November 11, 2005
The Spirit of the Lord is on me, because he has anointed
me to preach good news to the poor.
Luke 4:18
Dear Sisters and Brothers,
In less than one month, Bolivians will go to the polls. Quoting
now from a letter to President Carter from our church's moderator,
Rick Ufford-Chase, who was just in Bolivia last week, "This
is a particularly pivotal moment in Bolivia. The people of Bolivia
(more than seventy percent of whom are indigenous peoples) are
genuinely committed to just and fair elections. If the upcoming
Presidential election is further postponed, cancelled, or corrupted,
we fear that there will be a broad, far-reaching protest across
Bolivia, the results of which will easily be felt here in the
United States as well.
“Further, as I traveled with our partners in Bolivia in
October, I heard widespread fear that U.S. troops that are currently
stationed just across the border in Paraguay might be deployed
by President Bush in the interests of protecting the gas industry
for private, international businesses. If that were to happen,
there is little doubt that there would be quick, intense, and
violent reaction across the country. As you and I both know, it
is always the civilian population that suffers the most in such
moments."
Today I am prouder to be a part of Presbyterian sisters and brothers,
great investors in the mechanisms that move the world forward.
One level of this movement is economic, taking us towards greater
riches.
But I am proud today of our church for understanding the truth
that Jesus himself proclaimed: the Kingdom of God is not only
a place, but the process of getting there. As we look about and
observe the struggles even our very own children face, we are
coming to understand this is unproductive, this which removes
parents and their children (beautiful children) from the home
to spill their blood upon desert sands.
The total sum is negative. Yes, over half are hungry. Yet our
dog food could feed the five thousand. This is bad, bad economics.
Jesus spoke of no other theme as much as he did of economics.
Why am I prouder today?
Because Rick came to Bolivia with a message, which he declared
even on local television, we in the PC(USA) need them—the
Aymara, Guechua, and Guarnai—to evangelize and revitalize
the PC(USA).
These peoples today are being "discovered" again. But
now it is for their manifesting the latest scientific understanding
of our earth. We are part of a living body, a body that breathes
and sighs.
Bolivia has natural gas and petroleum that multinational companies
wish to obtain. These companies will support an invasion to stabilize
the return on our investments. The U.S. troops (our beautiful
sons and daughters) are now camped in Paraguay, just 130 miles
from the Bolivian gas fields. We now realize that what is destabilizing
here, as in the United States, are the moneychangers at the door
of the temple. The mainline political parties here are collapsing,
for they bring not life, but death. They scramble, turning to
the United States for support.
Indigenous presidential candidate Evo Morales's believes that
the United States may invade Bolivia. This possibility has been
raised in articles based on Bolivian and Peruvian military intelligence.
According to Mr. Morales, the plan consists in delaying the Bolivian
elections in order to instigate a wave of popular protests. When
these degenerate into violent confrontations that would justify
intervention by the United States, Chile, Argentina, and Paraguay.
This theory is sourced to a November 2003 report by Stratfor (Strategic
Forecasting Inc, a private “security consulting intelligence
agency”). The alleged invasion plan would involve the entry
of U.S. troops from Paraguay and Chilean troops from the east
between November 2005 and January 2006.
Morales' running mate, respected intellectual and political analyst,
Alvaro Linera Garcia, pointed out the significance of this in
a March 27 interview in the Bolivian newspaper La Jornada,
and cited on the Web site of the Democracy
Center. “The most important political fact in Bolivia
in the last few years is that the indigenous peoples have been
able to vote for other indigenous peoples. This had never happened
before. This represents a symbolic revolution in a society as
racist as that of Bolivia, and where indigenous people, despite
being 62 percent of the population, had not participated in the
structure of political power.”
There is no instability in the crowds crying for a new president
and a new constitution in Bolivia. We need not fear their raising
their voices. On Sunday our moderator was dancing a traditional
Aymara dance, joining hands with 50 people, circling in an ecumenical
service attended by hundreds from many different churches, from
Baptist to Lutheran. Let me tell you, my friends, this is powerful
stuff.
Why needn’t we fear this rowdy crowd? Because it is real
democracy that is being sought. Come on down and see for yourself.
You have a room in our home here in La Paz if you want to come
see this remarkably peaceful and proud process bringing hope to
the world.
As the Reverend Luis Perez, moderator of the Independent Presbyterian
Church of Bolivia has said, commenting on the best seller about
the impact of U.S. aid programs, The Road to Hell, "Most
North Americans have no real idea, until seen with their own eyes,
of the how their well-intentioned investments have paved Latin
America's road to hell."
Please write or call President Bush now and ask him to help these
people by supporting a free election and its results. It could
be the first time in the history of the Incan peoples, who make
up the vast majority of Bolivians—to democratically elect
an Incan as president.
We think it is good news that the candidate now leading the polls
has declared the need for economic re-orientation to bring balance
to the way the abundance of God is shared so that all may have
enough to eat. We are calling it “Natural Capitalism,”
and here it is known as “Andean Capitalism.” Not a
threat. Throughout the world, we are beginning to hear people
want to have a say in how the natural resources of their nations
are bought and sold.
Dear great great grandchildren of the founders of the North American
republic of the United States of America, would you write, call
now to your congresspersons?
We Presbyterians, thanks in great part to the design of governance
we bequeathed to our republic, still have a chance to make democracy
actually work for all.
Tell your congresspersons that you do not support military intervention
in Bolivia because the only part of society which is unstable
is the circle of murmuring Sadducees and Pharisees, who get richer
every day, and the death squad leaders and oil cronies. Bolivia's
ex-president is now in hiding in the United States, having escaped
Bolivia and justice after carrying out a plan that killed over
60 persons here just two years ago, including 7-year-old Marlene
Rojas, who was begging for refills for the family’s empty
propane tank, which is used to cook food.
Bolivia is one of the countries richest in the world in natural
resources, but today there are lines of people blocks long waiting
to buy propane for cooking. They stand from five in the morning
until the evening hours in the wind and cold of the altiplano,
waiting. Why is this happening and what does it have to do with
upcoming elections? The indigenous party wants the people of Bolivia
to have control over the country’s natural resources, after
500 years of being worked to death to bring wealth to a few, mostly
foreign, entrepreneurs. The companies who now control the natural
resources are now holding back gasoline, diesel, and propane to
teach people what will happen if they try to control their own
fuel production.
I now think of the gold that the miners can't afford, miners
working all day in "the hole," kept there by our wealth
and earning scarcely enough pay to buy food for their families.
I think of the silver, the tin, lead, zinc. Sisters and brothers,
we are coming to know these things. We do we choose to ignore
the damages to our extraction-based capital system? You and I
pay big bucks to deal with the damage. U.S. taxpayers are currently
paying $33,000 per day to clean the Alamosa River Canyon of toxic
waste from long-closed mines in Summitville, Colorado.
Bolivia has no toxic waste superfund, and it has 20 Summitvilles.
Dirty gold. That is what Moses called it. But we shall not wash
our hands.
I have felt alone. But now, sisters and brothers, I have received
an embrace on behalf of over two million of you. I have touched
you. I believe more firmly in resurrection.
Ask your congresspersons to work for the return of ex-President
Gonzalo Sanchez de Lozada to Bolivia to stand before his people.
Ask Jimmy Carter to bring international observers to the election
here. Oppose the unfree trade "agreements" in which
the average citizens have absolutely no say.
Support sending Native American leaders from the North to meet
Native American leaders here in Bolivia to declare their solidarity
with the democratic process. Call me at 011-591-2-250-0775 (new
number) or write me about this at Bob
and Julie Dunsmore.
I have wept as I have written you, remembering your embrace.
Crying out from the foot of the cross,
Bob
The 2005 Mission Yearbook for Prayer & Study, p.
60 |
