Canadian Mennonite
Volume 11, No. 16
August 20, 2007
Free trade not free for Colombia’s poor:
Christian groups oppose bilateral talks
Bogotá, Colombia
In response to Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper’s visit to Bogotá on July 16, Christian Peacemaker Teams (CPT), Kairos Ecumenical Justice Initiatives and Mennonite Central Committee (MCC)—in collaboration with the Americas Policy Group of the Canadian Coalition for International Cooperation—gave the Canadian press an opportunity to hear alternative versions of the Colombian reality.
At a press conference, organized by these groups, the media heard the concerns of small-scale farmers and miners, indigenous peoples, displaced persons and victims of state crimes.
The journalists, meeting with human rights workers just outside the hotel’s official press suite, zoned in on the free trade issue since Harper had just announced that free trade talks had already started with Colombia.
In a statement released by the Prime Minister’s Office that day, Harper said that Colombian President Alvaro Uribe’s government had “made tremendous progress against the vicious cycle of conflict, violence and under-development that has plagued Colombia for decades. They have persuaded tens of thousands of paramilitaries to lay down their arms and join their countrymen in building a safer and more prosperous country.”
To that end, Harper said, “We believe greater economic integration through trade and investment will help alleviate poverty and create new wealth and employment opportunities for Colombians and Canadians.” Claiming that “Canadian expertise complements Colombian economic strength in such areas as mining, engineering, and oil and gas,” he said, “We anticipate mutually beneficial agreements that will strengthen the partnership between our countries.”
While Uribe has also spoken favourably about free trade’s role in stabilizing the Colombian economy, CPTer and Canadian human rights activist Robin Buyers told the press that poor Colombians do not believe free trade will improve their lives. Rather, they fear that the entry of multinational corporations—particularly into the mining and biofuel sectors—will only increase the displacement of rural people from their lands.
Teofilo Acuña, president of the Federation of Peasant Miners of the South of Bolivar, spoke to journalists about the plight of small-scale miners. Acuña’s concerns include the re-arming of paramilitary groups in the mining region and pressures from multinational mining interests, including Canada’s Bema Corporation, and said, “Until the world understands these realities of Colombia’s rural population, free trade negotiations will not address their interests.”
Lilia Solano, director of Project Justice and Life, an organization that accompanies Colombian victims of state crimes, insisted that human rights issues should take priority over business. “Around the country we have 30,000 that have been detained or disappeared in the last 10 years, three million internally displaced people [and] thousands have been killed,” she said. “So how can someone say, ‘Okay, all this blood is running, but business goes first’?”
Luis Evelis Andrade, the president of Colombia’s national indigenous peoples organization, had planned to address human rights and the demobilization process, among other issues, but was prevented because of time constraints the journalists were operating under.
Jenny Neme from JustaPaz, a Mennonite Church initiative that works on issues of peace, justice and nonviolence in Colombia, distributed written materials highlighting the impact of the conflict on Colombian Protestant churches and the recent theft of sensitive human rights documentation from its office.
However, according to Carol Tyx, who wrote the CPTnet release, “the message from grassroots workers was clear: The Canadian government should value human rights over trade deals and investment.”
Former soldier now follows the ‘Lord of Heaven’
Ho Chi Minh City, Vietnam
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Pastor Hai* is a small, wiry man whose cheerful smile belies a lifetime of struggles. He was a soldier of the Vietnamese government for 14 years, then a policeman for 12. So when he decided to seek the “Lord of Heaven” he had heard about—and leave his life of force and violence (including persecuting Christians) behind—he faced harsh opposition from his former comrades-in-arms. Hai has spent time in prison and suffered painful physical abuse and social pressure.
Because of his long service in the armed forces of the present government of Vietnam, he is entitled to a monthly pension—and a more substantial block or brick house that the government would build without cost to him. But because he chose to follow the Lord, and to become a pastor in a house church that meets without legal permission by the government, he has forfeited these benefits.
Now he is a shepherd for three small house churches. One meets in a small front room of his frame-and-bamboo house, down a winding sandy path off the main road. The other two require weekly bike rides of more than 20 miles, one on Saturday and one on Sunday afternoon, with his wife bouncing along on the back. Their income is based on labour and raising pepper and fruit trees growing on their small plot of land.
But Hai has determined there is greater value in worshipping the Lord, shepherding his flock and sharing his new faith with others, so he has chosen not to give up these blessings for an easier life that could be his.
And he is cheerful. The sign above the altar, seen in every meeting place for worship across Vietnam, expresses his foremost mission now: “Ton Vinh Duc Chua Troi!” (In English: “Praise the Lord of Heaven!”)
* Pseudonym
Mennonite leaders not worried by papal pronouncement
Vatican City/Winnipeg
The Vatican has reaffirmed the primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, calling other churches defective and, in the case of Protestant denominations, not even churches “in the proper sense.”
The statements, which were “ratified and confirmed” by Pope Benedict XVI and published by his order, reiterate some of the most controversial ideas in a 2000 Vatican declaration that was published under Benedict’s authority when he was still Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. The July 10 document purports to correct “erroneous interpretation” and “misunderstanding” of the teachings of the Second Vatican Council with regard to ecumenical dialogue.
“I am not at all surprised that Ratzinger would reiterate what he has promoted for decades as a basic doctrine and understanding of the church. This is neither new nor is it a surprise. It is the ‘same-old, same-old,’” says Mennonite Church Canada general secretary Robert J. Suderman. “This was the normal pre-Vatican II language, and he moved back to that language.”
However, Suderman admits the statement “continues to put ecumenical relationships on uneven ground. We can work together, but not as presumed equals.”
The Vatican’s top official for Christian unity has rejected criticism that the document will hinder dialogue. “Every dialogue presupposes clarity about the different positions,” says Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. “If this declaration now explains the Catholic profile and expresses what, in a Catholic view, unfortunately still divides us, this does not hinder dialogue but promotes it.”
Neither Suderman nor Helmut Harder, who represented Mennonite World Conference at the Mennonite-Catholic Dialogue from 1998-03, are worried that the Roman Catholic Church will shut down its ecumenical agenda.
“Dialogue is only possible if you begin by stating the truth as you see it,” Harder says, reiterating Kasper’s point-of-view. “But then both sides have to be open to the Holy Spirit. What that means for Catholic-Mennonite dialogue is that we need to bring forward our best understanding of…how…we understand the church as one, as holy, as universal, as having apostolic authority.
“Let’s converse, debate and pray among ourselves and with all who claim to be Christians in a context of openness to the Holy Spirit,” Harder recommends.