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Note #7664 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

Helpmates
03186
April 8, 2003

Helpmates

Presbyterian disaster-aid providers join hands across the border

by John Filiatreau

TORONTO - It wasn't quite a natural disaster, but motorists sidelined by a
freak April snow-and-ice storm here were nonetheless pleased to have the
timely help of Presbyterian Disaster Assistance and its Canadian counterpart,
Presbyterian World Service & Development.
	
The Presbyterian aid workers, many of them veterans of war, famine, flood and
whirlwind in remote locations around the globe, unhesitatingly piled out of
their own cars and vans to help shove stranded vehicles out of snowbanks and
send them on their way.
	
None stopped to ask the frustrated drivers - who sat peeking over their
surgical masks, spinning their wheels, muttering darkly, "Doggone it, eh?" -
whether they were Presbyterians, or even Christians.
	
They just did what they always do: started by invoking the almighty ("Good
Lord!"); provided expert help ("Heave-HO!"); and ended with a prayer ("Thank
God!").
	
Although the weather was bitter and the agenda of the April 3-5 joint meeting
included many matters of a sorrowful nature - warfare in Iraq, starvation in
Malawi, homelessness in El Salvador - the gathering was characterized by
warmth, optimism, good humor and mutual support.
	
The first full day was devoted to a presentation by Mary B. Anderson, a
veteran international-aid worker and consultant who in her controversial 1999
book, Do No Harm: How Aid Can Support Peace - or War, contends that
humanitarian aid can inadvertently worsen the suffering it is intended to
relieve.
	
Anderson, whose clients include the World Bank, USAID and the UN High
Commission for Refugees, said her research began with the question: "How is
it that so much good work is being done in so many parts of the world by so
many good people - to so little effect?"
	
Anderson's key premise is that, in a war zone, humanitarian aid - whether it
is short-term disaster assistance or longer-term development support - always
"becomes part of the conflict" and affects all the contending parties.
	
Even "good, solid, professional humanitarian work," motivated by a genuine
desire to make peace, often worsens the violence, she said.
	
Anderson, an economist who is president of Collaborative for Development
Action Inc., of Cambridge, MA, said its analysis of "15 case studies in 14
conflict zones" indicated that humanitarian aid, depending on how it is
managed, can create "connectors" between groups and contribute to peace, or
create "dividers" and worsen conflict.
	
One way it can be harmful, she said, is by being "diverted to a military
purpose," becoming part of a "market" that principally benefits the group
with military superiority. Aid can do harm by directly supporting combatants
or by "freeing up other resources" to be used for military purposes.
	
In any case, she said, humanitarian aid cannot be expected to bring peace,
and "is not the answer to the politics of war."
	
While there is a tendency on all sides to divide combatants into "good guys"
and "bad guys," Anderson said, no one in a war situation is blameless: "There
is no pure space."
	
"Since aid can do harm, would it be better not to have it at all?" she asked.

	
She answered her own question: "Not to give aid also does harm. There is a
universal sense that the world is a better place if people can respond across
borders to human need. ... So do it, but do it well. Do it smart."
	
Anderson said her firm is now studying groups in areas of conflict that
"somehow exempt themselves from the war," and hopes to discover what makes
such non-involvement possible. 
	
She urged her audience to think of peacemaking programs in terms of their
effectiveness, rather than merely assuming, as people usually do, that such
programs must be useful because their participants have good intentions. 
	
Anderson identified four "criteria of effectiveness":

* Whether such a program causes people in affected areas to undertake peace
initiatives on their own;
* Whether it creates or renews institutions that hear and address parties'
grievances;
* Whether it promotes or enhances resistance to violence in the general
public;
* Whether it improves security and enhances citizens' sense of security.

	
In a debriefing session after Anderson's departure, PWS&D committee member
Geoff Olsen commented that she had shown that matters of war and peace and
international aid "are much more complex than the rest of the world thinks it
is."
	
Laurie Kraus, a member of the PDA advisory committee and a pastor from South
Florida, lamented that Anderson's subject matter seemed "so far removed from
the people sitting in the pews." What church members want to know, she said,
is "What difference will it make in what we do next week?"
	
Richard Fee, PWS&D's director, said one of his frustrations is that, when he
talks about aid and development issues with Presbyterians, they tend to "feel
that it's about them." He said he often encounters "people who are thinking
that we are the subject of the sentence."
	
PDA committee member Don Brock said Anderson's presentation made him wonder
"how come we aren't seeing any results." He said he'd like to see a shift in
the "balance" between emergency/disaster aid and development, so that PDA
could do more to "help people help themselves." He pointed out that "it's
demeaning to be consistently a beneficiary of aid programs."
	
Marjorie Ross, a member of the Canadian committee, said the Christian call to
provide aid to "everyone who needs it" can "disadvantage" Christian
minorities in some societies.
	
"Muslims help Muslims, Jews help Jews," she said, "but Christians have to
help everybody."
	
Commenting on Mark 14:7 ("The poor you will always have with you"), Fee said
he has always thought the next phrase in the scripture was supposed to be
"... so what are you going to do about it?"
	
"Some monk in 1452 edited it out," he said, adding: "Sometimes it's fun to
read the Bible through development eyes."
	
In separate sessions, PDA:

* Heard a report on a program in which $750,000 in PDA money is being used to
build 210 houses and a school for about 1,000 homeless ("throw-away") people
in Soyopango, El Salvador. 

	
Committee member Tom Burleson said 70 of the 550-square-foot houses, built at
a per-unit cost of $2,800, are finished, and 95 are in various stages of
construction.
	
Burleson mentioned that he'd learned at a critical moment that a fellow
committee member, Jesus Perez, is a chemical engineer with expertise in the
design of sewage-treatment plants like the one that must be provided for the
new development, known as La Panama. He said that is "a perfect example of
how God moves in ways that give us what we need when we need it."
	
Perez said the people of La Panama are taking pride in their homes, "feeling
that they can stand up and continue their life ... and they're also open to
receive the Word of Jesus Christ."
	
"We're ministering to this community in a powerful, powerful way," said PDA
Coordinator Susan Ryan.
 
	
* Voted to provide $115,000 from the PC(USA)'s 9/11 funds to help pay the
legal expenses of about 40 members of a new-church development in an
Indonesian immigrant community in New Hampshire.
	
	
About 110 of the 200 members of Marturia Presbyterian Church in Rochester,
NH, are threatened with deportation because of "special registration"
requirements recently imposed by the federal Homeland Security program and
the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement as part of the U.S. War on
Terrorism. 
	
All Indonesian males in the United States must register by April 25.
	
PDA will help pay the expenses of the 40 members of the church who cannot
afford to pay for legal representation entirely on their own. The Presbytery
of Northern New England and Marturia's pastor, the Rev. Herby Moningka, have
arranged for local attorneys to take on the cases at $5,000 apiece. 
	
Most of the 110 who are "out of status" are in the United States on expired
tourist visas. They contend that, as Christians in a predominantly Muslim
country, they suffered persecution for their religious beliefs in the past
and would be at risk of such persecution again if they returned to their
homeland.
	
Marturia started with 50 members in June 2000 and had 202 when it was
chartered one year later. It now has about 250.
	
"If 112 males of the congregation are deported, with their families, there
will be no one left," the presbytery said in its appeal to PDA.
	
The committee rejected a more general document listing guidelines for
"responding to asylum needs in the wake of 9/11." The measure would have
committed PDA to provide "small grants to presbyteries or sessions" for legal
representation and "humanitarian support" for PC(USA) members threatened with
detention and deportation.
	
Some members questioned how such matters fit into PDA's "purview." Several
questioned the appropriateness of using 9/11 funds for the purpose. Burleson
said he thought the committee might be "opening Pandora's Box" and setting a
dangerous precedent. 
	
Ryan argued that the proposed deportations are "a direct result of what
happened on 9/11," and that action is necessary to prevent "a whole
congregation evaporating before our eyes." She said providing such support is
"part of living into a new world" in the wake of the terrorist attacks of
Sept. 11, 2001.

	
* Heard reports on PDA- and PWS&D-supported aid programs in El Salvador and
Malawi. 
	
Donald Manda, a representative of the Livingstonia Synod of the Church of
Central Africa Presbytery, said Presbyterian funds had provided potable water
and desperately needed food to thousands of families in drought-ravaged
Malawi. Still, he said, "the number of people who are needy is actually
increasing all the time."
	
Deysi Cheyne, director of a women's-rights program in El Salvador, described
how it is using Presbyterian funds to address a host of social problems
resulting from 60 years of military dictatorship and 12 years of civil war.
She said the program has helped Salvadoran women begin to play a significant
role in civil society.

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