LAEN SEPTEMBER DECEMBER 2011:LAEN 5-8 2008 15/12/11 10:00 Página 1
Latin American Ecumenical News September - December 2011 • No. 3
LAEN
Whoever speaks the truth gives honest evidence.
Proverb 12,17
Information Service of the Latin American Council of Churches
Ecumenical Accompaniment Program for victims of violence in Colombia October 11, 2011
Since August 2010, the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) has challenged the CLAI member churches and ecumenical organizations in Colombia to structure a program to assist the victims of violence in that country. The initial idea arose from a 2009 meeting in Colombia between leaders of CLAI, the World Council of Churches (WCC), the Lutheran World Federation and ACT Alliance. he first meetings to structure the accompaniment program occurred in 2010, but it was in February 2011 that the CLAI-Colombia National Roundtable made a visible commitment in Rincón del Mar, in the north of Colombia, a region marked by violence by armed groups, where CLAI churches and ecumenical bodies began to create the first draft of the program. In Colombia, according to government statistics, there are about three million people who are displaced due to the armed conflict, though human rights organizations say that right now there are close to five million people internally displaced by violence. The government of Juan Manuel Santos, President of the Republic of Colombia, has shown interest in addressing the humanitarian crisis
In Costa Rica, Auxiliary Bishop of Managua calls on Evangelicals and Catholics to unite in dealing with migration By Trinidad Vásquez Managua, September 29, 2011 (ALC)
The Auxiliary Bishop of Managua, Monsignor Silvio Báez, called on Nicaraguan politicians to no longer interest themselves in the votes of the thousands of immigrants, but rather to be more concerned with providing them with the documents they need to obtain a passport, so as to be able to work peacefully in Costa Rica.
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e also called on Costa Ricans to put an end to xenophobia and discrimination caused by Nicaraguans wanting to become nationals of that country, because “God calls us to be one and the same family.” Blanca Fonseca, a delegate of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, attended the “Two Peoples, One Family” ecumenical gathering on the situation of migrants held at the María Caterina Dimaggio House in Moravia, Costa Rica, September 21, and upon her return to Managua said that she was impressed with the “Migrants and Migration in the Old Testament” lecture given by Monsignor Báez, based on passages from the Old Testament prophets Jeremiah and Ezekiel. It was a simple but profound and concrete preaching. Fonseca added that each of Báez’s statements were based on the biblical verses of the Old Testament that exhort the protecting of the foreigner and not considering him or her to be a stranger, but rather, besides giving them food and clothing, to treat them as if they were
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Affirming an ecumenism of concrete gestures (CLAI VI General Assembly 2013, Poster)
experienced by victims of the internal armed conflict. However, he has continued with the economic policy of opening the country to encourage foreign investment and, because of this, the new armed groups, now called criminal gangs (BaCrim) – many of whom are demobilized paramilitaries – fight for control of territory and seize or reject businesses linked to this economic policy. The meeting in Bogota during
October 6-8 brought together representatives of the WCC (Carlos Ham y Manuel Quintero), ACT Alliance (Carlos Rauda), World Communion of Reformed Churches (German Zijlistra), Lutheran World Federation (Silvio Schneider), PCUSA (Mamie Broadhurst), CREAS (Humberto Shikiya), Kairos Canada (Jim Hodgson), ACT-Colombia Forum, the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Continue on page 5
The case of the Granadillas Mountain in Guatemala heard by the Inter American Court of Human Rights in Washington By Mayra Rodríguez November 1, 2011 (ALC)
Grouping, and Mynor Pérez of the Mutual Support Group.
to the water of the inhabitants of Zacapa and Chiquimula.
Among the hearings by the Inter American Court of Human Rights (ICHR) during its 143rd period of sessions in Washington, from October 19 to November 4, are those of four Guatemalan cases. One of them is the violations that have occurred in the Granadillas Mountain, presented on behalf of the affected communities by Lutheran pastor José Pilar Álvarez, Gerardo Paiz of the Mother Forest Ecological
The case was presented on October 24 in the Padilha Vidal Hall of the Organization of American States (OAS), requesting the recognition of the struggle in defense of the water, the forests and the biodiversity in the Granadillas as being a legitimate one and, in itself, right, and petitioning the ICHR to order the Guatemalan State to declare the area to be a reserve for the protection of springs, as a human right of access
“That the State of Guatemala look after the security, integrity and protection of the human rights of the communities that defend and protect the Granadillas Mountain, and prohibit the practice of uncontrolled deforestation in all the national territory, so as to preserve the sources of water and prevent the risks of landslides or shortage of water in periods Monsignor Silvio Báez (El Nuevo Diario)
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one of the resident people’s own. “The Lord tells us that we are one and the same family and for that reason it is necessary to give the foreigner protection in all meanings of the word. In the dramatic violence that the people of Mexico are experiencing, and above all in the border cities, it is the migrants who have to pay organized crime the price to cross the border, or otherwise they will be killed,” Monsignor Báez had pointed out. He called for the respecting of the churches and the Migrant Houses, as sanctuaries where food and drink are offered. Báez added that there are priests that have received death threats and mass graves have been found with 200 bodies, the majority of whom have been identified as Honduran migrants. Báez, who was the center of attention at the gathering, also called for the unity of the Catholic and Evangelical Churches, as they are one family in the faith and in the service of aid to the neighbor. The “Two Peoples, One Family” ecumenical gathering, was convened by the Association of Nicaraguans and Costa Ricans, which works toward fraternity between the people of the two countries. Besides work table discussion on the theme from a biblical-theological perspective, attention was given to the forced trade of persons, girls and boys, xenophobia, and an analysis of the pros and cons of the Costa Rican Migration Law. The bishop of Alajuela, Costa Rica, Monsignor Ángel Sancasimiro, shared the experiences of the Migrant Houses and about the care given to the children’s networks. A recommendation made at the end of the gathering was that a new one be held in Nicaragua in October, to continue discussing the issue of migrants and refugees.