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ALC NEWS SERVICE
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org

ALC HEADLINES:
CUBA: We must focus on the south, said director of Luther King Center
ARGENTINA: Churches propose dialogue
PERU: Mediation on the part of Bishop Bambaren could put an end to social 
upheaval
BRAZIL: Water: basic element for global democracy
PERU: Compensation for victims, major challenge for Truth Commission

CUBA
We must focus on the south, said director of Luther King Center

By Josi Aurelio Paz
HAVANA, June 2, 2003 (alc). We must turn our gaze back to the South, said 
the Rev. Raul Suarez Ramos, director of the Martin Luther King Jr. Center 
in a message he read at the 62 anniversary of the Cuban Council of Churches 
(CCC) last Wednesday.

The event took place in the Episcopal Cathedral of the Holy Trinity in the 
El Vedado in Havana. Suarez said that when relations broke down between 
Cuba and the United States, after the Revolutionary triumph, Cuban 
Evangelical Churches were no longer connected to the so-called mother 
Churches but began to construct their own reality, strengthening relations 
with Churches in Latin America.

But now the hands on the dial are once against pointing at the North and 
that is dangerous, he said. We must return the hands to the South, where 
we return with lighter suitcases but with the love of brothers and sister 
who are poorer than us, inspiring us to share what we have because this 
helps recover our sense of identity, he said.

He voiced concern about the current factionalism of Cuban Protestantism 
which he called Ecclesiastic and theological neo-liberalism.	According 
to Suarez, it is attacking a true ecumenism and the unity of Christians and 
impelling division in the so-called Historic Churches.

I cannot imagine what would happen to the 53 legally constitute 
Evangelical denominations in Cuba if law was approved tomorrow legalizing 
all of these new groups, many encouraged from abroad, he said.

The breakdown or unity of Churches is not determined by authorities, but 
by the attitude of believers in the face of these new trends, he affirmed.

The Baptist pastor and Cuban legislator, presented a series of aspects that 
he believes could contribute to strengthening ecumenism and called on the 
CCC to strengthen its power of convocation.

He also raised the need for a new meeting with country leaders, in which 
Churches can express their concerns and strengthen the dialogue that began 
in 1991 when President Fidel Castro met with a group of religious leaders.

Such a meeting, he said, would give us the opportunity to present our 
current vision about the Cuban problematic, where the Church is immersed 
and where we can reaffirm, within the new national and Latin American 
context, our identity and our historic Patriotic vocation as Christian 
Cubans.

We must be very clear that the Churches opinion is that of the Kingdom of 
God and His justice, something we must not lose sight of. The Kingdom is 
not limited to any socio-political system, although there could be projects 
marked by signs of the Kingdom, he said.

Suarez recalled that in the 1990s, during the Socialist crisis, when the 
economic GDP declined from 67 percent in 1989 to 34 percent and state 
companies operated with anachronic Soviet technology.

That era, he said, was also a challenge for the Church, and marks the point 
where it began to see its community service vocation in a more serious light.

Now as the country is recovering with the rapid growth of tourism and 
mixed companies we must ask ourselves what type of society we are going to 
have in Cuba and what our immediate future will be under the new neoliberal 
polices. However, we must also mediate on what type of Church we want for 
the future and what type of Church the people want from us, he said.

In this sense the CCC must be a institution that responds to the new needs 
of a more abundant ecumenism, he said.

Three former CCC presidents spoke at the event, together with the Rev. 
Suarez: Orestes Gonzalez, Adolfo Ham and Pablo Odin Marichal. They each 
told how the Council had a definitive impact on their lives and said that 
key moments were the Cuban Evangelical Celebration and the mediation to 
bring back Elian Gonzalez to Cuba.

ARGENTINA
Churches propose dialogue

BUENOS AIRES, June 3, 2003 (alc). Presidents from three Evangelical Church 
federations that make up the National Christian Evangelical Council (CNCE) 
attended the ceremony when the new Argentine President Nestor Kirchner was 
sworn in.

Emilio Monti, president of the Argentine Federation of Evangelical Churches 
(FAIE), Roberto Prieto, president of the Evangelical Pentecostal 
Confederation (FECEP) and Ruben N. Proietti, president of the Christian 
Alliance of Evangelicals Churches Federation of the Argentine Republic, 
gave the president a declaration from the CNCE.

In the document they said that as followers of Jesus Christ they believe 
that the only real foundation for government is the governors capacity to 
respond to the creative aim of God, working for well-being, justice and 
peace for their people.

The concept was developed in a proposal for a National Dialogue for 
Government, signed by the Argentine Working Group on Dialogue that includes 
the mentioned Evangelical organizations, representatives from other 
religious, different Christian organizations and civil and grassroots 
institutions.

The document states citizens expressed their democratic commitment, their 
will to change in peace and their aspiration to renew public life during 
April 27 elections. This committed the new constitutional government and 
all political, economic and social forces in the country in a singular 
fashion.

Within this framework they said a National Dialogue for Government was both 
essential and cannot be postponed in order to respond to peoples demands.

These include eradicating hunger and extreme poverty, guaranteeing the 
inalienable right to food, health and education, transparent and efficient 
government management, improved representation and citizen participation in 
public affairs, generation of productive sources that recover the sense of 
work something that dignified people.

The Argentine Working Group on Dialogue invites all political, economic and 
social sectors to commit themselves to this process of change. We are in 
the face of a new and exceptional opportunity to correct the errors of the 
past, strengthen institutions that protect a rule of law, break the abyss 
between citizens and their representatives and recover the meaning of 
common good.

The document is signed by Caritas Argentina, Department of Laity of the 
Argentine Bishops Conference, Argentina Mutual Israelita Association 
(AMIA), B4nai Brith Argentina, DAIA, Judaica Foundation, Bethel Community, 
Casa de difusisn of Islam.

It is also signed by the Argentine Workers Union, Scouts de Argentina, 
Attorneys Without Borders, the Agrarian Federation, the Judeo-Christian 
Argentine Confraternity, Christian Youth Association. Evangelical Baptist 
Convention, Christian Businessmens Association (ACDE) and other civic 
organizations.

PERU
Mediation on the part of Bishop Bambaren could put an end to social upheaval

By Hugo Livano
LIMA, June 4, 2003 (alc). After 24 days of social upheaval the country 
seems to have returned to relative calm after the bishop of Chimbote and 
former head of the Peruvian Bishops Conference Luis Bambaren was asked to 
mediate a social conflict between the government and public school teachers.

The bishop, who turned 75 last January and has requested retirement from 
the Vatican, had a busy day last Tuesday.

First, he attended a four-hour meeting of the National Accord and 
politicians, religious, members of social sectors and government decided to 
name him mediator in a strike that nearly 400,000 teachers declared last 
May 12.

He then met for more than three hours with leaders from the Sutep teachers 
union.

The conflict, characterized from the outset by turbulent manifestations 
grew worse May 26 when farmers protested blocked highways, protesting the 
privatization of irrigation water and demanding tax breaks.

The privatization of irrigation water forms part of measures agreed by the 
former government in a neoliberal framework recommended by the 
International Monetary Fund. However, the current Alejandro Toledo 
government has not yet decided to implement it.

The strike was violent from the beginning. Highways were blocked in dozens 
of places, vehicles and busses were stoned and the physical integrity of 
the passengers, many of whom were stranded for days, was put at risk.

In the face of this situation, compounded when Judiciary employees and 
health care workers also walked of the job. President Toledo declared a 
30-day state of emergency, barring all public meetings and demonstrations. 
The violence peaked later that week when university students defied the 
state of emergency and held a demonstration in the Andean city of Puno. One 
student was killed in the ensuing confrontation.

While other strikes were suspended, teachers refused to go back to work. 
The army took control of the 12 affected departments and re-established 
highway transit.

Last Tuesday, convened by Perus largest union, the CGTP, some 25,000 
workers peacefully marched through the streets of Lima and called on the 
government to lift the state of emergency and demanded a cabinet shuffle.

There were also massive manifestations in other cities, but Msgr. 
Bambarens call on people to demonstrate peacefully, respecting public and 
private property was effective and the marches were peaceful.

Bambaren also convinced teachers to accept a 100 sol a month wage increase 
(US$30) offered by the government under the conditions that a timetable be 
fixed to implement Toledos electoral promise. Toledo promised to double 
teachers salaries by July 2006.

Teachers currently earn around $200 a month.

However, Sutep secretary General suspended talks with Bambaren and 
announced that the strike would continue until the Executive Branch and 
Congress give clear signs that they plan to make good on the promises. If 
so, classes will resume next week and 8 million students will return to the 
classroom.

BRAZIL
Water: basic element for global democracy

PORTO ALEGRE, June 5, 2003 (alc).  Ricardo Petrella, Professor of Economics 
from the Catholic University of New Lovaina, Belgium, proposed that 
international democracy be organized based on water, a liquid that is a 
common good, he said.

The 62-year-old professor made the proposal during the inaugural conference 
of the International Symposium Water: universal public good, held in the 
University of Valle del Rmo dos Sinos (UNISINOS) in Sao Leopoldo May 20.

Interviewed by the virtual bulletin IHU En Linea, Petrella explained that 
water is a problem related to life policies, social policies, the policy 
for democracy.

Dominant groups, said Petrella, think that trade is the key field.  These 
groups, he added, think that the World Trade Organization is the expression 
of democracy between states: the body to resolve conflicts is the 
International Criminal Court.

I do not think it is trade, but water, the common good, life, that could 
lead us to organize international democracy, he said.

Just as slavery was declared illegal in the past, poverty should be 
declared illegal in the XXI Century, he said. He emphasized world 
responsibility and solidarity.

The economist emphasized another element, the sacred nature of life. I do 
not think about religion but about sacredness. People should know that 
these things cannot be reduced to merchandize. Life is sacred. Air, 
culture, memory, water, the trees, are sacred, he said.

It is also false to say that when there are costs involved the solution 
lies in a market economy. It is a lie to say that public finances are 
aimed at the poor, he said. Or that the necessary goods in life must be 
obtained with private money.

If we are in a historic process of globalization, this means common global 
goods and services. Otherwise, what globalization are we talking about? The 
globalization of Internet, financial globalization? he asked.

PERU
Compensation for victims, major challenge for Truth Commission

LIMA, June 5, 2003 (alc). During the inauguration of the International 
Seminar From Denial to Recognition, the president of the Truth and 
Reconciliation Commission (TRC) Salomsn Lerner Febres, affirmed that the 
major challenge of this type of commission is to persuade society and the 
state to provide the victims with material and symbolic compensation.

Premier Luis Solari inaugurated the event, which took place June 4-6 in the 
main auditorium of the National Museum. Some 800 people attended, including 
the victims of human rights violations during the anti-subversive struggle 
from 1980 to 2000, the period that the TRC is mandated with investigating.

Solari underlined the importance of the TRCs work, which is to identify 
the places and people with profound wounds that must be staunched.

An initial panel about internal conflicts in democracy included the 
presence of David Scott Palmer of the United States, Mari Fitzduff of 
Ireland, Julio Cotler of Peru and Juan Rial of Uruguay.

The theme was introduced by TRC member Carlos Ivan Degregori who spoke 
about the violence in Peru during the period under investigation.

Palmer analyzed the reasons why armed insurrection arose in Peru. He 
affirmed that democracy is the system with the greatest possibilities of 
responding to the needs of all political groups and opening the way for 
dialogue. However democracy must be cared for and polished and must be for 
everyone.

In the future, he said, we must respond to outbreaks of violence with 
coherent action.

Rial, who participated in a post-referendum process in East Timor, 
summarized violent processes in Argentina, Chile and Uruguay where he said 
that the problem has not yet been resolved. In Uruguay, for example, the 
military never asked for forgiveness and have no intention of doing so.

They justify the human rights violations as being excesses that are always 
committed in war.

Fitzduff, an expert in conflict from the University in Ulster, said these 
situations are always difficult to resolve. They tend to be costly and when 
there are seemingly irreconcilable differences there is little willingness 
to negotiate. However, with effort and understanding it is possible to 
improve the situation.

In order to achieve reconciliation, she said, it is important to consider 
three things: equality between identities, the existence of social 
diversity and the fact that no one should be marginalized. We must learn to 
trust and depend on each other, to realize that we need each other and that 
we can support each other despite the differences.

Sociologist Cotler said that it is necessary to strengthen the state to 
guarantee democracy. In order to achieve this, the active participation of 
society is essential as well as real and serious participation on the part 
of political parties

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