wfn.org | NCC Guatemala Visit Aims to Reinforce Peace Accords

["Carol Fouke" <carolf@ncccusa.org>]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Contact: NCC/CWS News, 212-870-2252/2227

APRIL 8-12 GUATEMALA VISIT AIMS TO REINFORCE PEACE ACCORDS
National Council of Churches Leads International Ecumenical Delegation

April 4, 2002, NEW YORK -- U.S. and other churches around the world that
actively helped support the Guatemalan peace process in the 1990s are
stepping forward again at the request of Guatemalas churches to help
jumpstart the stalled 1996 peace accords.

Key will be an international ecumenical delegation visit to Guatemala April
8-12.  The delegation is being organized by the (U.S.) National Council of
Churches (NCC) in response to invitations from 1992 Nobel Peace Prize
laureate Rigoberta Menchz Tum and from the Rev. Vitalino Similox, Director
of the Ecumenical Forum of Guatemala, through which both Protestant and
Catholic churches are working for implementation of the peace accords.

The centerpiece of their visit will be a day-long Peace and Reconciliation
Consultation, bringing together between 40-50 leaders of Guatemalas
churches and civil society on April 10 in Guatemala City.  NCC General
Secretary Bob Edgar and Guatemalan Roman Catholic Archbishop Quezada Y
Toriqo are convening this meeting.  Co-convenors are the Latin American
Council of Churches (CLAI) and the World Council of Churches (WCC).

The NCC-led delegations mission is to support Guatemalas churches in their
efforts to reactivate implementation of peace accords signed in 1996 by the
government and rebels after more than 35 years of armed conflict.  More than
200,000 people were killed or disappeared and presumed dead.  Most of
these casualties were attributed to the government and its paramilitary
allies.

I feel quite positive that we are going to Guatemala at the right moment
and with the right people, Dr. Edgar said.  The peace agreements are
paralyzed, indigenous peoples continue to be marginalized, the government is
riddled with corruption and scandal, and the people responsible for the
killings and disappearances have not been called to accountability.

Guatemalas churches remain united, working in a deeply divided society,
Dr. Edgar said.  They have asked us to help support their ministry, judging
that Guatemalas internal situation is so insecure that international
pressure for peace and justice is needed again.

The NCC, World Council of Churches, Lutheran World Federation and Latin
American Council of Churches (CLAI) responded to a similar call during the
early to mid-1990s.  They quietly arranged a series of informal encounters
among the Guatemalan Army, guerrillas, indigenous peoples and civil society.

These encounters - held in Costa Rica; Washington, D.C.; Guatemala, and
Oslo, Norway -- helped build understanding among the parties and commitment
to the peace process, thus undergirding the United Nations work, said the
Rev. Oscar Bolioli, NCC Associate General Secretary for International
Affairs, who is staffing the April 8-12 trip.  And they helped integrate
Indians into the discussion.

A one-day consultation cant resolve Guatemalas deep problems, Bolioli
emphasized, but it can regenerate commitment to the peace accords and
identify next steps.

Participants in the April 10 consultation will represent a wide range of
societal sectors, including human rights, indigenous peoples, women,
peasants, trade unions, universities, research institutions, media,
business, the courts, the electoral tribunal, several government ministries
and main political parties.  Two members of the joint government-guerrilla
commission overseeing implementation of the peace accords will be present.

Church leaders present will span Roman Catholic, Episcopal, Lutheran,
Presbyterian, Methodist, Mennonite and evangelical communities.  Diplomats
from Norway, Sweden, Spain and the United States - all of which encouraged
the signing and implementation of the peace agreements - have been invited.

The NCC-led delegations agenda April 8-12 also includes individual meetings
with leaders of many of the sectors that will be represented in the April 10
consultation.

In addition to Dr. Edgar, a United Methodist, and the Rev. Bolioli, a
Methodist from Uruguay, delegation members include: Methodist Bishop
Federico Pagura from Argentina and a president of the WCC; Episcopal Bishop
Julio Cesar Olguin from the Dominican Republic, president of CLAI; the Rev.
Catherine Gordon, Associate for International Issues in the Presbyterian
Church (U.S.A.) Washington, D.C., office, and Susan Peacock, a United Church
of Christ layperson who directs the Guatemala Program in the Washington
Office on Latin America, Washington, D.C.

The upcoming NCC delegation visit to Guatemala is part of a broader program
to address impunity following massacres and disappearances under
repressive dictatorships of the 1960s and 1970s.  Former NCC President
Melvin Talbert, a United Methodist bishop, led a four-member team to Chile,
Argentina and Uruguay Oct. 27-Nov. 3, 2001, to support churches and others
working for truth and justice in those countries.  That NCC mission followed
up on a visit to the same countries in September 1999.

On another recent mission, the Rev. John L. McCullough, Executive Director
of Church World Service, and three staff colleagues spent Feb. 25-27 in
Guatemala.  They visited CWS partners and spent an evening with the Rev.
Similox and Ecumenical Forum colleagues, who asked support for their efforts
to hold Guatemalas government accountable to the peace accords.  CWS is a
global humanitarian ministry of the NCCs 36 member communions.

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