wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] Colombian nun holds onto Advent hope

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Note #8581 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

04533
December 6, 2004

Colombian nun holds onto Advent hope

Government detains another church worker

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - Every morning at five o'clock, Sister Crisanta Corvero prays.
	She isn't alone. Three other nuns in her order, the Congregation of
the Sisters of the Sacred Heart, are with her. For one and a half hours every
morning they gather in the hospital chapel near the partitioned section of
the building where the women live.
	There is much to pray about.
	About eight hospitals have closed along Colombia's northern coast -
out of money and out of resources.
	Twenty days ago, the EKG-machine at the maternity hospital that she
administers in Barranquilla was stolen. The hospital is running low on baby
monitors and blood pressure gages. There is no working ultrasound machine.
	"We have quite a Christmas list," she says in a telephone interview,
a flat tone in her voice.
	The hospital work is just her day job. After 5 p.m., she volunteers
as a human rights worker in Barranquilla, helping a few of Colombia's
millions of displaced families reorganize their lives in shantytowns on the
edges of this steamy Caribbean city. For months, she visited 24-year-old
Mauricio Avilez in prison nearly every day.
	Though daily visits stretch the rules Sister Crisanta showed up in
her all-white habit, knocked at the iron gate, and usually they let her in.
	When the Colombian government freed him after 130 days because there
was insufficient evidence to keep him jailed, Avilez went immediately into
hiding to escape the armed factions that want him dead. Sister Crisanta
hasn't seen him since.
	On Nov. 29, she heard that another co-worker, Guillermo Larios - who,
like Avilez, worked for a church-related human rights organization called
CEDERHNOS - was detained in Bogota, reportedly on allegations similar to
those lodged against Avilez by a paid informant.
	The charges amount to sedition, rebellion and terrorism.
	What Avilez did for CEDERHNOS was help displaced people file for
meager government assistance and document the human rights abuses that forced
them off their land - either by guerrillas, paramilitaries or factions within
the Colombian army itself. Larios, 37, was more of an educator.
	Both Larios and Avilez, in fact, were named in the same warrant last
spring. But Larios disappeared after Avilez was picked up by an elite arm of
the Colombian military.
	Just weeks before Christmas, Sister Crisanta is a little blue. "It's
hard. It's sad to see what is happening here. It should be a time for
community, for peace, friendship ... a time of hope. But, instead, the people
of Colombia have murder. Imprisonment. People going into hiding. People
fleeing.
	"People say, 'This is not like Christmas of the past.' And they are
not sure what it will be like. With no jobs, no money, Parents will still try
to find toys for their kids, to make them happy. But for adults, toys won't
work. It's just sad," she says.
	But will Sister Crisanta - 32 years a nun - continue to get up every
morning and pray, waiting through Advent for Christ to be born again?
	"Si," she says. "Claro." Which means, "Yes, of course."
ACROSS TOWN, Milton Mejia is telling the two Presbyterian Church (USA)
accompaniers - who've been in Barranquilla for only a week - to stick close.
John Ewers, 69, of Dayton, OH, and Kelly Wesselink, 23, of Tucson, AZ, are
here to furnish protection of sorts - to perhaps deter violence by being
eyewitnesses  who will report whatever happens to the international church
and major human rights organizations.
	"I've talked with John and with Kelly and asked them to be on top of
this, to be here in the office. We need to take care of ourselves," says
Mejia, who is the executive secretary of the Presbyterian Church of Colombia,
which is headquartered in Barranquilla, and whose campus was home to
CEDERHNOS, whose leaders are being rounded up and detained by the
authorities.
	He's no stranger to threats from anonymous voices on the telephone.
The threats are frequent: extortion, harassment, orders to stop his ministry
to the displaced or he or his wife or his kids or all of them will be killed.
	But Larios' arrest is a blow.
	In about seven days, the government must produce evidence to formally
charge Avilez or drop the investigation - although it may petition for an
extension. It is investigating the bombing of a department store owned by a
prominent politician near the church campus last December. A paid informant
has apparently linked church workers to the explosion.
	Many people believe the odds are looking good for Avilez -  if there
isn't enough evidence to jail him then it is likely there isn't enough to
formally charge him either.
	This is what they've been waiting for, full of Advent-like hope. It
would be vindication, too - proof that church workers aren't breaking the
law, that they are not the guerrillas the government claims, but are working
through legal means to protect human rights.
	Avilez can't possibly come home for Christmas - he's still in hiding.
But he is also still alive. And so far he's evaded the government-supported
paramilitaries who exact their own brand of justice with bullets, even if
cases get dropped.
	His lawyers are pushing to close this one. But then, 27 days before
Christmas  and seven days before Avilez' case seems ready to wrap up, Larios
is detained and another case opens.
	The Human Office of Tomas Concha - which is lodged in the office of
Colombian Vice President Francisco Santos - has committed to several
interviews with the Presbyterian News Service, but no one is available to
speak when PNS calls.
	It seems like a unending cycle, which is exactly what Mejia has
always contended: that the charges are brought to scare and distract the
church, to shut down any ministry that touches on human rights.
	"They just can't keep investigating, keep bothering us," says Mejia,
who unhappily learned during Avilez' interrogations that the church offices
in Barranquilla are apparently under video surveillance. "All this that is
happening creates fear. We can't relax. There's no mood to celebrate.
	"John and Kelly are here until Dec. 21. And then a youth group
arrives and we will be accompanied by them. We are here," he says. "Pray for
us."
	PRAYER IS something Sister Crisanta understands well in this chaotic
reality.
	During the Avilez family's worst moments, the nuns in Sister
Crisanta's order had Eucharistic prayer with them. When the family departed,
they prayed for peace of mind for each one of them, as they have all reported
harassment - cars with darkened windows gliding by, phone calls.
	When the Avilez' fled their apartment to find new, safer quarters,
the nuns prayed every morning.
	Sister Crisanta isn't exempt from harassment either. Just after
Avilez was released from jail in October, an armed motorcyclist twice pulled
up beside the taxi in which she was riding, only to ride away without firing
a shot.
	Motorcyles are a preferred method of transport for assassins in
Barranquilla. Drivers pull up close and a rider mounted on the back fires
away, riddling cars or street corners with bullets.
	In the face of such constant threats, praying for peace of mind
works, Sister Crisanta says. "Yes, yes, it does," she says matter-of-factly.
"You can experience the presence of God."
	It also helps her remember that she's called to give her life to
others. It is when she visits the shantytowns that she sees the face of God
most clearly. It happens when she looks into the faces of Colombia's poorest.
She finds peace of mind there. "Its in the work I find joy. My work is my
lifeline," she says.
	That doesn't mean she isn't scared at times.
	"I feel fear," she says - the kind that makes the hair on the back of
her neck rise, her hands go cold and her stomach churn. "This situation
brings a lot of questions. Why is this happening? Why do we have to go
through this? Why is it happening to us? Why do the Colombian people go
through this ...
	"Why not exist in friendship and peace?"
	She can't figure it out. So, she settles for these smaller glimpses
of God: the poorest who somehow maintain hope in God when it no longer makes
sense to do so. What her loving ministry gives to these most vulnerable
people, she hopes, is that they, in turn, can sometimes see the physical
presence of God in her and in her colleagues.
	The Congregation of the Sisters of the Sacred Heart was founded Dec.
28, 1804, in Spain. Now as then, its mission amidst war is to help the
wounded, visit the prisons and feed the hungry.
	Sister Crisanta, 50-ish with a round face, walks briskly and laughs
easily and loudly.
	But her mind is practical: Avilez is gone for now, she knows, because
he needs to stay safe. Human rights work gets done because it needs to be.
	She misses seeing Avilez, at the office and on the street. She first
met him five years ago when she was working with youth.
 "Its sad that he's had to leave," she says, referring to his need to hide
now and eventually to leave the country to assure his safety. "Its sad that
he is not able to pick up his work again. But he needs to be away to protect
his life. It is sad that he is not with us at this point.
	"But, I hope that something will occur in the future and that we will
work together again. In the meantime, we will keep the work going."
	So she keeps at it.
	"You just have to keep going," she says.

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