the land and banned oil exploration there. In early 2003, the government put the military in control of the indigenous area so the indigenous community members did not even have free movement on their own lands, and the oil companies began to intimidate the local population.

A year later, the community presented a case against the Ecuadorian state before the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, a body of the Organization of American States, which sought protection for the community. The following year, the oil companies had to suspend their activities since the Inter-American Court on Human Rights ruled that the government must protect the community.

The government has not complied with the part of the sentence that called for the removal of 400 kilograms of explosives planted by the Argentine company in the indigenous area, and on February 3, the community appealed to the court to pressure the government into complying with the sentence.

Source: Latinamerica Press: http://www.lapress.org/index.asp

Participants in the summit, convened by the Coordinating Group of Indigenous Women’s Continental South American Region, the Central American Indigenous Council and the Center for Indigenous Cultures of Peru-Chirapaq, discussed the best methods of sustainable development on indigenous lands, measures to monitor forests and rivers, food sovereignty and security, gender and indigenous rights. They swapped information about

extreme weather such as cold snaps, blizzards and abnormal rainfall patterns that have damaged or destroyed indigenous lands and their native crops.

“The food security crisis, illnesses, the loss of our traditional teachings and practices, the weakening of our own [community] organization are consequences of climate change,” said the Lima Declaration: For the Life of Mother and Human Nature. The trend has broken the ecological, socioeconomic and spiritual balance, they said.

Participants agreed that indigenous peoples continue to be some of the worst affected by climate change, with extreme impacts on their lands, health, culture, economy, water and natural resources.

They called for unified mobilizations of indigenous groups against extractive industries such as oil and mining, which directly hurt the communities, and said their traditional knowledge should be used to counter the economic models that promote dangerous, unsustainable development.

Source: Latinamerica Press: http://www.lapress.org/index.asp

Indigenous peoples’ thinking, Mural (WACC UBL Costa Rica)

Churches called to fulfill their role toward “inclusive justice” at the Lutheran World Federation PreAssembly Consultation and Church Leadership Conference April 14, 2010 (LWI) olombian Lutheran Bishop Eduardo Martinez has reminded representatives of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) member churches in Latin America and the Caribbean of their responsibility in building an equal society that provides inclusiveness in a continent demanding justice and equality.

In his sermon based on Luke 14:1213, at the opening worship of the April 12-16 LWF Pre-Assembly Consultation and Church Leadership Conference for the Latin America and Caribbean region, hosted by the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Colombia (IELCO), Martinez said, “We have been told that in our society there will always be poor and rich.

That it is something normal, a natural condition, and that the rich are rich because they work and that the poor are poor because they are lazy, don’t want to work and always spend whatever savings they might have.

But the truth is that the poor are not

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invited to enjoy the abundance of bread that our society has. … This thinking has to change.” On a continent where a great number of people are poor, sharing is an opportunity to transform the region into a continent that demands “justice and equality” and “food for everyone.”

Participants deliberated on the July 2010 assembly theme, “Give Us Today Our Daily Bread,” and on LWF’s work since the last assembly.

The delegates meeting in Bogotá brought bread from their home countries to share at the meeting.

With this bread on a table before the altar at the opening worship, Rev. Martin Junge, LWF area secretary for Latin America and the Caribbean, said, “This ceremony, full of symbolism, encourages the act of sharing, but it also reminds us that there are many in the world that are left hungry.” Junge, who will become LWF general secretary later this year, said “this is something that we as Christians are required to change and overcome.”

No justice for Indians in Peru’s Amazon massacre By Ángel Páez Lima, February 23, 2010 (Inter Press Service News Agency)

“The police generals have been charged with the common crimes of homicide and severe bodily injuries, which are not crimes in the line of duty here or anywhere else,” argues the head of the non-governmental APRODEH human rights association, Miguel Jugo. APRODEH is one of the human rights groups, along with COMISEDH, the IDL and the Catholic Episcopal Commission for Social Action (CEAS), representing the 96 defendants accused of the June 2009 violence in Bagua. lthough the technical investigations cleared two of the indigenous demonstrators accused in the murders of 12 policemen during a bloody June 2009 clash between native protesters and the security forces near the northern Amazon jungle town of Bagua, they are still behind bars.

Feliciano Cahuasa and Danny López have been in prison for over eight months, despite the fact that technical crime scene investigations showed that neither of them fired a single shot and they are thus innocent of the June 5 killings of the police officers.

On the other hand, no police are in prison for the June 5 shooting deaths of at least 10 indigenous protesters, which occurred when the police were ordered to clear their roadblock on the main highway near Bagua. The killings put an end to a two-month demonstration and traffic blockade by thousands of native protesters demanding the repeal of decrees passed by the government of Alan García that opened up indigenous land in the rainforest

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to oil, mining and logging companies. The decrees were passed without the required consultation with native communities. (Since the June 5 incidents, Congress has revoked several of the decrees.)

According to different sources, the local police chiefs and the protesters had reached an agreement for a peaceful lifting of the roadblock at 10:30 AM on June 5. But at dawn that day, heavily armed police units arrived and opened fire on the demonstrators, some of whom were still sleeping. When the shooting began at the Curva del Diablo, the area on the highway where the roadblock was set up, indigenous protesters took 38 police at a nearby oil pumping station (Estación 6) hostage, and stripped them of their weapons.

Police officers who survived the attack on the hostages told IPS after the incident that the indigenous protesters killed some of their colleagues in reprisal for the security forces’ failure to respect the peace agreement reached with the local police chiefs. The courts in Bagua were investigating 96 native and nonindigenous demonstrators in connection with the murders of 23 police and the disappearance of another during the incidents, which are known in Peru as the “Baguazo”.

Juan José Quispe and Gustavo Campos, two of the lawyers representing the native protesters charged with the murders of the police who died that day, have filed an injunction for an extension of the deadline for the legal inquiry in the courts in Bagua, which has expired. The attorneys argue that the judges failed to carry out investigations that are crucial to clarifying the situation of the 96 defendants, including Cahuasa and López. “There is no evidence against Cahuasa and López, just as there is none against the other defendants,” Quispe, with the nongovernmental Human Rights Commission (COMISEDH), told IPS. “Of course the murderers of the police should be punished, but these

Brazilian Lutherans send help to Haiti

By Antonio Carlos Ribeiro Porto Alegre, January 28, 2010

he campaign to collect offerings for the victims of the earthquake in Haiti, being carried out by the Evangelical Church of Lutheran Confession in Brazil (IECLB), has so far received $12,000.00, which has been sent on January 26 to the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), informed Pastor Walter Altmann, President of the IECLB. The LWF, which gathers together Lutheran churches around the world, is participating in the emergency relief work in Haiti and has thanked the enthusiastic support of the Brazilian Lutherans. The LWF and the

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World Council of Churches (WCC) are publicly supporting the campaign for the pardoning of Haiti’s foreign debt, insisting that the amount of the funding given for the reconstruction of the country be considered as a donation to the Caribbean nation.

In his letter, Altmann informs that it is estimated that there are hundreds of thousands dead and incalculable material damages, with a reminder that a good part of Haiti is in ruins and that the Haitian people are relying on solidarity and intercessions.

Altmann calls on the communities and parishes of the IECLB to commit themselves to solidarity with their Haitian brothers and sisters.

Massacre in Bagua, June, 2009 (CATAPA) people weren’t the ones who killed them,” he said.

“The entire case is plagued with irregularities,” said the lawyer, who pointed out, for example, that “the testimony of key eyewitnesses, which showed that the defendants are innocent, was not even gathered. “The people who are on trial were arbitrarily arrested by the police on the day of the events in question. They weren’t arrested as the result of any investigation,” said Quispe.

Héctor Requejo, the mayor of the province of Condorcanqui and leader of the Aguaruna indigenous community, and Merino Trigoso, another native leader, have been accused of planning the killing of police at the Curva del Diablo.

Requejo and Trigoso were allegedly identified by two teenagers arrested by members of the army during the “Baguazo”. However, the two young men’s statements are not included in the case file.

“The legal authorities themselves confirmed that the adolescents’ statements do not appear in the case file; nevertheless, the persecution of Requejo and Trigoso continues,” said Gustavo Campos of the non-governmental Legal Defense Institute (IDL). “What’s more, the adolescents have said that they did not accuse either one of them,” he added.

Campos said “we have recommended to the courts that the case be declared complex, in order to continue with the investigations ahead of the oral phase of the trial, to establish that there is no evidence against the 96 defendants who are facing prosecution.” But the request was turned down, “so we have appealed,” said Campos, who added that “we are very concerned about the series of irregularities that have undermined due process.”

Prosecutors in the province of Utcubamba, which has jurisdiction over the events in Bagua, accused two generals of being ultimately responsible for the killings of four indigenous protesters, and two police officers of being the actual perpetrators. The generals are the former head of special operations (DIROES), Gen. Luis Muguruza, and former Bagua police chief Gen. Javier Uribe.

But the attorneys representing the indigenous defendants said the prosecutors’ case contained serious flaws, such as considering the two generals ultimately responsible for the demonstrators’ murders. The lawyers pointed out that the generals were actually following orders.

“Muguruza and Uribe formed part of a chain of command that stretched all the way up to the then director of the National Police, Lieutenant General José Sánchez Farfán, and his immediate boss, then Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas, who at the same time was under the orders of Prime Minister Yehude Simon,” said Quispe.

However, “statements have not even been taken from Cabanillas and Simon, which would be very important in establishing where the order originated to crack down on the demonstrators at Curva del Diablo and Estación 6, where massacres were committed on both sides,” he said. In the lawyer’s view, “these charges by the prosecutors were designed to guarantee impunity for the executive branch officials.”

But there has also been another attempt to keep government officials

who gave the order for a violent break-up of the roadblock out of the hands of justice. The president of the Supreme Council of Military Justice, retired vice admiral Carlos Mesa, announced that he would attempt to have the two generals tried by the military, rather than civilian, courts.

Mesa argued that the military justice system has jurisdiction over cases in which police have allegedly committed crimes in the line of duty.

“This is a maneuver by the military justice system to ensure impunity for the police generals in exchange for their agreement not to testify that they carried out the operation in Bagua on direct orders from former Prime Minister Yehude Simon and former Interior Minister Mercedes Cabanillas,” said Jugo. He said the military establishment and the generals who are facing charges are well aware that the penalties for crimes in the line of duty are much lighter than the sentences for homicide in the ordinary courts, which can be as long as 35 years.

The Regional Organization of Indigenous Peoples of the Northern Amazon (ORPIAN) has called for a demonstration to protest the irregularities in the case against the 96 indigenous demonstrators. ORPIAN will also protest the failure to repeal all of the decrees that opened up the Amazon jungle to investment by mining, oil and timber companies.

The multi-party congressional committee in charge of the process of revoking the controversial decrees that triggered last year’s indigenous protests that led to the “Baguazo” informed IPS that four of the 10 socalled “jungle laws” have already been overturned. The committee had issued a report which concluded that the 10 decrees violated International Labor Organization (ILO) Convention 169, which requires that indigenous groups be previously consulted with respect to any investment projects in their territory.

Source: Inter Press Service News Agency, IPS: http://www.ipsnews.net/latin.asp

Professor José Manuel Flores, member of the National Front of Popular Resistance (FNRP) to the coup, assassinated Tegucigalpa, March 24, 2010 (Honduras: Human Rights) n March 23, at three in the afternoon an unknown person was sighted in front of the Official High School Institute San Jose del Pedregal. The unusual presence of the stranger caused concerns among students and the more than 30 teachers that make up the staff of teachers that take care of the teaching obligations at the school. Among the teachers was Professor of Social Science José Manuel Flores, who also had the role of teacher counselor.

Witnesses saw two pickup vehicles approaching from the rear of the premises of the institution, one green and another white. Professor Manuel, as his friends called him, was in the back of the facility over-

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seeing his pupils when he found his murderers. They had crossed the perimeter fence and fired their guns at close range. Professor Manuel was in a terrace and fell over but the

José Manuel Flores (Honduras Human Rights)

murderers fired again. One of them lost his balaclava cap as they escaped through a hole they had made in the wired fence which serves as perimeter security. The teacher died instantly.

This is the first case of a teacher who was murdered inside educational facilities, in front of his peers and students. Those who ordered and planned the crime have a clear strategic purpose to set fear in the peaceful movement of the resistance by assassinating prominent leaders of the movement. These crimes are being committed without compromising state security forces, who are hiring assassins from other countries who have come to Honduras to take revenge against those who pursued justice following the coup.

Source: http://hondurashumanrights.wordpress.com/

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

Latin American News 9

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

10 Latin America and Environment

Canada moves to oversee mining firms in Latin America

By Emilio Godoy Mexico City, March 7, 2010 (Inter Press Service News Agency) midst allegations that Canadian mining companies operating in Latin America have been complicit in the murders and harassment of activists, several positive developments in Canada are seen as a source of hope that firms may begin to be held accountable on human rights and environmental questions. The Canadian parliament is currently considering Bill C-300, “An Act Respecting Corporate Accountability for the Activities of Mining, Oil or Gas Corporations in Developing Countries”, aimed at ensuring that Canadian extractive companies follow human rights and environmental best practices when they operate overseas.

It would create a mechanism allowing Canadians and affected communities to sue companies that violate these standards, and impose sanctions - such as the loss of government loans or assistance - on firms found guilty of such violations, according to MiningWatch Canada.

In addition, the Canadian government launched a web site in January offering Canadian mining companies advice and information to help them adopt ethical business practices.

And in a late January decision that focused on a Red Chris (owned

by Imperial Metals) mining company project in the western Canadian province of British Columbia, Canada’s Supreme Court ruled that the federal government could not split projects into artificially small parts in order to avoid comprehensive environmental impact studies.

In its verdict, the Court stated that under the Canadian Environmental Assessment Act, entire projects must be environmentally evaluated, and the government “cannot reduce the scope of the project to less than what is proposed” by the company.

The ruling also said the

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Mining Watch Canada, Logo (MiningWatch Canada) Canadian government had acted unlawfully by excluding public input from its assessment of the planned Red Chris open-pit mine, which would process 30,000 metric tons of copper and gold a day in a pristine wilderness area.

“We have gone from a position of ignorance on the question of mining companies to a situation in which the parties are well-informed on the issue and are working to get the bill approved,” Daviken Studnicki-Gizbert, coordinator of the McGill Research Group for the Investigation of Canadian Mining in Latin America (MICLA), told IPS. “Awareness has been increasing on the issue,” said Studnicki-Gizbert, an associate professor at the Department of History at McGill University in Montreal who has researched the environmental impact of mining companies in Mexico and Panama.

The Canadian parliament’s House of Commons Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs and International Trade has already examined Bill C-300. In the meantime, that country’s main parties the Liberal Party, the New Democratic Party and the Conservative Party - have all introduced their own versions, which indicate that passage of a law regulating the operations of mining companies abroad is imminent.

“What is happening in Canada…is an example of what should be done in Mexico, with respect to the adoption of laws as well as the obligation for firms to be

transparent, auditable and accountable. There is a long list of pending issues here,” Agustín Bravo, a lawyer with the non-governmental Mexican Center for Environmental Law (CEMDA), told IPS. CEMDA has worked closely with opponents of the Paredones Amarillos gold mine project of the U.S.-based Vista Gold company, which was eventually denied a permit by Mexico’s Secretariat (ministry) of the Environment and Natural Resources to mine for gold in a forested area.

Vista Gold wants to extract the precious metal for 10 years in an area adjacent to the Sierra de La Laguna biosphere reserve in the northwestern state of Baja California Sur, some 4,000 km from the Mexican capital.

standards of practice,” wrote Studnicki-Gizbert and Christine Fréchette, coordinator of the Chair in Contemporary Mexico Studies at the University of Montréal, in an article published February in “Focal Point; Canada’s Spotlight on the Americas”, a bulletin put out by the Canadian Foundation for the Americas.

MICLA has identified at least 100 cases of local communities in conflict with Canadian mining companies throughout Latin America.

“Abarca’s murder occurred just when the issue was gaining attention in the Canadian media; the debate on the bill (C-300) in the Committee coincided with the killing,” said Studnicki-Gizbert.

Conflicts that kill The fight against environmental and health damages caused by mines in Mexico can be lethal. In November 2009, Mariano Abarca, a leader of the Mexican Network of People Affected by Mining (REMA), was killed. He had fought hard against Canadian mining company Blackfire Exploration’s operations in the southern Mexican state of Chiapas, and had requested police protection, saying he had received threats from people linked to the mining firm.

Mineral-rich Chiapas, Mexico’s poorest state, is one of the areas in this country that has proven most attractive to foreign mining companies, especially from Canada.

Abarca’s murder triggered an outcry in Mexico and abroad, and protest demonstrations were held in front of the Canadian Embassy in the Mexican capital. Nearly 60 percent of the world’s mining corporations are Canadian, and mining companies from that country have at least 578 projects in Mexico. But while MICLA reports that only 13 of them have generated conflicts in Mexico in recent years, it says these disputes have “tarnished” the entire industry.

“Only measures designed to put pressure on mining companies will force them to comply with ethical

Violence in Ecuador too A case that could help strengthen the accountability of mining companies is a one billion dollar lawsuit brought before the Ontario Superior Court of Justice by Ecuadorian activists Marcia Ramírez and brothers Polibio and Israel Pérez against the Copper Mesa Mining Corporation (formerly known as Ascendant Copper), two of the members of the company’s board of directors, and the Toronto Stock Exchange (TSX).

The legal action, filed in March 2009, claims the copper company used aggressive and coercive tactics, including hiring armed thugs, to acquire land and natural resources in the village of Intag near the town of Junín in western Ecuador.

According to the lawsuit, the TSX, which financed Copper Mesa’s openpit copper and molybdenum mining project in Intag, and the two executives, are complicit in the company’s use of death threats and intimidation against villagers Polibio Pérez is president of the Community Development Council of Junín, Ramírez heads two community groups, the Asociación EcoJunín and Defensoras de la Vida, and Israel Pérez is a local resident.

On December 2, 2006, a group of armed men working for the firm

threatened a peaceful, unarmed gathering of local residents, and fired shots. One of the ricocheted bullets hit Israel Pérez in the lower leg. In addition, Ramírez was sprayed in the face with pepper spray and Polibio Pérez received death threats. Polibio Pérez was later assaulted on July 31, 2007 by a group of men with connections to Copper Mesa, the lawsuit also states.

“Something must be done immediately, because we are just now realizing the magnitude of the phenomenon. There are 400 new projects in the pipeline,” said Studnicki-Gizbert.

In 2007, the Canadian government held roundtable sessions with representatives from the mining industry, activists and academics to discuss the lack of oversight for the industry. One of the recommendations was the creation of an oversight mechanism, set up two years later, to allow an independent corporate social responsibility counselor to investigate allegations against mining companies - but only if the company facing accusations agrees to the inquiry.

The “independent” counselor, named in October, turned out to be Marketa Evans, founding director of the University of Toronto’s Munk Center - named for and funded by Peter Munk, founder of Canadian mining giant Barrick Gold, which is accused of widespread pollution in Peru and Chile.

“The system is still too lax, compared to other activities like industry and the tourism real estate sector. In the midst of this mining boom (driven by high prices), full legal compliance and enforcement is needed,” said Bravo.

The United Nations Committees on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights and the Elimination of Racial Discrimination have urged Canada to take measures to prevent abuses abroad by corporations domiciled in their territory, and to hold them accountable.

Source: Inter Press Service News Agency, IPS: http://www.ipsnews.net/latin.asp

Social Justice - Ecological Justice

By Leonardo Boff

Among the many problems that afflict humanity, two are particularly grave: social injustice and ecological injustice. Both must be jointly dealt with if we want to put humanity and planet Earth on a secure path. ocial injustice is an old matter that derives from an economic model that, besides plundering nature, generates more poverty than it can handle and solve. It implies, on the one hand, great accumulation of goods and services, at the expense, on the other hand, of enormous poverty and misery. The facts speak for themselves: there are one billion people who live on the edge of survival, on just one dollar per day, and 2.6 billion people (40%

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of humanity) who live on less than two dollars daily. The consequences are perverse. Suffice it to mention one fact: there are between 350 to 500 million cases of malaria, with one million avoidable victims annually.

This counter-reality has been kept invisible for a long time, in order to hide the failure of the capitalist economic model, made to create wealth for a few and not for the well-being of the whole of humanity.

The second injustice, the ecological, is linked to the first. The devastation of nature and current global warming affect all countries, without regard for national boundaries or their levels of wealth or poverty. Of course, the rich have better means of adapting and mitigating the negative effects of climate change. In the face of extreme events, they have refrigerators or

heaters and can build defenses against the floods that destroy whole regions. But the poor have no means of defending themselves.

They suffer the consequences of a problem they did not create.

Fred Pierce, author of The Population Earthquake, wrote in “The New Scientist”, November 2009, that “the 500 million wealthiest people (7% of world population) are responsible for 50% of the gas emissions that produce global warming, while the poorest 50% (3.4 billion of the population) are responsible for only 7% of the emissions.”

This ecological injustice cannot be kept invisible as easily as the other type, because the signs are everywhere. Nor can it be solved only by the rich, because it is global and the rich are also affected. The solution must be born from the collaboration of everyone, in a differ-

entiated way: the rich, being the more responsible in both past and present, must contribute much more with investments and transferal of technologies, and the poor have the right to an ecologically sustainable development that will lift them out of misery.

We certainly cannot overlook the solutions, but they alone are insufficient, because the global solution depends on a prior question: the paradigm of a society that is reflected in the difficulty of changing life styles and habits of consumption. We must point to universal solidarity, collective responsibility and caring for all that lives and exists (we are not the only ones who live in this planet and use the biosphere.) An awareness of the inter-dependency of all, and of the unity of the Earth and humanity, is fundamental.

Can the present generations be

asked to follow such values if they have never lived globally before?

How can we carry out this change, which must be done urgently and quickly?

Perhaps only after a great catastrophe that would afflict millions and millions of people could this radical change happen, because of the survival instinct. This metaphor occurs to me: if our country were invaded and threatened with destruction by some external power, we all would unite, beyond our differences. As in a war economy, all would be cooperative and solidarian; they would accept shortages and sacrifices in order to save the motherland and life. Now the Motherland is the threatened Life and Earth. We must do everything to save them.

Free translation from the Spanish by Servicios Koinonia, http://www.servicioskoinonia.org.

Statement of the General Secretary of the Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) on the occurrence of the January 12, 2010 earthquake in Haiti Like the rest of the world, we have been deeply saddened and perturbed as we continue to witness the pervasive devastation and distress which, sadly, constitutes the reality in which our beloved Haitian sisters and brothers are challenged to exist currently. On the afternoon of Tuesday, January 12, 2010, what can only be described as the most terrifying and perilous catastrophe in the living memory of the Caribbean Region was visited on the people of Haiti. Over the last two days, the Secretariat of the Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) has been following closely all pertinent developments. he General Secretary has also been in dialogue with key officials of the Caribbean Community (CARICOM) Secretariat and other international bodies, including the World Council of Churches (WCC) and the Geneva-based Action of Churches Together (ACT) Alliance.

This is with a view to both assessing the situation on the ground in Haiti and gauging what the CCC’s best options might be in terms of a relevant and meaningful response in the situation.

Like the rest of the world, we have been deeply saddened and perturbed as we continue to witness the pervasive devastation and distress which, sadly, constitutes the reality in which our beloved Haitian sisters and brothers are challenged to exist currently. At this time, we wish to offer our prayerful support and heart-felt condolences to the Haitian people – both at home and in the diaspora – and to all those who have lost loved ones in the wake of this terrible disaster.

While the current reality is indisputably daunting, we are both humbled and edified to witness the tremendous display of courage, resilience and even celebrative hope by the Haitian people as they lend support to one another in the absence of basic requirements for life and the lack of appropriate technology and expertise in the given circumstances. In so many instances, powered by determination and love, bare human hands have been the ‘tools’ used to free several persons who would have otherwise been left to die, trapped under mountains of rubble. For this, we salute our Haitian sisters and brothers.

We also wish to commend all those nations and agencies that have rushed to the assistance of the people of Haiti with the necessary expertise and equipment. We recognize that in the case of some of the very agencies involved, they themselves have suffered the loss of personnel who have so sadly perished in the disaster. We hail these courageous women and men whose lives were given in service of the betterment of humanity. We commiserate with their bereaved families and stand in admiration of their related agencies which –

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Haitiquake (CCC)

despite their own loss – are persevering in their efforts on behalf of the Haitian people.

In applauding the heroic efforts of all concerned, we wish at the same time to urge that all operations be carried out with due regard to the dignity of the Haitian people. This is at the level of individual citizens (both living and deceased), communities, the government and the Haitian people as a whole, recognizing their sovereignty notwithstanding their present plight. In this regard, we make a special plea for the protection and care of children and women who – in many situations of this kind – are rendered most vulnerable and disadvantaged and who, regrettably, are sometimes subjected to unspeakable indignities.

With respect to the execution of operations, we also wish to urge the several actors involved to arrive swiftly – in consultation with the President of Haiti and other state and regional authorities – at a feasible co-ordination of efforts which will result in the most effective and efficient delivery of services, redounding to the greatest common good. Without such co-ordination, all the goodwill and effort are at risk of degenerating into massive confusion and wastage of resources.

Along with our condolences and prayerful support, we also offer at this time to the Haitian people our commitment to work towards alleviating their present unspeakable misery, and collaborating with them in forging a future more worthy of their dignity as children of God. In this regard, and without wanting to detract from the gravity

of the situation at hand, we feel the necessity to look beyond the situation with a sense of hope and responsibility. We would therefore like to view the current situation as a stark indicator to the international community of the urgent need to strengthen its resolve to support Haiti in its quest for authentic development.

As an organization that has accompanied the people of Haiti in various ways and circumstances over the last three decades, the CCC has been concerned, for some time now, with the welfare/aid approach to Haiti that has been the dominant one over a protracted period of its history. Without wanting to even appear to be minimizing the (very needed) interventions and efforts of so many well-intentioned persons and groups operating over the years in Haiti, we are of the considered opinion that the time has now come for all available resources to be placed at the disposal of genuine development cooperation.

Without such a thrust, we shall continue – for decades to come – addressing symptoms and not root causes of a deep-seated social malady. In the given circumstances one is constrained to ask, e.g.: “Was all the destruction, death and distress experienced the result of the 7.0 earthquake per se, or was not the factor of an over-crowded city with weak and compromised structures – all due to decades of continued impoverishment and underdevelopment – a major factor in the equation of devastation?”

The answer is clearly self-evident.

In conclusion, the CCC would like to advise its member churches and ecumenical partners that subsequent communiqués will be forthcoming from its Secretariat informing of more specific lines of action/intervention. We wish to further urge that in this circumstance our entire membership, as a group of churches bonded in covenant, stand firmly together in consolidating our efforts and resources for the greater good and benefit of the Haitian people and the glory of God who is Father and “the God of all consolation.”

May God’s blessing be upon our Haitian sisters and brothers and all those who seek to assist them as we continue to lift them up in prayer in the months ahead.

Gerard A.J. Granado, General Secretary Caribbean Conference of Churches (CCC) January 15, 2010 St. Augustine Republic of Trinidad and Tobago.

Source: http://www.ccc-caribe.org/eng/index.htm

A future for agriculture…

From page 4

affordable Haitian-grown food is one step toward diminishing that poverty, while another is rejecting IMF prescriptions.

Agriculture could also offer a solution for the hundreds of thousands of internally displaced people now residing in rural areas. In interviews with dozens of Port-auPrince residents who are taking refuge in the Central Plateau, most say they would stay there if they could find a way to sustain themselves. If they could be given the land and resources necessary to begin farming, they would not need to return to city sweatshops, with their lack of living wage, job security, or health or safety protections. Port-au-Prince could become a livable city, without its overcrowded and inhumane conditions, without more than eight out of ten people residing in slums (as suggested by UN Human Settlements Program reports).

“We are meeting with different sectors to construct a Haiti where all Haitians feel like children of the land,” says Sylvain Henrilus of Tèt Kole. Peasant groups – even those with historic distrust of each other – and other allies are meeting regularly to plan their advocacy and mobilization for reorienting Haiti’s political economy in favor of agriculture, based on the following priorities.

•Food sovereignty, the right of a people to grow and consume its own food. With trade policies which support local production, Haiti’s levels of self-sufficiency could increase. Chavannes JeanBaptiste of the Peasant Movement of Papay and the National Peasant Movement of the Papay Congress says, “The country has the right to determine its own agricultural policies, its own food production policies, to produce for family and for local consumption with healthy and simple agriculture which respects the environment, Mother Earth, as the mother of future generations.”

•Decentralization of services.

The ‘people outside,’ as rural inhabitants are known, must have access to services equal to the people of Port-au-Prince. The ability to meet their needs where they are is both their right and a way to keep Port-au-Prince from again becoming overcrowded. Rosnel Jean-Baptiste says, “We need to deconstruct the capital, bringing services into the country and helping people find jobs there.”

•Technical support, especially for sustainable, ecological farming. Farmers in the region of the Artibonite, for example, stated that their melons, bananas, and tomatoes are not producing well, but they don’t know what the problem is or how to resolve it. They need advice from agronomists. They also need credit to help them buy equipment, support with storage and marketing, reforestation, and assistance with irrigation and water management. Elio Youyoute, a member of a community peasant

association in the South, says, “We are trying to grow enough food to feed the cities, but we need help from the state.”

•Land reform. Those who work the land need secure tenure.

Otherwise they will continue to be unable to support themselves on what Haitians call ‘a handkerchief of land,’ plots sometimes no larger than 15’ x 15’. Land reform must be not just a one-time hand-off, which would quickly revert to its previous concentration as struggling farmers are forced to sell their small gardens, but a change in tenure laws accompanied by technical support. Sylvain Henrilus of Tèt Kole says, “The land reform we need is not what Préval did in his first term, which was to just divide a bit of land into very small plots without any support, but where those who work the land have the right to that land with all the infrastructure and means - not just to adequately feed the people but to export as we used to do, to have our sovereignty in all dimensions.”

•Seeds, what Doudou Pierre of Vía Campesina’s coordinating committee calls “the patrimony of humanity.” Haiti’s seed stock is not going towards the March planting season as intended, but rather toward feeding the flood of internally displaced people. Farmers need help in procuring seed supplies, which they insist not be genetically modified. Chavannes Jean-Baptiste insists that “If people start sending hybrid, NGO seeds, that’s the end of Haitian agriculture.”

•A ban on food aid in the medium- to long-term. U.S.A.I.D. alone is giving $113 million in food aid this year, according to an Associated Press article on February 26. Farmers agree that aid is critical in this moment of crisis, but say that the government needs to quickly do everything it can to shore up production so that domestic agriculture can begin replacing the aid. Otherwise, Haiti will grow even more dependent, and multinational food and seed companies will overtake Haiti’s market even more.

The challenges are many. They include advanced environmental destruction and concentration of land. The chief challenge is securing the state’s commitment of the priorities outlined above. The government has a long history of responding not to peasant farmers but to the needs of the large landowning class and more recently, to the U.S. and other foreign powers looking to dump or sell food in Haiti.

Farmer after farmer interviewed indicated a resolve to work to change this state of affairs, recognizing that it will be a long haul. Says Tèt Kole’s Rosnel JeanBaptiste, “It’s up to us social movements to put our heads together to change the situation of food production and the model of the state in Haiti.”

Source: Upside Down World: http://upsidedownworld.org/main/

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

Haiti 11

LATIN AMERICAN ECUMENICAL NEWS • JANUARY-APRIL 2010

12 Honduras and Human Rights

Christians in resistance in Honduras: January 26, 2010 gathering Tegucigalpa, February 14, 2010 (ALC/Honduras Resists) he resistance in Honduras delegation met with members of a coalition of different Christian groups against the coup including the Christian Popular Movement, the Network of Pastors in Resistance, Agape, the Ecumenical Human Rights Observation, and others. They told us that the church hierarchies, both Catholic and Protestant, were clearly for the coup. In the base communities of the protestant churches, there was a lot of confusion. There was a sector that did not accept support for the coup and a sector that followed the leaders blindly. Some of the people who did not accept supporting the coup, while not a part of any hierarchies, are leaders of the base communities.

So under this situation of the coup we took the brave and risky position to be on the side of justice, on the side of persecuted, suffering people, and denounce those who used weapons against the people with the blessing of the church hierarchies. Those of us here represent Christians who have a clear theological position about what is happening in Honduras. The Popular Christian Movement is ecumenical and includes Protestants, Catholics, and those who are not of any particular faith. Our fundamental theology is the theology of liberation.

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The pastors involved with the Ecumenical Human Rights Observation told us, “We accompany the resistance; we are in the streets, we march with the resistance, we pray with the resistance and we sing with the resistance, and we are beaten and swallow tear gas with the resistance because we see the Christ who walks with the people. But also we provide humanitarian help, medical help, food, and lodging when the resistance has needed it. As Christians we are on the side of human rights for those who have been persecuted by the de facto government. We are few but with Jesus we are many.”

The Network of Pastors in Resistance is composed of pastors of different denominations with the wish to serve the community with social consciousness. Their most important ministry is the medical brigades. “That has helped us see that this country needs structural change and that the church has a responsibility to obtain these changes.” After the coup, the group issued a communiqué that was heard on the radio by others who then joined the movement.

The Church hierarchies accuse the resistance Christians of getting money from Hugo Chavez. “The only money that we receive is money that God sends through our members. We are independent because we haven’t sold our conscience to anyone.”

Pastors in resistance (Honduras Resists) The Ecumenical Observatory of Human Rights is part of a larger project. In August, the World Council of Churches and the Latin American Council of Churches came to Honduras and they recommended a broader commission to document the situation and cases of human rights violations. In Honduras, there is a national roundtable of the Latin American Council of Churches made up of 5 churches, the historic churches such as the Lutheran, Episcopal, Methodist, reformed church, Mennonites and others.

The project of the Observatory is to get information out to the rest of Latin America and Europe and to develop campaigns on human rights cases. Part of the human rights work also included not recognizing the elections on November 29th and demanding the restitution of Zelaya.

The project visits police facilities and has helped liberate detained persons.

The organization has also visited the families of the killed, detained and disappeared and offers help to those who have to leave the country.

“We suffer a lot, this is hard work. We don’t know if the police or military will assassinate or repress us. We have had the great satisfaction to feel free when we are able to help someone.”

We asked what has been the response of the church to their organizations. The Agape Church pastor answered that Agape is a member of the Confraternity of Churches. “We have been strongly questioned within this organization and there is the idea that we receive money to support the resistance. In this Confraternity, Agape and the Network of Pastors are considered

subversive. In some radio stations, they say that we are supporting delinquents. The response of the believers who belong to the churches varies. There are 3 responses. “I don’t want to hear anything; I want to pray in the temple.” A smaller group has said, “good for the coup” because Chavez (Satan) will come and bring communism so then the coup is from God”. A third group, which is our group, says we want to reject the coup. And we have raised a prophetic voice in favor of the poor and the neediest.”

The pastors said that there has also been pressure from the U.S. religious leadership on Honduran churches not to oppose the coup.

There has also been repression against religious figures in resistance. “Father Tamayo had his citizenship nullified by the coup plotters and he was expelled from Honduras.” (Note: Father Tamayo is a prominent resistance priest who was originally from El Salvador and became a Honduran citizen.) “We want to establish relationships with churches outside of Honduras to assist the resistance from a perspective of faith and to support our projects of theological meetings to develop faith committed to the people. The resistance does have God. The resistance knows it but the media says that God is on the side of the coup.”

Source: Honduras Resists: http://hondurasresists.blogspot.com/

Deadliest month ever for reporters Reporters in Honduras have long complained about gag laws, threats, exile and attacks. But never before have so many journalists been killed in one month. The deaths of five reporters in this impoverished Central American country in March drew expressions of concern from international organizations like Reporters without Borders, the International Press Institute and Human Rights Watch. Along with its neighbors Guatemala and El Salvador, Honduras is one of the most violent countries in the world, with 14 deaths a day blamed on organized crime and youth gangs. Many of the bodies turn up with signs of torture, and bound at the hands and feet.

By Thelma Mejía Tegucigalpa, March 31, 2010 (Inter Press Service News Agency) ut local and international human rights groups warn that since the June 28, 2009 coup that overthrew then president Manuel Zelaya, the wave of repression targeting the movement against the coup, as well as journalists, has not let up, despite the November elections and the January inauguration of right-wing President Porfirio Lobo. Nor has the climate of polarization between supporters and critics of the coup disappeared.

“It would appear that there are groups interested in seeing the deaths of journalists portrayed as a normal phenomenon, so that there is no investigation and the murders

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go unsolved and unpunished,” Professor Juan Ramón Durán of the School of Journalism at the Autonomous National University of Honduras told IPS. The Lobo administration has an obligation “to investigate and identify who was responsible for the murders and why they were committed,” because if the government “keeps silent, it hurts freedom of expression and the right of citizens to be informed,” said Durán.

Marlen Zelaya, the director of the online news journal Proceso Digital, said “it’s time for journalists to join together and for our unions to be strengthened, to keep these murders from being ignored, as isolated incidents,” she told IPS. On March 1, gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on the car in which journalist Joseph Hernández Ochoa was driving his colleague

Carol Cabrera home. Hernández Ochoa was killed and Cabrera was wounded but survived. When the attack happened, Cabrera was reporting live for the nightly news program of the Radio Cadena Voces station. In the recording, the volley of gunfire and her frantic shouts for help can be heard.

Cabrera’s pregnant 16 year-old daughter had been shot and killed while riding in her mother’s car in December 2009. At the time, the reporter was working for the public TV station Canal 8 controlled by the regime of Roberto Micheletti, who was named president after Zelaya’s (2006-2009) ouster. It was initially reported that youth gangs were involved in the young woman’s murder. But since the March 1 attack on Cabrera, “the investigation has taken a new direction, based on leads that we cannot reveal,” police spokesman Leonel Sauceda commented to IPS. Cabrera has taken refuge in a military hospital, saying a week ago that she will not leave the building “until I have guarantees that I will not be killed, because I am still under threat.” She did not identify the source of the threats. The U.S. embassy has offered her asylum.

On March 11, David Meza, a reporter for two national media outlets, the Tegucigalpa-based Radio América and the TV news program Abriendo Brecha, was shot to death in the northern city of La Ceiba. A

week before his death, Meza denounced that he had received threats from drug traffickers because of his reporting on the murder of an unknown Mexican man in that vicinity.

Ombudsman Ramón Custodio told IPS that the day after Meza was killed, journalist Carlos Geovany Alfonso Streber - director of Canal 36 of La Ceiba, where the slain reporter had a news program - fled into exile. “Streber called me as he was boarding a plane to leave the country out of fear of meeting the same fate as his colleague,” Custodio said.

And on March 14, Nahum Palacios was killed as he was driving home in the town of Tocoa, around 100 km southeast of La Ceiba. Seven months earlier, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) had urged the Micheletti regime to provide protection for the reporter, who had received death threats. But no such measures were taken. Palacios had reported that he was threatened and harassed by the security forces for his critical coverage of the coup. His home and office had been raided and equipment was seized, in an attempt to intimidate him, according to press reports.

On March 16, Custodio asked the IACHR to extend precautionary measures to all journalists in Honduras.

Five days after Palacios’ mur-

der, two other reporters, José Bayardo Mairena and Manuel Juárez, were shot and killed in the northeastern department (province) of Olancho, while investigating a drug trafficking case, journalists who asked to remain anonymous told IPS. Security Minister Óscar Álvarez told IPS that “although we already have some clear leads on the motives in at least two cases, we are waiting for some final verifications in order to capture the perpetrators before the end of April.” Álvarez added that rewards have been offered “to those who provide information on the deaths of the journalists or on other threats faced by journalism.”

In a statement issued on March 29, the French government condemned the murders and urged the Honduran government to guarantee respect for human rights, and in particular the safety of reporters.

On March 3, HRW addressed a letter to Attorney General Luis Alberto Rubí, urging him “to actively support the investigations” into crimes like “killings, rape, torture, kidnapping and assault” against members of the National Popular Resistance Front Against the Coup D’etat (Frente Nacional de Resistencia Popular contra el Golpe de Estado).

Source: Inter Press Service News Agency, IPS: http://www.ipsnews.net/latin.asp