| BARRANQUILLA,
Colombia — During a six-day visit to the Presbyterian
Church of Colombia (PCC), the Rev. Susan Andrews, moderator of
the Presbyterian Church (USA), made a few promises — and
got the attention of the Colombian media.
Andrews promised that the PC(USA) will:
- Redouble its efforts to stop the millions of dollars in military
aid that the United States is pouring into the controversial
“Plan Colombia,” a massive anti-drug program that
has been broadened in recent years to include anti-terrorism
efforts;
- Advocate for an increase in U.S. developmental aid;
- Join with the United Nations and other non-governmental agencies
in defending the human rights of the Colombian people.
“The polices of the Bush administration are not helping
in terms of human
rights, and we want to support other ways to bring about peace,”
Andrews told reporters during a press conference here.
It was a popular message. In Andrews’ words, “It
seemed to be a surprise, and a welcome perspective.”
Interviews with Andrews were featured in the country’s
major newspapers and on radio. A Barranquilla television station
broadcast a substantive interview about the concerns of the PCC
and PC(USA) with Maria Arroyo, the Worldwide Ministries Division’s
liaison to Colombia, the only member of the moderator’s
delegation who is fluent in Spanish.
The group also included Ervin Bullock, an associate with the
Presbyterian Peacemaking Program;
Lucille Rupe Watt, the executive of Winnebago
Presbytery, which has a partnership with Presbyterians in
the Colombian province of Uraba; and Andrews’ 21-year-old
daughter, Anna, a student at Oberlin College.
During her visit, Andrews spoke with dozens of farmers who have
been driven off their land by violent guerilla forces and paramilitary
groups. Three million or more Colombian farmers are internal refugees.
Andrews visited camps teeming with the displaced along the northern
coast and in Uraba.
Colombians say small farmers have been terrorized by paramilitaries
and government-sanctioned confiscation of their land to be developed
by major investors, including oil and fruit companies —
intensifying a conflict that has killed tens of thousands of Colombians.
In the oil-rich central provinces and in northern banana fields,
paramilitaries are targeting union leaders for assassination.
Human rights organizations say the illegal paramilitaries, who
are blamed for 70 percent of human rights abuses in the country,
are subsidized by the Colombian military. And the military is
subsidized by Plan Colombia.
Presbyterians in Colombia have been urging the PC(USA) to step
up its opposition to the program and to lobby against it in Washington.
The United States imports more oil from Colombia and its neighbors
than from all the Persian Gulf countries combined, according to
the Minneapolis-based Resource Center of the Americas.
Andrews told the Presbyterian News Service that she is
frustrated by the U.S. administration’s continued pursuit
of a failed military policy when Colombians’ basic needs
are not being met. The administration’s current strategy
does not address the root causes of the violence, which include
abusive labor practices and grinding poverty, she said.
“And it is creating a second problem — four million
displaced people who are forced off their land at gunpoint by
guerrillas or a paramilitary groups and who have no place to go,”
she said. “Nor are there enough government resources to
help them relocate.”
When the moderator pressed a representative of the Barranquilla
mayor’s office to say whether humanitarian aid is preferable
to military assistance, he said, “Arms are not going to
resolve this problem — unless (it is decided) to kill all
the poor people.”
Refugees are flooding into Barranquilla, where the PCC’s
synod office is located.
Plan Colombia was launched in 2000 when Congress approved a
request from President Bill Clinton for $1.3 billion in aid to
Colombia’s military as part of the U.S. “war on drugs.”
One element of the plan is the fumigation of coca fields in the
south — an area also rich in oil — another reason
for small farmers to flee.
American military officers have been deployed to train anti-narcotics
units, which critics claim are actually used to fight insurgents.
The Bush administration has renamed Plan Colombia, which is
now known as the Andean Regional Initiative.
“The church we represent is not in agreement on this issue,”
Andrews told reporters. “There are people who support the
Bush administration’s policies, and there are those who
don’t. But we, as a denomination, made a statement that
peacemaking is a believer’s calling.”
She said Christians must struggle to bring alive Biblical texts
such as “Blessed are the peacemakers” and “Love
your enemies,” and to take to heart the admonitions of the
Hebrew prophets to link peace with justice.
Andrews is the first PC(USA) moderator to visit Colombia in
nearly 20 years.
Colombian Presbyterians have committed themselves to caring
for refugees from the violence (see related story, “Home
sweat home”) and taken risky stands on human-rights issues.
It has consistently urged the PC(USA) to pressure the Clinton
and Bush administrations to reconsider the U.S. “war on
drugs.”
Although the CIA estimates that 90 percent of the cocaine and
65 percent of the heroin imported into the United States is from
Colombia, the program’s critics say eliminating drug cultivation
here would not stop the flow of drugs into North America; crops
would simply be grown in other parts of South America to meet
the demand.
The PCC’s executive, the Rev. Milton Mejia, said Andrews’
public statements “signaled to Colombian society that this
church is not alone in its support for human rights and its work
with the poor.”
“Our sister churches are accompanying us in what we are
doing,” said Mejia. “I think Susan was clear.”
Mejia has first-hand knowledge of the risks of prophetic work.
His life was threatened repeatedly by paramilitary groups last
year. The man accused of making the threats is still at large.
He had been jailed and was awaiting trial when he somehow obtained
a day pass and left.
Andrews said she will tell the Colombian church’s story
during her remaining six months as moderator.
“I believe the PCC is a model for how to be a holistic
church that has a passionate evangelical fervor for the gospel,
a living and faithful personal relationship with Jesus Christ,
a vibrant and intimate community life, and a clear, focused mission
that will not only help the poor in concrete ways, but public
advocacy for healthy political reform and systemic change,”
she said.
Citing the church’s youthful leadership (Mejia is 37)
and its approach to mission, Andrews said she admired its clear
focus. “You know who you are and who God has called you
to be in Colombia, doing the work of Jesus in your context,”
she told PCC officials. “(That focus) runs through everything
that you do: evangelism and justice, stewardship and education,
pastoral ministry.
“You are putting it all together.”
The 1998 General Assembly called on the Colombian government
to curtail the violence and investigate human-rights abuses. The
2001 Assembly directed the stated clerk of the PC(USA) to write
letters to Congress and President Bush to urge them to act against
human-rights abuses in Colombia. |
