wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] For threatened Colombian pastors and families,

[PCUSA NEWS <PCUSA.NEWS@ECUNET.ORG>]

Note #8890 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

05467
Sept. 8, 2005

'It is very difficult to live afraid'

For threatened Colombian families, survival is often a moving experience

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - Because clandestine armed groups want to kill him, the Rev.
Jesus Goez keeps a low profile.

	Six months ago, when he got word of a new death threat, he packed up
his family and moved - to a different city, a different parish. Ever mindful
of informants, he keeps mum about why he's there.

	His wife and their kids, aged 18, 16, 14 and 7, are similarly
close-mouthed.

	A year ago, his 17-year-old son told the Presbyterian News Service:
"You can get betrayed, so we talk just with each other. That's how we protect
each other."

	It's a poor life: Approaching corners warily, afraid that someone
might be lurking. Listening for quickened footsteps. Keeping watch for cars
with darkened windows.

	And this is the second time Goez's family has had to go through it.

	The first forced move was in 1999, when paramilitary soldiers pursued
Goez in the mountains along Colombia's north coast after killing 12 men in a
town called Saiza, where Goez worked as a minister.Goez prevented a worse
massacre by shouting for 70 men in front of a firing squad to run. Because
they scattered, 58 survived. With the rest of Saiza's 3,000-plus residents,
they were displaced to crowded camps along the coast.

	Goez devoted himself to a new ministry, in Cartagena among some of
the 3 million Colombians pushed off their land by right-wing paramilitaries,
leftist guerrillas, the Colombian army, which has links to factions with some
paramilitaries.

	The camps for the displaced are regarded by the paramilitaries as
breeding grounds for guerrillas and human-rights activists - and by the
guerrillas as fodder for paramilitary recruiters.

	Goez's work ended in mid-March when unidentified armed men kidnapped
one of his teenage sons and tortured him, then sent him home with a message
for his dad: "Your coffin is ready."

	That meant it was time to pull up stakes again, to keep his family
safe and to protect the church that sheltered him when he was in danger. 

	He recently told Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) missionary Alice
Winters that he looks at the threats as an endorsement of his five years of
church work in Cartagena.

	He tries, with mixed success, to make sense of his perilous life.

	"Last year," he says, "my oldest son asked, 'Dad, if we are
Christians and you are here doing this job, why do we suffer? Why do we
suffer, if we believe in a God who wants the very best for us?"

	Goez took time coming up with an answer to comfort the boy, and
himself. He concluded, finally, that trauma is not what God wants for his
family. He notes that even Jesus Christ wasn't spared suffering in a world
obsessed with death - yet He found new life.
	
	"When a person is threatened, as in my case, he is as good as dead,"
Goez says. "So today I live my days with a great deal of expectation and joy,
just to think that I am alive. I think I will enjoy my life up to the very
last moment. ...

	"But we are absolutely convinced in whatever sort of death (we face),
life is going to triumph. That's a certainty that we Christians in Colombia
have. For that reason, we are sure that, in the end, we will achieve blessing
and peace of all on earth."

	After a pause, he admits, "It is not easy to believe that."

	In the past five years, the Rev. Milton Mejia, executive secretary of
the Presbyterian Church in Colombia, has helped five pastors move because of
death threats. "It is very difficult to live afraid," says Mejia, who has
been threatened several times himself.

	Relocation is the only strategy the church has. So far, no one who
has been moved has been murdered.

	Goez is the first pastor targeted in two different places.

	Most of those who are threatened try to relocate and lay low, waiting
for the heat to die down. If possible, they get trauma counseling, or
pastoral care from trusted colleagues.

	Mejia can only guess who is terrorizing Goez. Most human rights
activists and church leaders in the region where Goez worked say the threats
appear to be from paramilitaries intent on cleansing the area of undesirable
political ideologies.

	The church Goez left in Cartagena is continuing its work with people
in the displaced camps, but not on the same scale. That may be the goal: to
scare off the leader and shut down the ministry.

	Threats and intimidation are also used against Roman Catholic priests
involved in human rights work. Three priests were assassinated just last
week.
 
	The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops says about 40 priests have
been killed in Colombia in the past 20 years.

	"When a priest or pastor is threatened, it creates frustration,
depression, pain, anxiety. There's sadness, because you've affected your
loved ones, and your family may have to be separated," says Father Raphael
Castillo, a priest who works in Cartagena.

	"It is such a violent environment, all over the country," he says.
"...When you work in such an abnormal situation, you have to have spiritual
resources to draw upon. You have to rely on God. You have to be confident in
God."

	Colombian dioceses seldom keep a priest in a volatile area longer
than three years. Protestant pastors typically stay in one place longer.

	If threats are made, Castillo says, the diocese may remove the priest
or reassign others to "create a presence with him." It often tries to contact
the violent groups to clarify the priest's mission and engage in pastoral
dialogue, if that is possible.

	Protestants take a similar line. 

	"We accompany him, make sure he's safe," says Mejia. "This is
happening in the whole country. Threatening, following people. It happens to
everyone who works with displaced people or in human rights. ... Many are
detained. Many are threatened. These are people that we know."

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