Justice Magazine: The Catholic Social Justice Quarterly - Autumn 2013

THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL JUSTICE QUARTERLY September-November 2013 www.justicemagazine.org @justicemagazine

JUSTICE magazine

Burma’s forgotten war The Bradley Manning verdict Poverty in Britain Oscar Romero The Church’s defence of workers

DELIVERING AID

How Caritas is helping Syrian refugees in Lebanon

Digital versions available FREE at www.justicemagazine.org or buy in print at magcloud.com

Advertisement

2 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

THE CATHOLIC SOCIAL JUSTICE QUARTERLY

JUSTICE magazine

Contents Autumn 2013

Justice Magazine is a non-profit making quarterly publication that reports on and aims to further interest in the Catholic Church’s social teaching.

We would love to hear from you with your feedback, ideas for future editions or your own contributed articles.

Please get in touch via our website or by sending an email to editor@justicemagazine.org.

All digital formats are free to the reader.

These include the online page flip version as well as downloadable files for Kindle and ereading devices capable of displaying epub files.

If you like what you read in Justice Magazine, let your friends and family know so they can download their own free copy.

42 WATER: A LIMITED RESOURCE Individual printed copies of the magazine are also available from www.magcloud.com. We believe this is a sustainable, environmentally-friendly way for people to access print.

Justice Magazine does not charge for the magazine in print, the amount payable goes directly to the printers for production and postage.

Free advertising space has been given to Catholic charities and agencies. If you can, please make a donation to help them continue their excellent work in the UK and overseas.

4 6 10 12 18 19 22 24 28 34 40 42 46 52

NEWS: Round up of September’s news SEAFARERS: A charity on board to help with seafarers’ concerns DR CONGO: Resilience in a time of war GUATEMALA: An education for all UNITED KINGDOM: When work doesn’t pay BRADLEY MANNING: Injustice masquerading as justice UNITED STATES: The Church’s defence of workers UNITED KINGDOM: The poverty crisis BURMA: Burma’s forgotten war EL SALVADOR: Oscar Romero: ‘Let my blood be a seed of freedom’ KENYA: Let there be light SYRIA: A day in the life of a Lebanese aid worker HAITI: Water: A limited resource FINAL THOUGHT

Editor Lee Siggs Editorial advisers Jonathan Houdmont Nana Anto-Awuakye For regular news updates from Justice Magazine, remember to visit www.justicemagazine.org

Help spread the word by retweeting @justicemagazine

Acknowledgments The editor wishes to thank all the agencies and individuals who have submitted articles and photos.

The next issue of Justice Magazine will be published in December. Please write to editor@justicemagazine.org with ideas for future articles or to suggest improvements.

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 3

News SEPTEMBER 2013

Cardinal visits wounded in hospital after siege at Nairobi mall “Life is sacred and no one has the right to take it. We need to respect the sanctity of life”, said Cardinal John Njue, Archbishop of Nairobi, during his visit to the people who were injured in the siege at the Westgate Mall at two hospitals in the Kenyan capital.

Special forces regained control of the building after days of fighting which left at least 67 dead, 61 of whom are civilians.

However different bodies still lie in the partially destroyed building, while bomb disposal teams are proceeding with the remediation of any explosive devices scattered by Islamist militants.

The Supreme Council of Muslims in Kenya (SUPKEM) condemned the serious act of terrorism, according to reports from the CISA Agency in Nairobi.

“We condemn in the strongest terms the attack against peaceful Kenyans and international guests who live and work in Kenya”, said Adan Wachu, Secretary General of SUPKEM. “We condemn the indiscriminate killing of men, women and innocent children.

It is against all the teachings and Islamic precepts.”

The Nation newspaper in Nairobi reported that operations to release the hostages were particularly complex, because the terrorists had taken control of the camera system inside the mall, through which they could control the presence of special forces.

It was only after security services managed to ‘hack’ the camera system that the army managed to enter the building.

4 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

The situation is critical for Christians A suicide bombing at a church in Lahore, Pakistan, claimed at least 80 lives in what is believed to be the deadliest attack on the country’s Christian community.

Islamists targeted the Church of All Saints in Peshawar in ‘retaliation’ for US drone attacks.

Fr Waseem Walter, national director of the Pontifical Mission Societies (PMS) in Pakistan, said: “It is a very sad moment for the Church of Pakistan. The situation is very critical. The faithful Christians who died in the attack at the church of Peshawar are the innocent martyrs of faith, as they were killed while they were in church to pray.

“In our churches we are organising prayer vigils for them.

“We ask all the faithful in the world to pray for us."

After three days of mourning to remember the victims of the attack, in different parts of the nation ecumenical prayer vigils continue to be organised, including one at St Anthony’s RC Church in Lahore which included the participation of members and workers of the Justice and Peace Commission of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference of Pakistan.

Increasing acts of intimidation against the Church Authorities in Sudan have been accused of increasing intimidation against priests and missionaries.

Four priests were summoned for questioning several times by the security services (Sudan National Security Intelligence Agency) in September.

One priest reported that

during his interrogation, security officials accused him of being a spy employed by another African country, as he had spent a training period abroad.

The priest’s passport and mobile phone were taken by security officials "for verification".

Sources have suggested that it is only one example of intimidation carried out by the Sudanese authorities against the Catholic Church. Church centres have been closed, several priests and foreign missionaries forced to leave the country, and others did not have their residence permits renewed or were refused entry into the country. The government in Khartoum has already expelled all foreign missionaries of other Christian churches and there are fears that the future of the Catholic Church in Sudan is at risk.

Nuclear weapons talks at the UN Archbishop Dominique

Mamberti, secretary for the Holy See's Relations with States, took part in a high-level meeting of the United Nations General Assembly on nuclear disarmament in New York on September 26.

The archbishop made public his concerns regarding the proliferation of nuclear weapons into other countries, and said the matter could not be fully addressed as long as nuclear states held on to their arsenals.

“Under the terms of the Non-Proliferation Treaty, states are enjoined to make 'good faith' efforts to negotiate the elimination of nuclear weapons,” he said.

“Can we say there is 'good faith' when modernisation programmes of the nuclear weapons states continue despite their affirmations of eventual nuclear disarmament?

“It is now imperative for us to address in a systematic and coherent manner the legal, political and technical requisites for a world free from

smiles of every seafarer they meet. They re-assure him that whenever he leaves port, Christ leaves with him, in his heart”.

Landslides claim more than 115 victims in Mexico

PHOTO: Apostleship of the Sea

Bishop Tom Burns praised the work of AoS chaplains nuclear arms.”

Archbishop Mamberti said there was a need “to begin as soon as possible preparatory work on the Convention or a framework agreement for a phased and verifiable elimination of nuclear arms”.

Charity’s critical role in challenging exploitation in the maritime world Bishop Tom Burns of seafarers’ charity, the Apostleship of the Sea has underlined the role the charity has in speaking out for seafarers who have been ill treated.

On the eve of the feast of Our Lady Star of the Sea, Bishop Burns hailed the important work of the charity at a Mass in Westminster Cathedral on September 25.

Bishop Burns noted that abuse, when it occurs in the shipping industry has its roots in a spiritual crisis.

“It’s not that God has moved away from us. Quite the contrary: it’s more likely that some people, including a number in the maritime world,

have moved away from God,” the bishop said.

“He noted that there were some in the maritime industry who “exploit the poor and the humble, where God-fearing people are unable to speak out for fear of losing their jobs, where abuse goes unreported, where wages go unpaid”.

Bishop Burns paid tribute to the chaplains and volunteers of the Apostleship of the Sea who “have to walk a delicate line between championing the cause of the underdog, as well as being the voice of the voiceless, and yet you must also try to avoid making matters worse by understanding the difference between intervening and interfering”.

Despite the difficulties and challenges facing the work of the charity, Bishop Burns quoted the Lutheran Pastor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer, who on the eve of his execution by the Nazis declared ‘the victory is certain’.

Bishop Burns said “those who work with seafarers see that victory in the eyes and

More than 115 people have died, 60 people are missing, and 238,000 people are homeless after landslides in the state of Guerrero, Mexico.

The region was hit by Hurricane Manuel on September 15. The Archbishop of Acapulco Carlos Garfias Merlos said: “Tropical Storm Manuel, that hit Mexico and especially the state of Guerrero, has damaged the city of Acapulco, especially the part called Acapulco Diamante.

“In the region of Costa Grande several bridges have collapsed and the parishes of Coyuca, Espinalillo, San Jeronimo and Tecpan are isolated and are not able to receive any form of aid."

The archbishop said that in the area of Costa Grande, the collapse of the mountain buried half the population of the town of La Pintada.

"It is a real tragedy because unfortunately many people are under the mud and earth," the archbishop said.

He asked the Catholic community throughout Mexico to show solidarity and help those who have lost everything. The Catholic Church, through Caritas, has set up a support network to accommodate the homeless and help the affected families.

Two grenades found in cathedral Two unexploded grenades were discovered in the cathedral of Bossangoa, a Central African Republic town 300 km north-west from Bangui, the centre of fighting between members of the coalition Seleka and a number of armed groups, including men loyal to former President François Bozizé.

The clashes caused hundreds of deaths and

thousands of civilians were forced to flee. According to the Vicar General of the diocese, Fr Frédéric Tonfio, the internally displaced persons (IDPs) who arrived in the city number around 35,000.

The Diocesan Chancellor of Bossangoa said people had been accommodated in different buildings "including the seminary and the Catholic school".

The priest added that on September 19, "the Secretary-General, the Imam of the city, the local representative of Seleka and the commander of FOMAC (African Force in Central Africa) met to discuss ways to make the displaced people return back home."

Fr Tonfio said the grenades found in the cathedral have been entrusted to the military of FOMAC. Displaced people hit by diseases in Philippines As fighting continues between government forces and a faction of the Moro National Liberation Front (MNLF), local health authorities have reported cases of transmission of infectious diseases in children living in centres for displaced people in the Zamboanga region.

In addition to some cases of measles, identified at the Joaquin F. Enriquez Jr. Memorial Sports Complex, doctors have reported infections of the upper respiratory tract, diarrhoea and skin diseases.

The diseases result because of poor hygiene and precarious environmental sanitation.

The complex is home to 11,979 families, about 71,265 people. According to estimates by the National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Council, at least 20,643 families are currently in 57 evacuation centres.

Health authorities are trying to prevent infections by improving hygiene.

Sources: Fides/VIS/AoS

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 5

Feature Seafarers

Things can go badly wrong for seafarers when the companies they work for run in to financial difficulties. As Greg Watts reports, the Apostleship of the Sea is there to help crews negotiate a difficult legal and bureaucratic minefield.

A charity on board to help with seafarers’ concerns A modern seafarer usually joins a ship for several months, working long hours, sometimes in difficult conditions and often sailing thousands of miles from home. But what happens if there’s a problem on board and he’s in a port in a foreign land? The answer is he will often seek the help of an Apostleship of the Sea port chaplain.

Apostleship of the Sea port chaplains can be found in many of the world’s ports. The 14 chaplains in Britain cover ports from Aberdeen to Plymouth and from Milford Haven to Tilbury. Supported by teams of volunteer ship visitors, their task is to provide not just pastoral care to visiting seafarers but also practical help.

And this often means getting involved when there is a problem over pay or conditions.

“Apostleship of the Sea operates under four key headings in relation to work with seafarers - mission, welfare, hospitality and solidarity. As such we must take on any issues which we feel will be detrimental to the seafarer’s safety, security welfare and general well being,” explained Tony McAvoy, chaplain to Teesport, Hartlepool, Sunderland Seaham and Berwick.

He added that during ship visits chaplains try to spot or identify any problems or issues and, although in most cases they cannot resolve the matters themselves, they know which 6 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

agencies to refer them to. They attend port welfare meetings, which are run by the Merchant Navy Welfare Board and attended by various maritime organisations.

“Seafarers do not complain lightly but in the matter of pay and conditions they will generally tell us of their problems but are concerned that any action which is taken will not identify them individually as the complainant for fear of being blacklisted as a trouble maker.

“I went aboard a ship on one occasion after a Filipino crew member approached me to say that he had not been paid the correct amount of overtime. I went to the bridge to find the captain who, upon realising who I was, and what I had come for, refused to speak to me.

“I tried to remonstrate with him but he continued to be evasive. As I was not on board by invitation, I decided to withdraw and referred the matter to the local International Transport Workers’ Federation (ITF) inspector the following morning. Some weeks later the crew member was back in port and called me to say that he had received all the money he was due, although the captain was now giving him a bit of a hard time.”

Another time, some seafarers on a large bulk carrier that arrived in Teesport complained that they had not been paid for three months, and two others said they had been refused

medical treatment.

“This was a Saturday afternoon, and the ship was due to sail to Thailand on Monday morning at 3am, so there was little time to take whatever action we could. In the first instance I called the ITF inspector who said he could be at Teesport on Monday but not until after the sailing time.

“I rather hoped that the time of departure would change, as it often does. I emailed the inspector all the information and copied it to Port Health (in view of the medical issues) and to the Maritime Coastguard Agency (MCA), who apart from looking at safety and many other aspects of ships, also have responsibility for the welfare of crew members.

“Happily the sailing time was put back 24 hours and the ITF inspector arrived on board on the Monday afternoon and was present when the MCA inspectors came on board. Both visits were announced as spot checks, thereby protecting the crew members who had raised issues. I was later advised that all matters had been rectified to the crew members’ satisfaction.”

Fr Colum Kelly, port chaplain to Immingham, Grimsby and the River Trent, says, on average, he is asked by seafarers between 15-20 times a year to intervene in some issue.

“One of the problems the crew has is that lads are reluctant to complain for fear of reprisal. When they come

PHOTO: Apostleship of the Sea

Chaplains play a vital role in helping stranded seafarers JUSTICE MAGAZINE 7

Feature Seafarers

‘‘

I met with the crew in an office compound and the full horror of their plight unfolded.

Conditions for them were so bad that they wrote a letter of complaint to the company whose representative visited the ship on arrival at Immingham

across a chaplain they generally understand that things can get resolved without their name being directly drawn into the equation. On the other hand, the complaint might be coming from a disgruntled crew member and chaplains have to be very careful to distinguish,” he said.

When Fr Colum visited one ship he discovered that it had been arrested.

“I went to see the ship’s former agent and the Border Control Agency, who were acting on behalf of the Admiralty Marshal. They said that the ship had been arrested because the company had defaulted on the bank and huge sums were owed.

“Outstanding wages owed to the crew and promised at Immingham would not be coming and the crew change involving eight men was put on hold. It took the crew quite a while to understand what was happening, and I know that when they left Immingham three days later, to continue the arrest at anchor, they were not informed as to the nature of the arrest or what the implications would be.

“I spent a long time with the captain trying to persuade him to tell the crew the extent of their problem, but he was most insistent that the company, for whom he had worked all his life, would stand by its promises and all would be well. He was convinced that this minor matter would be resolved in a day or two and the ship would then begin the voyage to Rouen.

He added that when the crew became tense and pressed him to tell 8 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

Crews work on transit visas

them what was wrong, he felt that it should be the captain who explained what had happened.

“I alerted the ITF inspector, but when he came aboard, he too was unable to get the captain to face reality. By now, most of the company fleet was under arrest in various parts of the world. There would be no money coming to the ship; the agent had withdrawn his services; the captain’s certificates were taken from him; and notice was served that two admiralty vessels would accompany his ship to anchor. But he still he did not get it “The crew is almost a forgotten element in the story, not by us of course, but when the bank lawyers confront the legal teams from the company and the admiralty, the crew and their families will not figure too highly in their calculations.”

One of the most dramatic situations Fr Colum has dealt with occurred when a ship arrived in Immingham on its maiden voyage. The plan was for it to make the return journey the following day. However, half the crew walked off the ship and the others locked themselves in the engine room. All of them, along with the captain, were Filipino.

“On the morning of the planned sailing, I received a call from the berthing company asking for my help. It is extremely rare for a crew to take matters into their own hands like this,” said Fr Colum.

“I met with the crew in an office compound and the full horror of their plight unfolded. Conditions for them were so bad that they wrote a letter of complaint to the company whose representative visited the ship on arrival at Immingham. His response was to threaten them with the police and assured them they would all end up in prison.”

The seafarers’ letter of complaint highlighted the following issues: • No pay in the two-and-a-half months they had worked for the company.

• No receipt of danger money they were promised for double watch shifts while sailing through the Gulf of Aden.

• Lack of food on board; they had survived on a diet of boiled rice, twice a day, all the way from the far east, a voyage of 19 days.

• No bottled drinking water or fruit

juices on board • No access to shore leave in Immingham. The captain told them it wouldn’t be possible (he didn’t want them to have the chance to complain).

• No communication with families.

The staff at the berthing agency provided the crew with sandwiches and bottled water. While they were sympathetic to their plight, they needed to get the ship away to allow for new arrivals that were booked on the jetty.

Fr Colum went on board the ship and met the owner’s representative and told him that he was happy to negotiate with the crew but there could be no more threats and the concerns of the crew had to be addressed.

“They refused to come back on board while the captain was still there. By this time we were joined by the ship agents and calls were made to company offices.

A long day of negotiation ended with the crew being taken to the seafarers’ centre where they were able to make contact with their families.

There was a mixture of relief and yet some fear that their complaints would come back to haunt them.

“The next day, I arranged for the ITF representative to come on board and he was able to deal with the wages issue.

“A fleet manager arrived and I was invited to join in the discussions he had with the crew.

“A new captain would arrive at midnight, the ship was to receive a full quota of provisions, as listed by the chief cook; wages would be paid on time; and various technical issues with the ship would be properly addressed.

“Again this highlights the plight of some modern seafarers, unable to have their voice heard, even when the

‘‘

nature of their complaint is so apparent.”

Paul Atkinson, port chaplain to Blyth and the Tyne, has also had to deal with similar issues.

Most recently, the Filipino and Indonesian crew of a fishing ship who had not been paid for three months approached him.

As the crew were only contracted to work on this particular vessel they weren’t able to transfer to another for alternative work. Also, as they were working on transit visas, the UK Border Agency had them arrested and taken to a detention centre at Heathrow.

“This kind of thing is very much a social justice issue for Apostleship of the Sea. These cases of abuse still happen fairly frequently. While at sea all things are hidden, but they become clear when the ship enters UK waters.

“Part of my work is to speak out and stand up for the seafarer in times when they are victimised and criminalised.”

The close relationship between port chaplains and the ITF means that solutions to problems are often quickly sorted out.

Luca Tommasi, ITF Seafarers’ Trust section assistant, said: “Port chaplains are often the first reliable person a seafarer can talk to about problems like unpaid salaries, say, or lack of food.

“As part of the local community they can often provide material assistance such as money, food, and clothing in a crisis - together, of course, with moral and spiritual support.”

“Chaplains and other ship visitors frequently help raise the alarm and will call in the ITF when something is going wrong and the crew need the help of an inspector to take legal action and secure money that is owed to them.”

Port chaplains are often the first reliable person a seafarer can talk to about problems like unpaid salaries Greg Watts is a freelance journalist

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 9

Comment DR Congo

Sister Geraldine Henry reports from the DR Congo on the remarkable stoicism shown by women traumatised by conflict

Resilience in a time of war

10 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

selves. The Church offers an incredibly large network and is a valued partner.

We saw further evidence of this in Uganda, where Trócaire is working with the Church to break the silence around domestic violence.

Many people in Uganda used to deny that there was a problem with genderbased violence. Changing attitudes can be extremely difficult, but progress is being made.

The Church is playing an enormously positive role in changing attitudes to domestic violence in Uganda. Through sermons and other activities, the message is getting to the grassroots.

Communities are now coming together A woman in the DR Congo to speak out against violence against lot of the issues in my native Belfast to women. the situation facing communities in Initiatives such as this make an Congo. People in the Congo work extraordinary impact. Involving together because they know that only women in decision making, and speakby working together can they bring ing out against gender-based peace and harmony to all. There are violence, gives women a platform to still huge issues but they are trying to improve the lives of their families. With work it out. These women are involv- a relatively small amount of help, they ing themselves in local politics and can transform their families’ futures. trying to make a difference to their We met one woman who had lost sevcommunities. They can make a huge eral of her children to AIDS-related impact, although unfortunately there illnesses. She had been assisted to is still so much corruption higher up start up a small tailoring business and the political ladder that bringing about it is now going so well that she had to change is a huge struggle. employ another women and her I have huge hope for the people of grandson is now attending university. the Democratic Republic of Congo and We hear plenty about the violence that is mostly down to the women I and poverty in places like Congo and met there. They have an incredible Uganda, but what we don’t hear about spirit. While I have experience of is the laughing, the spirit and the sense working in Nigeria and Sierra Leone, of community. It is these positive and have visited other African counmessages that I took with me back to tries, this was my first visit abroad Ireland. with Trócaire and I was greatly impressed by the organisation’s partnership approach.

Sr Geraldine Henry works in the Mission It is not about doing things for comDevelopment Office of the munities, but supporting their efforts Daughters of Charity and is a member of the Board of Trócaire. to make change happen for themPHOTO: Endre Vestvik

The worst of situations often brings out the best in people.

Amid the rubble of war and shocking violence, the people of the Democratic Republic of Congo could be expected to be timid, scarred and full of bitterness. Yet, on a recent visit to that country, I found the exact opposite. I found people working together, using their energy and spirit to build a country for all its people.

This was most evident in the women I met. I was amazed at how articulate and how willing to speak out the women were. Some were women who had been displaced by war and suffered horrific sexual violence, yet they are not afraid to stand up and demand their rights. It is as though they have risen out of the ashes.

Of course, they face huge challenges. In Congo, people have to build their lives out of nothing. There is no social welfare there. Life comes down to a simple reality: if you don’t earn money, you don’t eat.

These women are involving themselves in local decision making. Often, women are excluded from involvement in community groups and other bodies, but these women are demanding their voices be heard.

It was through these community groups that I really began to get a sense of the similarities between attempts to bring peace to Congo and our own peace process in Ireland.

Something you notice all over the world is how similar conflict is. It doesn’t matter where in the world you are, ultimately conflict comes down to two groups of people with alternate views of history who both think they are right. Finding the middle ground is key in bringing people to a situation whereby they can respect where the others are coming from. I could relate a

Advertisement

You too can be part of it

Play your part in our food security project and help people on the Haitian-Dominican border grow their way out of poverty

progressio.org.uk Progressio. People powered development. Be a part of it.

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 11

Feature Guatemala

PHOTO: Oscar Leiva Marinero /Catholic Relief Services

A family in their house in Chuiaj, Santa María Chiquimula, Guatemala.

Child labour in Guatemala should only be found in the classroom, says Robyn Fieser

An education for all The story of Luis Gonzalez Mulul Mendoza is all too common in rural Guatemala. With an education up to the age of 10, six children and a plot of land too small to provide for his family, he has no prospects of earning a decent living.

Luis “stole” the little schooling he did receive by sneaking off to class when he should have been tending his family’s cornfields. His mother helped him keep his secret by hiding his school uniform under some brush on the family’s farm, but she disappeared one day in the middle of Guatemala’s violent civil war.

12 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

A Catholic Relief Services-supported teaching curriculum in rural Guatemala is helping to make education more rewarding for students.

Luis’ grandfather, who had never attended school and liked to say that all students are thieves, got wind of the secret and ordered then 12-yearold Luis to go to work.

For many Mayan children like Luis and his father before him, working is a part of growing up in Guatemala, where 75 per cent of rural students drop out before they finish primary school.

Although the cycle of poverty and

marginalisation are often passed down to the next generation, Luis, 33, has bigger plans for his kids.

“What they did to me, I can’t turn around and do to them,” he says.

“What I have to do with my children is give them an education.”

Catholic Relief Services is helping Luis and his wife, Ana Alicia Tzoy Pu, do just that through a US Department of Labor-funded project that takes a community-wide approach to changing people’s attitudes about child labour and the importance of education.

From a very young age, children in

PHOTO: Oscar Leiva Marinero /Catholic Relief Services

poor indigenous communities in Guatemala are expected to pull their weight by collecting and hauling water and firewood, cooking, cleaning, caring for younger siblings and tending family farms. Children who work as domestic servants are often exploited physically and sexually.

Although most children manage to work and attend school, they have trouble keeping up academically.

Many ultimately drop out because their parents place more importance on domestic tasks than on education.

The CRS project, called My Rights Matter, trains teachers to understand the realities of working children, rather than simply view them as problem students. It encourages teachers to make the experience of learning a more rewarding one in ways that recognise the students’ rich cultural heritage. They incorporate the indigenous language into their curricula and educate students about the Mayan culture.

With the help of a CRS project, Miguel Angel Lopez Chan and his family see the value of educating their children.

Through afterschool opportunities, teachers assist the children with homework and engage them in games and other hands-on activities.

Meanwhile, the students learn the importance of civic participation through student governments, which develop and implement school improvement plans with parents’ and teachers’ help.

The extra attention and dynamic classroom environment turned Bernabe Jonatan Mulul Tzoy, Luis’ 13-year-old son, around.

In the two years since CRS implemented the new teaching techniques at Bernabe’s school - the project also provided funding to build a muchneeded classroom - Bernabe has learned to read and write in Spanish.

“They teach us lots of things and play games with us,” he says. “And they treat us well.”

Central to the success of the project is the participation of parents, who form committees within the schools.

In addition to carrying out school improvement plans, committee members keep tabs on students and, along with teachers, visit the homes of students who are consistently absent or performing poorly.

A young girl in her house in Chuiaj, Santa María Chiquimula, Guatemala

“The point is to help develop a more harmonious relationship between parents, teachers and students,” says Armando Secaira, who runs the project for CRS. “So we try to bring the school to the home so that parents understand that the teachers care about their children.”

It was a visit from Freddy Orlando Saquic, a project coordinator and the teacher of Miguel Angel Lopez Chan’s

daughter, that finally brought Miguel around to seeing the damage he was doing to his children by making them work so hard in the family’s garmentmaking business.

Miguel, a father of 10 who overcame years of instability caused by alcohol abuse to build his little business, had once expected his kids to thread and operate the industrial machines he uses to sew custom tJUSTICE MAGAZINE 13

Feature Guatemala

PHOTO: Oscar Leiva Marinero /Catholic Relief Services

The Tzoy family in their house in Chuiaj, Santa María Chiquimula, Guatemala. The mother and father were child laborers so they support CRS project Nuyatalil - Woklena ‘My rights matter’, and avoid giving their children tough jobs.

‘‘

Now, when I ask her to help out around the house, she tells me she has homework to do. I realise that she is more committed to her studies, and I don’t want her to lose that. I want her to become a professional

shirts and sports shirts for local shops. When the children weren’t sewing, they carried piles of folded clothes, some of them half their size, on their backs up and down the dirt road that leads to the family’s small 14 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

village. It wasn’t unusual for them to skip school to accompany Miguel on daylong deliveries to nearby towns.

Thirteen-year-old Heidi Mariela Yuvilis ‘Yuvi’ Lopez Ixcoteyac used to spend much of her time sewing t-shirts for her family’s garment-making business.

“I wanted them to know how to do it all, so I gave them hard jobs,” says Miguel. “CRS showed us we shouldn’t treat them poorly or marginalise them.”

In October, Miguel’s daughter, Heidi Mariela Yuvilis “Yuvi” Lopez Ixcoteyac, will graduate from the sixth grade, the final year of primary education. When she starts middle school next year, she will be the family’s first to achieve that level of education.

“Now, when I ask her to help out around the house, she tells me she has homework to do,” says Miguel.

“I realise that she is more committed to her studies, and I don’t want

her to lose that. I want her to become a professional.”

Thirteen-year-old Yuvi, who can list from memory just about every right defined by the United Nations’ Convention on the Rights of the Child, wants to become a nurse or psychologist.

“I have to keep going so that I won’t suffer one day,” she says. “I don’t want to regret it - once I’m married - asking myself why we’re still suffering like this. I want to prevent the suffering and get an education.”

My Rights Matter has changed the lives of more than 9,000 children, like Yuvi and Bernabe, in rural, indigenous villages in Guatemala.

Robyn Fieser is the Catholic Relief Services regional information officer for Latin America and the Caribbean. She is based in Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic

Advertisement

Photo: Sam Tarling/Caritas Switzerland A Caritas project in Lebanon which is providing shelter for Syrians who have fled their homes.

Charity No. CHY 5883

SYRIA - Over 8 million people are in desperate need of life-saving shelter, food and medicine Urgent help is needed to support the people of Syria. We are working with local partners to provide food, shelter, clean water and other basic needs for women, children and men forced to flee their homes.

PLEASE GIVE WHATEVER YOU CAN

1850 408 408 Online: trocaire.org/syria Callsave:

I WANT TO SUPPORT TRÓCAIRE’S SYRIA APPEAL I wish to donate €25 F €50 F €100 F €500 F Other €__________

F I enclose a cheque/postal order payable to Trócaire F Please debit my Mastercard/Visa/Amex/Laser F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F F Security Code F F F Expiry Date F F / F F

Please complete last 3 boxes for Laser card only

Signature: _____________________________________________________________ Name(s): (Block Caps) __________________________________________________ Address: _______________________________________________________________ Tel: ________________________ Email: ____________________________________

F Tick here if you would like to receive information about Trócaire’s work.

TRÓCAIRE, FREEPOST NS244, MAYNOOTH, CO. KILDARE.

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 15

Feature United Kingdom

Work has long been seen as the best way out of poverty, but what happens when the economic climate simply doesn’t allow some people to enter the workforce, asks Liam Allmark

When work doesn’t pay “Work is the best route out of poverty”. That is the message we have heard time and time again from the ministers and spokespeople of successive governments.

It is a message that has been increasingly repeated amid the rising levels of family poverty and unprecedented welfare cuts of recent years.

Policy makers, think-tankers and commentators grappling with the dire hardship facing millions of people across the UK often take it for granted that moving into work is good for individuals, good for their children and good for the economy.

They point to the boost in selfesteem, disposable income and public spending that often accompanies employment, whilst predicting significant savings to the taxpayer as families ‘break the cycle of benefit dependency’.

Yet such an analysis is grossly oversimplistic and tells only half the story.

Indeed, this particular route out of poverty appears ever more questionable in the current economic climate.

Despite falling unemployment and record numbers in work, an increasing number of people are struggling 16 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

to get by: reliance upon food banks is rising yearly, rent arrears continue to climb, and all of the UK’s Child Poverty targets are set to be missed by some considerable distance.

The explanation behind this apparent paradox, and the key factor often overlooked in contemporary political debates, is that employment must be accompanied by just wages and fair working conditions if it is to have any tangible effect in pulling families out of poverty. To put it simply, employ-

ment by itself is not enough.

That was a central argument in Archbishop Vincent Nichols’ recent address to the charities, clergy and activists gathered at The Catholic Response to the Poverty Crisis.

Calling for work to remain a central focus of the Church’s struggle against poverty, he reflected on Catholic Social Teaching dating back to Pope Leo XIII’s Encyclical Rerum Novarum, which insists upon employers paying wages sufficient for

PHOTO: Helen Cobain

workers to meet the needs of their families. Without organisations taking this seriously the archbishop warned, in-work poverty will continue to blight our society.

His warning is well founded. Today more than five million working people throughout the UK are paid less than the Living Wage, an independently calculated benchmark reflecting the minimum income necessary for a basic quality of life. Shockingly, the vast majority of children in poverty

have at least one parent in work, many of whom are amongst the growing number of low-paid employees now reliant upon foodbanks or food parcels for their family meals.

Those at the bottom of the payspectrum are increasingly struggling to afford the most essential outgoings including rent, utility bills and weekly shopping. Furthermore their circumstances are continuing to deteriorate as prices rise considerably faster than wages. In April this year the mini-

mum wage rose by just £4.20 per week for full time workers, leaving them facing a shortfall against average increases of more than £6 on rent, more than £5 on groceries and more than £4 on energy. Perhaps one of the most damaging price hikes has been in transport fares, with employees at the bottom of the pay scale spending a considerable portion of their income simply getting to and from their workplace.

But it is not only inadequate wages that present a challenge: More and more people simply cannot work as many hours as they would like to. A study undertaken by the Office for National Statistics at the end of last year revealed that more than three million are now underemployed, constituting approximately 10 per cent of the UK’s entire workforce. This is particular pronounced amongst young people, with the figure rising to more than 20 per cent.

Within this expanding underemployed population, some are working in part time jobs because full time positions are unavailable. Others can only find casual roles, and more than one million are employed on zerohours contracts, unsure of whether work will be available from one week to the next and often left without enough to get by. This hardship is disguised by suggestions that simply moving from unemployment to employment will pull people out of poverty.

Of course, there is some respite available through in work benefits

‘‘

The key factor often overlooked in contemporary political debates, is that employment must be accompanied by just wages and fair working conditions if it is to have any tangible effect in pulling families out of poverty

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 17

Feature United Kingdom

designed to supplement earned income. However this top-up, which provides a vital lifeline for many families, is being eroded by wide-ranging changes to welfare system.

Many of the 970,000 working people who receive housing benefit to help cover their rent have been hit by an assortment of cuts, including the controversial Under-Occupation Penalty or ‘Bedroom Tax’ and unprecedented restrictions to Local Housing Allowance.

Child Benefit and Child Tax Credits are also declining in value as a result of recent legislation to cap annual increases well below the rate of inflation.

This hits many working parents as the cost of supporting their children continues to climb.

At the same time, emergency finance for people facing challenging circumstances has become harder to access.

The replacement of interest-free crisis loans with local assistance schemes earlier this year has effectively created a postcode lottery of support, leaving a lot of low-paid workers unable to find help in cases where they face sudden or unexpected costs.

Growing numbers are now turning to high-interest payday lenders or credit cards, racking up significant personal debt and decimating future earnings with high repayments.

For many debt-laden families the old adage that “money comes in and goes straight back out” has never been more true.

Against this backdrop, continuing rhetoric about skivers and strivers is particularly unjust.

Too many discussions regarding welfare and benefits are unhelpfully accompanied by fantastical stereotypes of people deliberately avoiding work, preferring an easy life at the expense of the state.

Such misrepresentations completely ignore the large proportion of those receiving benefits who are already employed and in many cases are desperate for more work.

Far from providing a free ride, their shrinking benefit entitlement merely helps in their struggle to cover the most basic living costs.

There are no easy answers to the

18 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

‘‘

Growing numbers are now turning to high-interest payday lenders or credit cards, racking up significant personal debt and decimating future earnings with high repayments

persistent challenge of in-work poverty. However there are some clear routes forward that will help the individuals and families affected, as well as benefiting our society more broadly. One of the most obvious imperatives is for employers to adopt the Living Wage so that all employees take home an adequate income to support their families.

As Archbishop Nichols highlighted in his address “this lays down a challenge not only to the state but to the private and social sector - indeed to all those upon whom people depend for their livelihood.” Whilst such moves are often difficult, particularly in stringent economic times, they are essential if jobs are to actually enhance people’s lives, rather than merely improving employment statistics. One of the particularly important aspect of the Living Wage is its annual up-rating, which keeps pace with key price rises and prevents workers from being left unable to afford essentials.

The duty to ensure fair pay of course applies equally to the Church.

In November the Bishops’ Conference called upon all Catholic bodies in England and Wales to work towards implementation of the Living Wage; the Conference Secteriat, CSAN, CAFOD and the Catholic Education Service have since formally joined almost 300 other organisations as officially accredited living wage employers.

Beyond pay there is a need for all employers to take seriously their wider duty of care, particularly when it comes to working arrangements.

As every job and every individual is different there cannot be any ‘right’ or ‘wrong’ model of employment; however many openly exploitative practices, particularly those associated with zero hours contracts, have rightly come under scrutiny.

Whilst some employees may be suited by the flexibility, others are left not only facing financial shortfalls but also disruption to childcare arrangements.

Encouragingly, the Government has committed to examining this issue, with the Business Secretary Vince Cable announcing a formal consultation on proposals to stamp out abuse.

There is some good news on inwork benefits as well, with new arrangements to make the transition between unemployment and work more financially beneficial to lowpaid employees. However, many of the positives will be offset by the continued squeeze on support such as tax credits, housing benefit and child benefit.

Whilst we should strive towards a society in which all workers enjoy just wages and fair conditions, it is fundamental to ensure that a safety net is in place for those who do not. Without this, some of most vulnerable people will find themselves sinking further into a cycle of hardship and debt.

Above all there is a clear need to shatter the myth that moving into work automatically means moving out of poverty.

Employment can help families create a better future for themselves but only if it is fairly paid and accompanied by the appropriate support.

Unfortunately this is not the case for an extremely large section of the UK’s workforce, and their circumstances are overlooked by a simplistic focus on the number of people in employment.

Work is not working for those on tenuous contracts at the bottom of the pay scale, who are struggling to pay their bills or put food on the table.

As a society we must stand up and speak out on their behalf.

Liam Allmark works for CSAN

Comment Wikileaks

Tony Magliano on the jailing of Private Bradley Manning

Injustice masquerading as justice

PHOTO: Poster Boy NYC

It’s downright unjust. The 35-year military prison sentence handed down to US Army Private Bradley Manning for leaking classified government files is more severe than many murders and rapists receive.

In fact, according to Ben Wizner, director of the American Civil Liberties Union’s Speech, Privacy and Technology Project: “Among the more blatant injustices of the Manning case is that Manning was prosecuted more intensely, and punished far more harshly than other soldiers (and their superiors) who authorised and engaged in war crimes, including the torture of prisoners and the killing of civilians.”

In an attempt to frighten future whistleblowers, the Obama administration went all out to punish Manning – military prosecutors sought a 60 year sentence.

But such intimidation did not stop former National Security Agency contractor Edward Snowden from releasing secret files revealing that the United States and British governments are engaged in mass surveillance programs – including millions of everyday cell phone calls of average citizens.

In the spirit of St Augustine’s teaching that “an unjust law is no law at all,” we are morally obliged to disobey laws that cover-up harm.

Secrecy laws that hide evil deeds demand disclosure.

Whistleblowers are often people of selfless courage who risk much to expose serious misconduct and corruption for the sake of the “common good” – an important principle of Catholic Social Teaching.

So instead of being labeled traitors, it could be argued that many are actually true patriots.

Poster in support of the jailed soldier

The Continental Congress declared it the duty of “all persons in the service of the United States, as well as all other the inhabitants thereof” to inform the Continental Congress or proper authorities of “misconduct, frauds or misdemeanors committed by any officers in the service of these states, which may come to their knowledge” (Journals of the Continental Congress: 17741789).

In the case of Manning’s whistle blowing, much of the secret information exposed reveals serious misconduct and even grave evil.

Slate Magazine reported 10 key US government secrets revealed in the classified documents provided by Manning. Following are four of the more disturbing revelations:

* During the Iraq War, US authorities failed to investigate hundreds of reports of abuse, torture, rape, and murder by Iraqi police and soldiers, according to thousands of field reports. * There were 109,032 ‘violent deaths’ recorded in Iraq between 2004 and 2009, including 66,081 civilians. Leaked records from the Afghan War separately revealed coalition troops’ alleged role in killing at least 195 civilians in unreported incidents, one reportedly involving US service members machine-gunning a bus, wounding or killing 15 passengers. * A leaked diplomatic cable provided evidence that during an incident in 2006, U.S. troops in Iraq executed at least 10 Iraqi civilians, including a woman in her 70s and a five-monthold, then called in an airstrike to destroy the evidence. * In Baghdad in 2007, a US Army helicopter gunned down a group of civilians, including two Reuters news staff.

At a pretrial hearing in February, Manning said he leaked information, including diplomatic cables and US military war logs from Afghanistan and Iraq, in order to “spark a domestic debate on the role of the military and our foreign policy.”

Mature, honest, and ethical people of every nation should demand an open debate on the role of military and foreign policy. Such policy is far too important to be decided just by the privileged few in government, while millions of citizens are kept in the dark.

Tony Magliano is an internationally syndicated social justice and peace columnist.

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 19

Feature United States

Catholic teaching emphasises respect for workers.

Pope Francis, like pontiffs before him, has focused on the dignity of those who labour at all levels, writes Michelle Martin

The Church’s defence of workers It’s an old joke among Catholic trade unionists that Catholic Social Teaching on the dignity of work is the Church’s best-kept secret.

But to Phillip Tabbita of the US organisation the Catholic Labor Network, it’s not really a joke. It’s the truth.

Tabbita, president of the CLN and manager of negotiation support for the American Postal Workers Union, said that in a time of economic uncertainty and rapidly declining union membership, workers seem to be trapped in a situation where they feel they are competing with fellow workers, rather than collaborating, and where standing up for their own rights will only hurt them.

“Workers are afraid to speak up if things don’t go well,” he said. “They’re afraid they’ll lose their job, or the next promotion or the next pay raise.”

But according to CST, which roots itself in the truth that all people are created in the image and likeness of God and have innate dignity that cannot be taken away, workers should always be treated with the respect due to every human being.

That was also the message of the US Conference of Catholic Bishops’ 2013 Labour Day statement issued

by Bishop Stephen Blaire of Stockton, California, the chairman of the Committee on Domestic Justice and Human Development.

20 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

While there appears to be some economic recovery, it has not increased wages or helped people find jobs that will offer them a pathway out of poverty, as many remain unemployed or underemployed.

“More than four million people have been jobless for over six months, and that does not include the millions more who have simply lost hope,” Bishop Blaire wrote. “For every available job, there are often five unemployed and underemployed people actively vying for it.

“This jobs gap pushes wages down.

Half of the jobs in this country pay less than $27,000 (£17,000) per year.

More than 46 million people live in poverty, including 16 million children.

The economy is not creating an adequate number of jobs that allow workers to provide for themselves and their families. Jobs, wages and poverty are interrelated.

“The only way to reduce the widen-

‘‘

More than four million people have been jobless for over six months, and that does not include the millions more who have simply lost hope

ing gap between the affluent and the poorest people in our nation is by creating quality jobs that provide a just compensation that enables workers to live in the dignity appropriate for themselves and their families.”

At the same time, the influence of unions has waned, with only 11.3 per cent of US workers belonging to unions in 2012, down from 11.8 per cent the previous year, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics.

Unions are even weaker in the private sector, where 6.6 per cent of workers belonged to unions in 2012, down from 6.9 per cent in 2011.

The public sector is a relative union stronghold, with 35.9 per cent of

PHOTO: Casie Yoder

Union activisits make their voice heard in the US

workers belonging to unions. But that fell from 37 per cent the previous year. At the same time, the absolute number of public employee union members dropped by more than 230,000 as workers were laid off.

The Church has supported the rights of workers to organise into unions since Pope Leo XIII published Rerum Novarum (“On the Condition of Labour”) in 1891. The topic was revisited by Blessed John Paul II in Laborem Exercens (“On Human Work”) in 1981 and Centesimus Annus (“The Hundredth Year”) in 1991; Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI in Caritas in Veritate (“Charity in Truth”) in 2009; and by the US Con-

ference of Catholic Bishops in “Economic Justice for All” (1986) and “Forming Consciences for Faithful Citizenship” (2007).

In all of those documents, popes and bishops caution that unions must function for the good not only of their members, but for the good of all workers, and indeed, society as a whole.

In Rerum Novarum, Pope Leo XIII envisioned the possibility of labour associations that would include not just workers, but also their employers.

“Work has to be built around the individual and not have the individual as just a cog in the wheel,” Phillip

Tabbita said, adding that Catholics of all economic levels can find ways to honour the dignity of workers.

Employers can begin by honouring their faith not just on Sunday, but also in their businesses, by paying fair wage and treating workers with respect.

Consumers can take the time to consider who manufactured the items they purchase, understanding that in some developing countries, workers might make what in the United States would be considered an hourly minimum wage in a week - or a month.

Companies spread out their production for good business reasons, JUSTICE MAGAZINE 21

Feature United States

PHOTO: Delta 407

Pope Leo XIII wrote Rerum Novarum

such as building redundancy into the system to make sure they have a steady supply, but also to force the factories to bid against one another, driving their cost down. Because the equipment and raw materials are supplied by the company, the factories’ only flexible cost is labour.

Pope Francis addressed the dignity of labour and the plight of the unemployed in his address at the weekly general audience May 1 this year, the feast of St Joseph the Worker.

The problem of unemployment is “very often caused by a purely economic view of society, which seeks self-centered profit, outside the bounds of social justice,” he said.

“I wish to extend an invitation to everyone to greater solidarity and to encourage those in public office to spare no effort to give new impetus to employment. This means caring for the dignity of the person.”

Michell Martin writes from Illinois, US. Article used with permission

22 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

Pope Emeritus Benedict in Caritas in Veritate In Caritas in Veritate, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI wrote: “The market has prompted new forms of competition between states as they seek to attract foreign businesses to set up production centres, by means of a variety of instruments, including favorable fiscal regimes and deregulation of the labour market.

“These processes have led to a downsizing of social security systems as the price to be paid for seeking greater competitive advantage in the global market, with consequent grave danger for the rights of workers, for fundamental human rights and for the solidarity associated with the traditional forms of the social state.

“Here budgetary policies, with cuts in social spending often made under pressure from international financial institutions, can leave citizens powerless in the face of old and new risks;

such powerlessness is increased by the lack of effective protection on the part of workers’ associations.

“Through the combination of social and economic change, trade union organisations experience greater difficulty in carrying out their task of representing the interests of workers, partly because governments, for reasons of economic utility, often limit the freedom or the negotiating capacity of labour unions.

Hence traditional networks of solidarity have more and more obstacles to overcome.

The repeated calls issued within the Church’s social doctrine, beginning with Rerum Novarum [60], for the promotion of workers’ associations that can defend their rights must therefore be honoured today even more than in the past” (No. 25).

Pope Benedict - Caritas in Veritate

Advertisement

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 23

Feature United Kingdom

The poverty crisis David Alton assesses the widening gap in British society and looks for a Catholic response As they step from the platform to the train at London’s Embankment, tube station passengers are frequently told to “mind the gap.”

In a country where the gaps have been getting bigger, it’s advice which policy makers, campaigners, Govern24 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

ment, charities, churches and civil society need to take to heart. The widening gap between the destitute and the very wealthy risks social cohesion as well as offending basic principles of justice, fairness and decency.

Jesus told us that the poor would always be with us but this was not offered as an excuse for indifference to the plight of the poor – rather, it was recognition of how people tend to behave towards one another.

Instead of indifference, the theology

PHOTO: sarflondondunc

Council estate in south London

of the Beatitudes is an encouragement to reach out in practical ways while Scripture and Catholic Social Teaching are rooted in the principle that our faith must be matched by deeds. In every generation the objective must be to close the gap. There are consequences for society – and for the individuals who make up society when we fail to do this. But the enormity of the consequences when we fail to respond to the poor is graphically underlined when Jesus recounts the story of Lazarus and

Dives, the rich man and the poor man, in which Jesus describes another gap, the yawning chasm which opens up between Lazarus and Dives, as the rich man is eternally damned for his failure to give even the crumbs from his table.

Government figures show that the gap between rich and poor in the UK – deep-seated and systemic differences – are wider now than 40 years ago.

Contrast unemployment at 2.5 million; child poverty at 3.6 million and rising; and the five million people paid less than the Living Wage with four recent news stories: It was reported that the Chief Executive of Network Rail is to receive a £99,082 bonus on top of his £577,000 salary; that the former boss of Tesco’s failed US chain, Fresh & Easy, received a £1.7m payoff despite the business being shut down after repeated losses; that BT chief executive Ian Livingston’s annual earnings rose to £8.5m, with 1,000 managers sharing windfall payouts averaging £120,000; while four top bankers at the bailed out Royal Bank of Scotland were handed £2.7m in shares from bonuses – valued at around £1m, £670,000, £650,000 and £480,000 While Barclays Bank announced three month profits of £1.3 billion – an increase of five per cent, the gap with those in debt gets ever wider: Household debt now stands at an average of £57,635 and total UK personal debt has reached a staggering £1,452 billion.

More broadly, as efforts to stimulate the economy push up house prices and asset values, the well-off are rewarded for being well-off, whilst the poorest are cut further adrift. The gap between those who have so much and those who don’t hardly creates a sense that “we’re all in this together” as David Cameron once put it.

The top 10 per cent of the population are worth more than £750,000 while the bottom one per cent have negative wealth – in other words their liabilities exceed assets – of £3,840. So, we need to mind the gap but, have a care, before assuming that market economies are themselves the problem.

The economist, Ludwig von Mises was right when he insisted that in the

history of mankind the free market removed more people from absolute poverty than any other system devised by men. Command economies – so beloved of the former European Socialist dictatorships – did not, and will not, end the glaring anomalies between rich and poor.

The issue for us is how to temper the market’s excesses; how to end the irresponsible obscenities of greed and avarice; how to promote moral capitalism and to cultivate more human values which promote social solidarity and the common good; and which use the market to champion fairness and justice; to close the yawning gaps Fairness and justice will be what the next General Election will be about and the Church must speak clearly into that debate.

There are now 2.5 million people, 7.8 per cent of the population – with unemployment at more than 10 per cent in some constituencies – put another way, that’s one in 12 of the population without jobs.

The yawning gap between those with jobs and those without creates a whole range of other differentials: gaps in personal income, gaps in self esteem and gaps in social acceptance.

Having or not having a job leads to a gap between a person’s innate abilities and their opportunity to fulfill that potential. Being unemployed means having nothing to do which too easily can lead to having nothing to do with the rest of us – opening a gap into which, as the old saying has it, the devil can make mischief for idle hands.

‘‘

The gap between those who have so much and those who don’t hardly creates a sense that “we’re all in this together” as David Cameron once put it.

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 25

Feature United Kingdom

PHOTO: Birmingham News Room

Deposits at a Birmingham food bank

Being unemployed is personally disfiguring, often deeply depressing, and represents a terrible waste of human capital.

This widening employment gap in Britain is particularly disadvantageous to young people.

One in three of those without work is aged between 16 and 24. Nearly one million young people are out of work. The inelegant acronym NEET describes the hundreds of thousands of young people who are not in employment, education or training.

Half of our 16-year-olds lack basic qualifications in maths or English and as they are left brooding on sink estates and in urban ghettos many turn to lives of crime and are sucked into drugs and gang culture. The devil is free to have a field day.

Even where some kind of employment is available, the poorest people are almost invariably restricted to the most badly remunerated and demeaning roles.

Disillusionment is of course only exacerbated by an incessant societal focus on consumerism and material wealth, often to the detriment of what 26 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

really matters for human flourishing; yet it is often the most basic and fundamental hardship which causes people to become bitter.

Last year, after losing their homes, there was a 44 per cent rise in the number of families relying on emergency bed and breakfast accommodation, bringing the total to almost 4,000 people.

But even this provision is better than being forced to sleep on the street or on a park bench – the fate of some of those who had found a place in a night shelter in Salford which has been forced to close because of changes in the housing benefit regime.

The poverty crisis manifests itself in countless other ways. Research suggests that 500,000 people are now reliant upon food banks or some other form of voluntary provision for their meals. This spectre of Food Bank Britain is a national disgrace.

It represents not only a catastrophic human cost but also stands to create profoundly negative economic and social effects in the long run.

Considering the numerous studies

linking unmanageable debt to crime, family breakdown, alcohol abuse and mental health difficulties, there are clear dangers stemming from the fact that more than one million people now rely upon payday loans to cover essential outgoings such as utility bills. Similarly, the hundreds of thousands of children growing up in overcrowded homes or going to school hungry face significantly increased risks of education and health problems, presenting obvious challenges further down the line.

The Times Educational Supplement has highlighted the growing problem of child malnutrition following a report showing half the country’s teachers have witnessed pupils suffering malnutrition or hunger pangs.

In a survey for the Prince’s Trust, a quarter of 515 teachers from across England said that pupils’ hunger is a problem, and that it was becoming an increasingly common sight. It also found seven out of 10 secondary school teachers were “increasingly worried” their pupils will end up on benefits after quitting full-time edu-

cation. Teachers said they were also witnessing increasing numbers of pupils coming into school “hungry”, “dirty” and “struggling to concentrate”.

More than one in four teachers said they regularly saw children walking miles to school as they cannot afford transport. A further two-thirds claim they often saw pupils with holes in their shoes. One teacher told how she saw a pupil walking to school in the snow wearing just her socks because her shoes no longer fitted her.

Beyond the visible signs of poverty – such as hunger or homelessness – or traditional perceptions – such as evictions or foodbanks – are other serious forms of poverty such as children unable to fully participate in trips or friendship groups; working parents facing relationship strain as a result of low incomes; young people sofa surfing; and disabled people unable to afford necessary transport.

Relative poverty is crucial because it defines whether people can partake in society, but relative poverty is often unseen.

The Government needs to become far more focused on the root causes of social security and tax credit demand and their priority should be to make progress on full employment, living wages, affordable housing and support for children and people with disabilities.

It is hardly surprising that so many organisations working to support poor families have expressed deep concern at the virtually unprecedented set of restrictions on the welfare system, which threatens to punch further holes into Beveridge’s “safety net”.

Before the 1980s very few people were on benefits. Working class families, like the one I came from, saw them as the Beveridge safety net. The 1980s and mass de-industrialisation changed all that, turning the working classes into workless classes and, all too often, into benefit-dependent classes—which is why, with nearly 1 million young people without work, opportunities for education, employment or training, job creation and education are crucial in tackling poverty.

Having been the first from my own family to experience higher education and, as the son of an Irish immigrant, my late mother, whose first language

was Irish, and having grown up in a home without a bathroom, and then a council flat—and then, as a student, being elected to represent a disadvantaged community in the heart of Liverpool, where half the homes had no inside sanitation or bathrooms— I know how important it is to provide educational and vocational opportunities that give opportunities for employment.

Too often politicians have turned the poor into scapegoats rather than trying to understand and combat the causes of poverty. It is the politics of the playground to paint a picture of scroungers versus strivers.

Rather than caricatures, we need to ask how it can be right to promote policies that will lead this year to a couple with two children earning £26,000 a year losing more than £12 a week while 8,000 millionaires will be better off by an average of £2,000 a week. It is neither fair nor just, or equality of sacrifice or an equitable sharing of austerity, that, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies, that some seven million working families will be on average £165 a year poorer, while another 2.5 million families with no one in work will be £215 worse off as a result of Government policies. The rhetoric claims that “we’re all in this together” the reality suggests an altogether different picture.

The overall impact on vulnerable people of many of the changes is devastating; too deep and too fast; ill considered and in danger of undermining the most fundamental safety net through which no one should fall.

It is unacceptable that through job loss, disability, illness or low pay, parents and children are going hungry and becoming homeless. But the facts speak for themselves and that is the reality for a rapidly growing number.

With food banks and shelters increasingly overburdened, it is now urgent that we repair the damage being caused to families and to our society.

Although the motives of some of those who are driving these policies might be worthy, and genuine issues such as work paying less than welfare needed to be addressed, this should not be confused with austerity measures that have been too deep, too fast and too arbitrary. The cumulative result of benefit cuts, unfair penalties,

and the abolition of critical funding such as civil legal aid and crisis loans, has been an unprecedented reduction in the social security safety net. This has left families unable to meet the basic needs recognised in Catholic Social Teaching.

At the same time, rhetoric underpinning these changes has created a vicious cycle of scapegoating and penalising those most in need of support. Debate around migration, and, for instance, media coverage of the Philpot trial, set the stage for some of the worst manifestations of this, whilst research by major charities and the Joint Committee on Human Rights reflects gradually increasing levels of intolerance in society.

The Catholic response to the poverty crisis has been thoughtful and focused. There are a wealth of teaching documents which form Catholic Social Teaching – often referred to as the Church’s best kept secret. Based on Jesus’ injunction to always place “the least of these” at the centre of our concerns, Catholics affirm human life, human rights and human dignity.

Human life begins at conception and ends at natural death; human rights are based on the belief that each person, regardless of difference, is made in the image of God and of infinite worth; and insistence on human dignity requires that people will not be down trodden or oppressed.

‘‘

It is hardly surprising that so many organisations working to support poor families have expressed deep concern at the virtually unprecedented set of restrictions on the welfare system

Lord Alton is a Catholic peer This article is an edited version of a speech given at the CSAN conference in London

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 27

Feature Burma

Burma’s forgotten war Liam Allmark’s family left Burma shortly after General Ne Win came to power in 1962. For many years he has been involved in human rights and democracy advocacy. He traveled back to the country as part of a Catholic Bishops’ Conference delegation to Yangon and Myitkyina.

28 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

PHOTO: Liam Allmark

As we step off the cramped twin-propeller plane into the monsoon rain, we are met by two soldiers and ushered inside a bare single-story building.

They take our passports and hand them to a stern looking officer seated behind a wooden trestle table. After a few minutes he beckons our translator over and begins asking questions in Burmese. We can make out the words “NGO” and “Church” more than once as he takes down detailed notes on a large pad.

His soldiers remain standing silently by our side until they eventually receive a nod from their superior and escort us through the opposite door.

We collect our bags from a pile outside, walk across a muddy forecourt past a large metal billboard warning that drug-traffickers will be executed, and climb into a waiting car.

I ask our translator what the officer was saying, he turns to me and explains: “The army want to know who you are, where you are staying, and what foreigners are doing in Myitkyina.”

This is the capital of war-torn Kachin State, about 1,000km north of Burma’s main city Yangon (formerly Rangoon). Up here, signs of the country’s fragile reform process are far less visible, hardly surprising considering that the Kachin people are still reeling from the most intense period of conflict in their recent history.

Since a 17-year ceasefire with the rebel Kachin Independence Army (KIA) broke down in 2011, the Burmese government has launched air strikes, artillery barrages and massive ground offensives throughout the state. Hundreds of fighters on both sides have been killed, whole villages have been destroyed and human rights groups have accused the government of war crimes including torturing prisoners, raping local women and conscripting child soldiers.

Although a tenuous truce struck in May curbed some of the worst violence and opened the door for further talks between government negotiators and the rebels’ political wing, fighting still breaks out almost weekly and everywhere you look the army continues to flex its muscles.

Driving along the poorly main-

Children in an IDP camp, above and left

tained roads, we pass military checkpoints, massive barracks, and heavily armed patrols.

Throughout our time in Kachin State, soldiers arrive at our accommodation unannounced, demanding identification and information about our activities. There is a feeling of tension that is not present in Yangon and every conversation quickly turns to the volatile situation.

Conflict between the Kachin people and the Burmese government is nothing new. Ethnically distinct from the country’s majority Burman population, with their own language, their own customs, and a strong Christian tradition, the Kachin like many other ethnic nationalities have long sought greater freedoms if not complete independence from Burma.

Following the coup that brought General Ne Win to power in 1962, decades of oppression by successive military regimes left the KIA fighting a largely defensive war, whilst clinging to the aspiration of at least some political autonomy.

Things started to look up with the signing of a ceasefire agreement in 1994 and more recently with the emergence of an apparently reformist civilian Burmese government in 2010.

Yet disputes over natural resources strained the peace to breaking point.

During one drive along the banks of the mighty Irrawaddy river, the local priest accompanying us points to scores of empty houses dotted along the roadside. “The people had to leave,” he explains, “because the govJUSTICE MAGAZINE 29

Feature Burma

ernment wants to build a big dam on the river and flood the land. The KIA threatened to destroy the dam if construction started – so the government wants to destroy the KIA first.”

The rebel grievances are understandable: Projects like the dam are not designed to bring any benefit to Kachin State. Instead it would provide hydroelectric power to cities across the Chinese border and fill the pockets of Burma’s political elite, whilst the local people lose their homes, their land and their livelihoods.

Large mines throughout the region are similarly dominated by Chinese or Burmese businessmen with strong ties to the government. “There is plenty of gold and jade under Kachin State but none above it,” our priest sighs, “it all goes to Yangon or to China”.

The combination of this economic exploitation and the abuses meted out by government troops, has generated enormous support for the KIA. The local Catholic Archbishop Francis Daw Tang has hailed them as freedom fighters and cheering crowds have greeted each rebel delegation arriving in Myitkyina for peace talks.

Using Second World War weaponry to fight one of the best armed government forces in South East Asia, their struggle has become the stuff of legend. Pointing across to a KIA-controlled stretch of jungle, one villager proudly tells us that three rebels recently used their knowledge of the terrain to fight off more than 200 government soldiers.

However, the conflict has come at a massive cost for the Kachin people.

In the army’s desperate bid to wipe out the KIA, little distinction has been made between military and civilian targets. During the past two years, hundreds of villages have been attacked and more than 100,000 people have been forced to flee their homes. As we travel through the Internally Displaced Persons (IDP) camps in and around Myitkyina, the extent of Kachin State’s humanitarian crisis becomes shockingly clear.

“This is one of the smaller camps run by the Church,” our driver informs us as he navigates through pools left by the earlier monsoon rains “it has one hundred families – about 400 people.” When we park, a 30 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

‘‘

Projects like the dam are not designed to bring any benefit to Kachin State.

Instead it would provide hydroelectric power to cities across the Chinese border and fill the pockets of Burma’s political elite

group of children playing in the mud look up and run towards us, fascinated by the sight of visitors.

Over half of those living in the camp are under 12-years-old and it is one of the saddest places I can imagine anyone growing up. The Church arranges shelter and food but conditions are hugely overcrowded.

One mother leads us down a narrow alley of wooden and tin shacks to the small single room where she sleeps, cooks and eats with her four children.

Looking mournfully towards gaps in the ceiling where rainwater seeps through, she explains that her family home was destroyed in the fighting and all their livestock was killed.

Outside another young woman recounts how she traveled here by boat with 40 other families after the army shelled their village. “They were trying to hit the KIA but some people in the village died,” she says sadly, “now we have nothing - not here, not at home.” I ask her what life is like in the camp, “very lonely, like being in a prison” she replies “and in the rainy season a lot of the children get sick.”

Looking around, the health risks are clear. A set of rickety wooden latrines provide the only sanitation and a nearby concrete well is the sole source of fresh water. Mud and rain seep through every structure, and mosquitoes swarm around stagnant pools.

The government is meant to provide healthcare for people in the camps, but medicines are often undersupplied or out of date. Meanwhile, official planning restrictions prevent Churches and charities from constructing any new buildings, worsening the overcrowding as camp

populations expand. “Even with the ceasefire more people are still coming here” a local diocesan worker explains “many people who lost their homes have been staying with their families, but now their families have run out

PHOTO: Liam Allmark

Conditions in the IDP camp were squalid and children often get ill

of money and space.�

Walking back towards the gate we meet two mothers who have given birth in the camp. They are worried, not only because of the daily threat from malnutrition, cholera and

malaria, but for the very future of their children: their villages and livelihoods have been destroyed, leaving nowhere to return even if the conflict ends. It is hard to reconcile western media reports of political

reform taking hold in Burma with the sight of babies born into such utter hopelessness.

A short drive up the road, these stories are repeated at a much larger camp. Here the Church has support JUSTICE MAGAZINE 31

Feature Burma

An alleyway in the IDP camp, above, and a family’s living accommodation, right

from major donors including the Red Cross, the World Food Programme and the UK government’s Department for International Development.

Yet conditions are still dire for the thousand-strong population, many of whom fled their homes when the ceasefire broke down two years ago. I ask one of the camp directors if there is any chance of them returning in the near future and he quickly shakes his 32 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

head, stating that even if the peace holds families will be living here for years to come. Many villages have been left in ruins by artillery attacks or by soldiers tearing down houses to salvage building materials for their outposts. There is also the enormous problem of landmines, which have been laid in civilian areas, often without any record of their exact location.

This has left it impossible for people

to safely leave the camps, even once the shooting stops.

In the meantime one of the largest dangers is that the education and lifechances of a whole generation will be de-railed by the conflict. Near the camp’s centre we visit a makeshift corrugated iron classroom, where teenagers watch intently as their teacher scribbles on a donated chalkboard. “It is very hard for these

children” one of the staff tells us.

“Some use the local school but there is not enough space so they can only go a few days each week and they have to stand at the back of the classroom. We try to help by teaching here in the camp but it is not a good environment.”

In the adjoining fields another camp almost twice as large is run by the Kachin Baptist Convention.

They have been working closely with the Catholic dioceses and we receive a warm welcome upon entering the large marquee that serves as an operational headquarters.

“You must thank people in the UK for supporting us,” the director says enthusiastically, “but please ask them to carry on support – families here have exhausted everything and things will only get harder from now on.” Whilst the camp organisers ensure a steady flow of basic food rations, people are struggling

‘‘

to afford clothes, cooking fuel and other necessities. Those that brought jewellery with them have sold it and thousands more have sunk into debt with local money-lenders. The gruelling poverty in the camps right now is about to sink to new depths.

The sheer scale of this crisis may not be as large as others dominating our headlines; the number of Syrians in Jordan’s Zaatari refugee camp alone exceeds the total number of Kachin IDPs. Yet for the families living in crowded shacks, relying on food aid and with no hope of returning home, the anguish is exactly the same. Disease, hunger, insecurity and destitution are all part of daily life for the those caught up in this brutal conflict.

Away from the eyes of the world, they are suffering – and they must not be forgotten.

Liam Allmark works for CSAN

Near the camp’s centre we visit a makeshift corrugated iron classroom, where teenagers watch intently as their teacher scribbles on a donated chalkboard JUSTICE MAGAZINE 33

Feature Oscar Romero

From a pious cleric to the ‘voice of the voiceless’, the life of Oscar Romero is refelcted on by Fr John Dear

“I have often been threatened with death,” Archbishop Oscar Romero told a Guatemalan reporter two weeks before his assassination on March 24, 1980.

“If they kill me, I shall arise in the Salvadoran people. If the threats come to be fulfilled, from this moment I offer my blood to God for the redemption and resurrection of El Salvador. Let my blood be a seed of freedom and the sign that hope will soon be reality.”

Oscar Romero was killed 33 years ago, but he lives on in El Salvador, Latin America and even in the United States, wherever people give their lives in the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace. He gave his life for that struggle in the hope that the outcome was inevitable, that justice would be done, that war would be abolished, that truth will overcome, and that love and life are stronger than hate and death.

Romero’s journey took him from the spoiled life of a quiet, conservative pious cleric whose silence blessed decades of poverty, into a prophet of justice, “the voice of the voiceless” in war-torn, politically explosive El Salvador. He represented no political party or ideology, only the suffering people of El Salvador, and became a stunning sign of God’s active presence in the world, of the struggle for justice itself.

After his friend Jesuit priest Rutilio Grande was brutally killed for speaking out against injustice on March 12, 1977, Romero was transformed overnight into one of the world’s great champions for the poor and oppressed. At the local Mass the next day, Romero preached a sermon that stunned El Salvador.

Like the sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr., Romero defended the work of Grande, demanded justice for the poor, and called everyone to take up Grande’s prophetic stand for justice.

In protest against the government’s 34 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

Oscar Romero: ‘Let my blood be a seed of freedom’

PHOTO: Franco Folini

Oscar Romero is at the heart of a mural commemorating the fight for justice in Central America

suspected participation in the murders, Romero closed the parish schools for three days and cancelled all Masses in the country the following week. More than 100,000 people attended the Mass at the cathedral in a bold call for justice. While the government and military were concerned, the campesinos were inspired to stand up for a new El Sal-

vador. As more priests and Church workers were assassinated, Romero spoke out more intensely, even publicly criticising the president on several occasions.

As the government death squads began to take over villages, attack churches, and massacre campesinos, Romero’s protest became loud. In the growing climate of fear and war, his

‘‘

As the government death squads began to take over villages, attack churches, and massacre campesinos, Romero’s protest became loud JUSTICE MAGAZINE 35

Feature Oscar Romero

word of truth in a culture of violence and lies was nothing less than a subversive act of nonviolent civil disobedience.

Within a period of months, everywhere Romero went he was greeted with applause. His Sunday homilies were broadcast nationwide on live radio and heard by nearly everyone in the country. Letters poured in from every village, thanking him for his prophetic voice and confessing their own new found courage.

As Romero gained strength in his role as spokesperson for justice and truth, and as he exhorted the Salvadoran people to the nonviolent struggle for justice and peace, he never lost his simple faith and pious devotion. From this devotional piety which he shared with all Salvadorans, he paved a new way into active Gospel peacemaking.

He preached about God’s preferential option for the poor, justice and peace.

In his opposition to the government’s silence, he refused to attend the inauguration of the new Salvadoran president.

The Church, he announced, is “not to be measured by the government’s support but rather by its own authenticity, its evangelical spirit of prayer, trust, sincerity and justice, its opposition to abuses”.

As more and more people were arrested, tortured, disappeared and murdered, Romero made two prophetic institutional decisions which stand out for their rare Gospel vision. First, on Easter Monday, 1978, he opened the seminary in inner city San Salvador to all displaced victims of violence. Hundreds of homeless, hungry and brutalised people moved into the seminary, transforming the quiet religious retreat into a crowded, noisy shelter,

‘‘

The Church, he announced, is “not to be measured by the government’s support but rather by its own authenticity, its evangelical spirit of prayer, trust, sincerity and justice, its opposition to abuses”

36 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

PHOTO: Andrea Schaffer

makeshift hospital, and playground.

Second, he stopped construction on the cathedral until, he said, when justice and peace are established. When the war was over and the hungry were fed, he announced, then we can resume building our cathedral. Both moves were unprecedented and historic and cast judgment on the Salvadoran government.

Romero’s preaching escalated each month to new biblical heights. “Like a voice crying in the desert,” he said, “we must continually say No to violence and Yes to peace.” His August 1978 pastoral letter outlined the evils of “institutional violence” and repression, and advocated “the power of nonviolence that today has conspicuous students and followers … the counsel of the Gospel to turn the other cheek to an unjust aggressor, far from being passive or cowardly,” he wrote, “shows great moral force that leaves the aggressor morally overcome and humiliated. The Christian always prefers peace to war.”

Romero lived simply in a three room hermitage on the grounds of a hospital run by a community of nuns. He associated on a daily basis with hundreds of the poorest of the poor. He travelled the countryside constantly, and assisted those who suffered most. He frequently commented that his duty as pastor had become the task of claiming the dead bodies of priests and campesinos and to defend the poor by calling for an end to the killing. One Salvadoran told me, on one of my many visits to El Salvador, how Romero drove out whenever necessary to a large rubbish dump where bodies were often discarded by the government death squads. He looked among the rubbish and the dead bodies for relatives of family members whom he accompanied. “These days I walk the roads gathering up dead friends, listening to widows and orphans, and trying to spread hope,” he said.

His last few Sunday sermons in late 1979 and early 1980 issued strong calls for conversion to justice and bold denunciations of the daily massacres and assassinations. His plea to the wealthy elite who supported the death

Oscar Romero and Martin Luther King are commemorated at Westminster Abbey in London among the 20th century martyrs JUSTICE MAGAZINE 37

Feature Oscar Romero

38 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

PHOTO: Javier Hidalgo

squads was pointed and prophetic.

“To those who bear in their hands or in their conscience, the burden of bloodshed, of outrages, of the victimised, innocent or guilty, but still victimised in their human dignity, I say: Be converted. You cannot find God on the path of torture. God is found on the way of justice, conversion and truth.”

Every day, Romero took time to speak with dozens of persons threatened by government death squads.

People came to him to ask for the help or protection, to complain about harassment or murders, or to find some guidance and support in their time of grief and struggle. Romero received and listened to everyone of them. His prophetic voice became stronger and angrier as he learned of their pain and suffering.

In February 1980, when Romero heard that President Jimmy Carter was considering sending millions of dollars a day in military aid to El Salvador, Romero was shocked. Deeply distressed, he wrote a long public letter to Carter, asking the United States to cancel all military aid. Carter never responded to Romero, and sent the aid.

On March 23, Romero exploded with his most direct appeal to the members of the armed forces: “I would like to make an appeal in a special way to the men of the army, to the police, to those in the barracks.

Brothers, you are part of our own people. You kill your own campesino brothers and sisters.

“And before an order to kill that a man may give, the law of God must prevail that says: Thou shalt not kill!

No soldier is obliged to obey an order against the law of God. “No one has to fulfill an immoral law. It is time to recover your consciences and to obey your consciences rather than the orders of sin. The Church, defender of the rights of God, of the law of God, of human dignity, the dignity of the person, cannot remain silent before such abomination. We want the government to take seriously that reforms are worth nothing when they come about stained with so much blood.

“In the name of God, and in the name of this suffering people whose laments rise to heaven each day more tumultuously, I beg you, I ask you, I

‘‘

People came to him to ask for the help or protection, to complain about harassment or murders, or to find some guidance and support in their time of grief and struggle

order you in the name of God: Stop the repression!”

The next day, March 24, 1980, Romero presided at a special evening Mass in the chapel of the hospital compound where he lived, in honour of someone who had died one year before. He read from John’s Gospel: “Unless the grain of wheat falls to the earth and dies, it remains only a grain. But if it dies, it bears much fruit (Jn. 12:23-26).”

Then he preached about the need to give one’s life for others as Christ did. Just as he concluded his sermon, he was shot in the heart by a man standing in the back of the church.

Romero fell behind the altar and collapsed at the foot of a huge crucifix depicting a bloody and bruised

Christ. Blood covered Romero’s vestments and the floor of the church, and he gasped for breath. He died within minutes.

Romero’s funeral was the largest demonstration in Salvadoran history, some say in the history of Latin America.

The government was so afraid that they threw bombs into the crowd and opened fire, killing some 30 people and injuring hundreds. The funeral Mass was never completed and Romero was hastily buried.

Today, we remember Oscar Romero as a saint and a martyr, but also as a prophet of justice, a friend of the poor, and a peacemaker. He became the martyred shepherd of the Third World, the spokesperson of the poor and oppressed, not only of El Salvador, but all of Latin America, calling us all to conversion, disarmament, and justice.

Romero calls us to live in solidarity with the poor and oppressed, to think with them, feel with them, walk with them, stand with them, and become one with them. From that preferential solidarity, he summons us to join his prophetic pursuit of justice.

Romero denounced violence on all sides and called for a new culture of justice and peace where there is no more killing, no more hunger, no more bombings, no more poverty, and no more guns.

He said the most important task we can undertake in a culture of war is to publicly announce the good news of peace, even if that announcement disrupts our lives, even costs us our lives.

He invites us to join the struggle for justice, and to proclaim the truth of peace regardless of the consequences.

Speaking the truth today, as Romero did more than 30 years ago, means opposing corporate greed and the ongoing war on the world’s poor, and resisting the nuclear weapons industry. It means fearlessly naming our wars and violence as sinful, idolatrous, and demonic, and upholding a new vision of nonviolence.

Fr John Dear is a Jesuit priest from the United States

PHOTO: Greg Poulos

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 39

Feature Kenya

Joseph Kabiru reports on the work being done to bring light to a Kenyan village

Let there be light “One night my son was unwell with diarrhoea. My husband and I walked for several kilometres to the main road to look for transport to rush him to the hospital.

“But, because of the security situation in Kitui County, there were not many boda bodas (motor-bike taxis).

By the time we got transport to take us to the main government hospital 20km away, my son was in a very poor state.

“We had to join the queue before nurses could attend to him, and by the time the doctor had a chance to see to him, he passed away in my arms. My son was only two years old.”

Lucy Ekuwam, 29, painfully recalls the tragic events of her son’s death.

She has seen two of her children needlessly die, just because the health centre near her home has to close every evening because of a lack of lighting.

Lucy’s home – a neatly-plastered mud-walled hut – is in the village of Thaana Nzau, some 100 miles from the Kenyan capital, Nairobi. It is surrounded by rolling green mountains in the distance. The beauty of the mountains can be deceiving, giving an impression of a land of plenty, when the opposite is increasingly true.

In this part of the world, Lucy and her neighbours can never vouch for when the rains will be enough for them to have a good harvest. The region also finds itself in the grip of cyclical droughts, and communities face a daily struggle to find clean drinking water and food.

The streams into which the mountain water cascades into have been dry for some time. The short rainy season early this year didn’t last long, and the only relief comes from the water collected in rudimentary sand dams, which is drunk by humans and animals alike.

Most families in Lucy’s village rely on cattle, goats, sheep, poultry and donkeys. These animals aren’t simply 40 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

‘‘

In all the 138 institutions where we are installing solar panels, solar-powered refrigerators and solar-powered water purification systems, we have trained locals who will be able to repair the equipment once it breaks down

a source of food and milk; they are living banks, the main assets that people own. When these animals die, families are robbed of their livelihoods, and their ability to survive when times are bad.

The Kenyan counties of Kitui, Kajiado and Isiolo, each covering an area bigger than Wales, are known collectively as the arid and semi-arid regions, with annual average rainfall of just 400mm, just about a third of what we see in the UK even in a very wet year.

For the 1.8 million people who live in this harsh environment, their daily struggles with water shortages are exacerbated by a lack of electricity and light.

At local health centres, as well as being unable to deal with emergencies at night, the lack of refrigeration hampers their ability to maintain stocks of vaccines.

At school, the mud-walled classrooms keep out the baking heat so that the children can study, but also keep out the light.

And in the most remote rural communities, even where water can be obtained, local people lack the energy required to power purification technology.

CAFOD believes that tapping the sun’s energy is one way to address some of these issues in an affordable and sustainable way.

Harnessing the African sun has been considered before but progress has usually stalled because of high costs and the complexity of the technology. But in the last few years the price of technology has plummeted – solar panels, batteries and LED bulbs are now cheaper to buy and simpler to operate.

CAFOD will invest £500,000 of its own income implementing the project, along with £1.5m in support from the European Union Development Fund.

Over the course of the four-year programme, 138 schools and health centres, and 69 community groups, in the target regions will be provided with solar panels for lighting and solar-water pumping and refrigeration systems, bringing benefits across the whole region.

In keeping with its policy of working through local churches, partners and businesses in the poorest countries, CAFOD has also teamed up with a local Kenyan company, Solar Works East Africa Limited, to roll out the programme.

Simon Ndoo, an engineer with Solar Works, says they have trained local people to take care of the solar equipment to ensure the sustainability of the project: “In all the 138 institutions where we are installing solar panels, solarpowered refrigerators and solarpowered water purification systems, we have trained locals who will be able to repair the equipment once it breaks down.

“This is part of the knowledge exchange which we feel is very important to the community so that they can own the project. These systems are very easy to maintain and are very cost-effective, and they do not need highly skilled technicians to repair”.

CAFOD director Chris Bain said:

PHOTO: CAFOD

Lighting means better education and improved healthcare

“CAFOD has been working in these counties for over a decade supporting families and communities to meet their most basic daily needs. We’ve seen how much they are struggling to cope with the rise in extreme and unpredictable weather, and a lack of electricity makes those challenges all the harder. Tapping the sun’s energy is the best way of addressing that, and if we are successful with this project, it will pave the way for similar projects in other regions.”

In Thaana Nzau, word has spread across the village that there will be light at the health centre and people have come to witness the event.

The health centre has had a fresh coat of blue and white paint as 500 members of the local community

stand alongside local leaders, the Catholic Vicar General, Robert Musau, and representatives from national and county governments, all waiting patiently to see the building flooded with light.

Head nurse for Thaana Nzau, Joseph Mwangangi, speaks excitedly about the difference the solar panels will make: “I have been working in this health centre since 2003 and we immunise on average between 200 and 300 children per day. The solarpowered refrigeration and water purification systems are a godsend for the community. Until now we have been transferring our vaccines to other health centres located 30 miles away whenever we run out of gas. We have a maternity wing here

which will now be fully operational because of the solar lighting. Most of the women go into labour during the night and we were unable to open at night due to the darkness. But now, that is bound to change.”

Joseph beams; he sees that with progress comes transformation for his community and he will be able to serve them better.

Lucy joined in with the other women as they sang and danced and praised the good news of the arrival of the Solar panels. Despite the sadness of her losses, she now knows that no child from her village will have to needlessly die because of lack of light.

Joseph Kabiru is CAFOD’s Africa News Officer based in Nairobi JUSTICE MAGAZINE 41

Feature Syria

Nick Harrop reports from Lebanon where Caritas staff have been working to assist thousands of refugees who have left Syria during the current conflict.

A day in the life of a Lebanese aid worker “We watch the news to find out what our caseload will be,” says Maria Abou Diwan with a weary smile. “When there has been a lot of bombing in Syria, we know we will be busy.”

Maria – a 30-year-old former nurse – manages the Caritas centre in Taalabeyah, a small town near the Syrian border in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. On an average day, between 50 and 100 families arrive at the centre, most having crossed from Syria with little but the clothes they are wearing.

With support from CAFOD and other Catholic aid agencies around the world, Maria and her small team make sure that the refugees have food, medical care, clothes, blankets and mattresses.

Today, as families start to gather outside, Maria is businesslike and focussed. She listens attentively to what each person has to say, while ensuring that the queue keeps moving, and that the process is efficient.

“We have only five staff and a handful of volunteers,” she says. “We work 12 hours every day, and we are very tired by the evening. But the next day we come back and work again with all our hearts. We are a very good team. Everyone does everything they can to help each other. That is how we keep going.”

On the wall of the reception room are paintings by Syrian children, part of a support programme that helps them to deal with the trauma they are almost inevitably experiencing. They look like any other set of children’s pictures – a mixture of people, 42 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

abstract shapes and colours – but when you examine them closely, you can see what look like houses being bombed, or soldiers pointing guns.

Maria says she is used to hearing horrific stories; she has met children who have seen their parents killed and their homes destroyed, as well as adults who have been tortured, their arms covered in scorch-marks from electric shocks.

“Here in Lebanon, we understand about the psychological effects of war,” she says. “We know what it can do to people. That is why we work so hard to help our neighbours.”

A large part of the work that Maria’s team do is outreach; they locate Syrian refugee families and encourage them to register for support. In the late morning, once the initial surge of new arrivals has been dealt with, she heads for a half-built block of flats on the outskirts of Taalabeyah, where around 120 refugees are thought to be staying.

When we arrive, I find it hard to believe that families are living here; it’s little more than a construction site, with building materials scattered around and exposed metal rods sticking out at every angle. But then I look up and see children on the roof, laughing and rushing around. There’s little to stop them from plunging to the ground below.

If the children are treating their new home like a dangerous adventure playground, the mood among the adults is far more sombre. Sixtyfour-year-old Ahmad is slumped on

a mattress, holding a roll of toilet paper so he can wipe away the tears.

He can’t stop crying as he explains how his home was bombed while he was in it. He and his family had to run through the streets to find safety, hiding from gunmen behind burntout cars.

Since arriving in Lebanon, Ahmad has shared a small, dank room with six other people, including three of his grandchildren. Caritas Lebanon have given the family food, mattresses

PHOTO: Nick Harrop

Caritas has been at the heart of helping Syrian refugees

and blankets, as well as nappies for the youngest child. But Ahmad is struggling to cope with his sudden change of circumstances.

“Life here is very hard,” he says. “We have no furniture. We have no money, so we can’t afford anything. It is humiliating to leave your home at my age. I feel like I have lost my dignity.”

The sheer number of refugees pouring into Lebanon means that there are severe shortages of accommodation – and even when people can find

somewhere to live, the rents are astronomically high. A million people have arrived in this small country since the crisis began, and the rate is increasing every week.

Many of the refugees have little choice but to live in makeshift camps.

In the early afternoon, Maria takes us to a settlement in a dusty clearing by the side of a main road; it’s a higgledy-piggledy collection of shelters, each one crudely constructed from bright plastic sheets or old brown

sacking. As the Caritas van pulls up, people come streaming out, delighted that help has arrived. They form an orderly queue, and Maria and her team begin to distribute packs of food, bedding and clothes.

Two of the most recent newcomers are 11-year-old Gharam and her brother Nafeh. They tell us that their mother was killed just days ago.

“It’s very difficult for us,” says Gharam, with her arm around her brother. “We lost our mum and we JUSTICE MAGAZINE 43

Feature Syria

‘‘

We cry all day. My brother is too upset to sleep after all he has seen

loved her. I can’t live without my mum. I need her. We cry all day. My brother is too upset to sleep after all he has seen. I try to comfort him. I tell him not to be afraid. I tell him that I’ll look after him.”

At the moment, the two children are sharing a tent with their cousin and with three other families. It’s swelteringly hot inside, and it’s hard to imagine how all of them can cope with living here. To make matters worse, Gharam’s cousin insists that he can’t afford to support the children for long – he says will have to go out to work, picking vegetables, in order to pay their way.

Maria notes down their names. She and her team are always on the lookout for unaccompanied children, who are all too often at risk of becoming targets for exploitation or sexual abuse. Caritas runs special shelters

where vulnerable children and women can stay.

With the sun still beating down, we set off for another village, where refugees from Qusair – a town recently re-taken by the Syrian army – have arrived. Conditions here are even worse than in the camp. Six families – about 30 people – are sharing a cowshed with a sewage pipe running through it. The smell is horrendous, and flies are buzzing around the babies’ faces.

“It’s horrible,” says Khatar, a 42year-old mother. “The sewage pipe leaks when it rains. The children are very sick because of the bad hygiene.

But it’s either here or we live on the streets.”

Maria and her team have already been able to provide the family with food and bedding, and basic household goods like soap and nappies for the children. After speaking with Khatar, Maria says she will arrange for a Caritas doctor to visit. And because conditions are so poor, she says that her team will do everything they can to find somewhere better from the families to stay.

“We wouldn’t eat if Caritas wasn’t here,” says Khatar. “We are so grateful. May God help them in their

PHOTO: Nick Harrop

44 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

‘‘

We wouldn’t eat if Caritas wasn’t here. We are so grateful. May God help them in their mission.

PHOTO: Caritas

A child receives a bag from Caritas Lebanon

mission.”

As we drive back towards the centre in Taalabeyah, Maria looks exhausted. I ask her if she ever gets to see her family. “No,” she laughs. But despite everything, she will be in the centre again first thing tomorrow morning, starting all over again. With the help of donations from Catholics around

the world, she and her team are working around the clock to help the refugees. Their determination and their compassion are inspirational, but they are a thin line of aid workers struggling against an overwhelming humanitarian crisis.

Maria says: “I hope the war in Syria will finish soon and all the refugees

will return. Here in Lebanon, we can’t continue to cope with such huge numbers arriving every day. If the situation continues like this, we will need help just as much as the Syrians.”

Nick Harrop works for CAFOD JUSTICE MAGAZINE 45

Exhibition Progressio

WATER A LIMITED RESOURCE

In April this year, Lis Wallace, Progressio’s policy officer on environment, and photographer Fran Afonso visited farming families in Gens de Nantes and Lamine in the north east of Haiti. They learned how Progressio is working with local partner organisation Solidarite Fwontalye to make the most of the limited water resources available to farmers. The people they met repeatedly explained ‘dlo se lavi’ which in Creole means ‘water is life’. Water is important not just for drinking and washing, but also for growing crops so that there is enough food to eat and so farmers can sell their produce and make a living. An exhibition of the photos, including those on the following pages, was subsequently shown at the Department for International Development in London.

46 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

There are 2.6 billion small-scale farmers in the world. Together they produce a third of the world’s food. To do this, farming families, like Jeannie and Lugina’s, 14 and 3, above, need water. Water is the key ingredient that farmers need to grow crops to feed their families and to sell to make a living. Yet, limited and unreliable access to water is the biggest challenge facing all of the small-scale farmers that Progressio works with across the world.

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 47

Exhibition Progressio

The Farmers’ Association meets in Gens de Nantes

Crops grown further away from rivers struggle to survive 48 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

Over the years the amount of water in the rivers has reduced becaue of deforestation, soil degradation and climate change.

For Placide, 69 and Marie-Jocelyn, 57 the result of Progressio’s work is a rich variety of crops, including cocoa, plantains, red peppers, sweet potatoes, peas and potatoes. This is possible because of better water resource management.

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 49

Exhibition Progressio

Progressio’s efforts at people powered d 50 JUSTICE MAGAZINE

development has helped Haitians.

Placide, 69, wants water storage solutions that will meet future water needs.

Oranus, 42, and Christemene, 38, (right) live with their four children.

Their home is a 10-minute walk away from the nearest river. It may not sound far, but that is the distance between thriving and surviving.

JUSTICE MAGAZINE 51

Final thought

Help spread the word by retweeting @justicemagazine

PHOTO: Mazur/catholicnews.org.uk

A Romero Cross containing two relics of the slain Salvadoran archbishop Oscar Romero has been dedicated at Southwark Cathedral in London. An ecumenical service of prayer was conducted by the Archbishop of Southwark Peter Smith. The cross was commissioned by The Archbishop Romero Trust along with the the cathedral and aid agency CAFOD. The relics are a piece of the blood-stained alb Archbishop Romeo was wearing at the time of his death and also his skull-cap. The cross was designed and painted by Salvadoran artist Fernando Llort, who was present at the ceremony along with the Salvadoran Ambassador, HE Werner MatĂ­as Romero, Archbishop Romero's brother, Gaspar, and members of the El Salvador and Spanish-speaking communities.