Colombia Human Rights Tour in November
Last month, SICSAL-USA / EPICA hosted a month-long tour throughout the United States of a Colombian human rights activist, Abilio Pena, who received two death threats over the summer. Abilio works with the Inter-ecclesial Commission for Human Rights accompanying a dozen different struggles of Afro-colombian and indigenous communities for territorial rights. In September, thousands of indigenous people in Cauca mobilized to reclaim their lands, challenging the domination and exclusion they have experienced for generations.
Colombia, like Central America in the 1980s, is the repressive face of U.S. foreign policy in Latin America. What passed for a “war against communism” in the 1980s is called a “war on drugs” or a “war against terrorists” in Colombia. Just as the U.S. supported repressive militaries in Central America, the U.S. is supporting, training and financing one of the most repressive militaries in Colombia, a government and a military intimately linked to paramilitary death squads and drug-trafficking.
SICSAL-USA / EPICA Efforts to Build North – South Solidarity
In addition to his responsibilities with Justicia y Paz in Colombia, Abilio Pena shares the leadership with Nidia Arrobo of Fundacion Pueblo Indio in Ecuador of SICSAL (International Christian Service in Solidarity with the Peoples of Latin America), a solidarity network formed after the assassination of Archbishop Romero in El Salvador in 1980, and one that continues the prophetic legacy of the martyrs and of liberation theology in Latin America.
EPICA serves as the US representative of the SICSAL network, and we are happy to announce the creation of a new website,
www.sicsal-usa.org, that will serve as a tool of communication for building this network in the US over the next two years. We have also archived all the articles from Signs of the Times from the past three years on the website, and will continue to update it each month with news and analysis from social justice struggles in Latin America, the Caribbean and the U.S., as well as provide faith reflections on those struggles and resources for social justice activists and commemorations of the martyrs.
“Tear Down This Wall!” – Solidarity at the Border
As part of Abilio’s tour, SICSAL-USA / EPICA sponsored a bi-national gathering on the U.S.-Mexican border to counter the regressive immigration policies of building walls and raiding work places and to call for just and fraternal relations between our two peoples. We met with human rights organizations, with advocates for the victims of the cruel and brutal assassinations of women in Ciudad Juarez, and with groups offering support and solidarity to immigrants detained on both sides of the border.
On November 2, we joined hundreds of people on both sides of the border for the annual All Souls Mass to commemorate the immigrants who have died in the desert after crossing the border, and to denounce the building of walls and fences as repressive and contrary to the spirit of justice. The chain-link fence divided the people, and the altar, but united people on both sides of the fence in a common solidarity with the immigrants. At one point, as the bishop of El Paso cried, “Tear down this fence!” hundreds of those present responded with the same words from the Mexico side, “Tira esta malla!”
It was impressive, if for no other reason than to see the indignation that people on both sides of the border feel for the unjust and inhumane treatment of immigrants, and the hypocrisy of a system that first deprives the poor of Mexico and Central America of justice through free trade treaties and privatization of land and resources, and second deprives the immigrants of justice by raiding their work places and homes and warehousing them in detention centers for deportation. One of the real concerns is the privatization of federal detention centers for immigrants and the profiteering that results from human suffering. With a capacity for 30,000 beds, private corporations receive $90 a day for each immigrant in detention.
“Close Down the SOA!” – Commemorating the Martyrs
Three weeks later, we traveled with Abilio to a second chain-link fence, the one that surrounds the School of the Americas in Columbus, Georgia, to join 20,000 for the annual protest to close the school that continues to train Latin American militaries and export repression and torture. Abilio spoke of the horrendous human rights violations in Colombia and the link of perpetrators trained at the SOA to massacres committed in Afro-Colombian and indigenous communities, leaving little doubt that the school is a blot on U.S. commitment to human rights.
This year we were privileged to have at the march/protest Fr. Jon Sobrino, SJ, the survivor of the 1989 massacre of his six Jesuit priests and two women co-workers in El Salvador. It was moving to see hear his words reminding us of the great suffering caused to the “crucified peoples” of the world by the structural injustice of the global economy, and to watch as he placed the cross with the name Ignacio Ellacuria, SJ, at the gates of the SOA, a vindication of the truth and denunciation of the school that trained the soldiers who assassinated his brother Jesuits.
So we are grateful, in these difficult times – for your solidarity, and your generous and faithful support! May you have a blessed and joyful season and New Year. Thank you!
Scott Wright
SICSAL-USA / EPICA
