ALC NEWS SERVICE E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org
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CONTENT
VENEZUELA: Evangelicals call on government and courts to uphold justice CUBA: Cuban Council of Churches salutes democratic electoral processes in the region GUATEMALA: Churches call on to take greater action against forced labor and abuses suffered by children BRAZIL: The Black Spiritual is a song of hope in the midst of pain, affirms professor CHILE: Lutheran Bishop reveals declaration on the part of Pinochet justifying torture during dictatorship
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VENEZUELA
Evangelicals call on government and courts to uphold justice
CARACAS, April 7 (ALC). The Evangelical Council of Venezuela (CECV) voiced strong rejection of the murders that recently took place in the country and called on the government and the courts to ensure that justice is carried out in order to stop the wave of crimes.
The religious organization called on security and justice bodies to "take just and effective measures to stop this wave of crimes that is bringing pain and death to Venezuelan homes."
In recent days the country was horrified by the murder of the three Faddoul Diab brothers and their chauffer, murdered February 23 by unknown assailants, the kidnapping and murder of Italian-Venezuelan businessman Filippo Sindoni, as well as the murder of photographer Jorge Aguirre of the Cadena Capriles, last Wednesday.
The Evangelical Council said it is unfortunate that the violence and insecurity have increased each day leading to uncertainty and putting people's physical and emotional and spiritual integrity at risk and bringing grief to many families.
"We raise our voice to our Heavenly Father, to bring comfort, strength, peace and hope to those families. We commit as a Church before God and before the country to provide them with all the help and orientation they may require in these difficult moments and to struggle so that these crimes do not go unpunished," said the CEV.
The Venezuelan Minister of Interior and Justice Jesse Chacon announced the capture of three criminals who had held 17-year-old Bryan, 13-year-old Kevin and 12-year-old Jason Faddoul captive and whose bodies were found April 4 in Yare, the municipality of Simon Bolivar, some 35 kms from Caracas.
He said two more people were at large who had participated in the murdered but said there was significant progress because the weapon used in the crimes had been found. Chacon called on the Supreme Justice Tribunal to accelerate the processes.
For her part Gladis Diab, mother of the three murdered children asked Venezuelans to respect her pain and not use it as a political flag, after voicing gratitude for the personal interest on the part of government authorities.
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CUBA
Cuban Council of Churches salutes democratic electoral processes in the region
HAVANA, April 7 (ALC). The Cuban Council of Churches saluted the democratic processes in the Latin American region and deplored the rejection these processes spark in hegemonic groups "that proclaim democratic values and later do not accept them."
However, it warned that these democratic processes will not be enough unless they are accompanied by economic and social integration that leads to greater development and a better use of resources for the region to benefit the people and cancel the social debt with the majorities.
In the final report from its LXII General Assembly, held in Havana last March 7 - 9 it pointed to elections in Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, Uruguay, Haiti and Bolivia, emphasizing that in Bolivia it is the first time in the history of this nation that Bolivia has elected an indigenous president.
In a statement published April 7, the CIC said that the Bolivariana Alternative for the Amercias (ALBA) which the governments and people of Cuba and Venezuela are promoting in the region and which make social and humanitarian achievements possible in education, health, culture and sports are inscribed in the ecumenical will and solidarity with the poorest.
It questioned the position of the United States that "force governments, behind the backs of their people, to sign free trade agreements that have sown hunger, misery and death in the region."
The religious organization maintained that it is "scandalous" that the world's super power usurps part of Cuban territory in the Guantanamo Base where it maintains a base "where the human rights of a group of people retained without accusation or the possibility for due process are systematically and continuously violated."
It accused the United States of maintaining the threat to carry out wars and invasion like those in Afghanistan and Iraq, under the pretext of a supposed anti-terrorism when "in truth they are wars for the natural resources of the people's of the world."
It also warned about the threats and stigmatism with which the United States opposes the people who demonstrate, with facts that other and alternative paradigms are possible, different from those that they impose.
The Cuban Council of Churches expressed their hope that the Caribbean Conference of Churches and the Latin American Council of Churches sit down at the same table to coordinate common ecumenical platforms in order to achieve "a better Christian and ecumenical testimony and a greater response to the interests of believers, the Churches and our peoples of the region."
Finally, it ratified its commitment to participate in ecumenical bodies in the region as "an aspiration in the construction of a Church that testifies through mission in a Great Homeland, as Bolivar and Marti dreamed, from Rio Bravo to Patagonia."
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GUATEMALA
Churches call on to take greater action against forced labor and abuses suffered by children
By Antonio Otzoy
GUATEMALA, April 6 (ALC). "It is no longer possible for Churches to remain isolated in their parishes, it is necessary that they come out to take care of those who have nothing," said the former regional vice president of World Vision for Latin America, Brazilian Pastor Manfred Grellert, who asked for greater action against the forced labor of children, organ trafficking and child prostitution.
Grellert, one of the panelists in the forum "The New Faces of Evangelism" held April 4 in this city by the Christian organization World Vision, affirmed that the reality faced by children in Latin America is very serious but that Churches have the infrastructure and human resources to support these children.
He said it was important to save them as children and keep them safe as young people because the Churches lose youth due to a lack of adequate attention.
According to Brazilian Pastor Valdir Steuernagel, former president of the Latin American Theological Fraternity, the Church should address problems of family, social and cultural life in an integral manner.
"It is curious that Churches grow so much and we Christians number many in Latin American but violence does not diminish," he said.
He said that Churches have become center of exclusion. "It is necessary to respect diversity and integration between men and women to mark the difference and to abandon the cultural patterns of violence and death," he said.
Colombian Pastor Harold Segura, responsible for Church relations from World Vision for Latin America, said that theological discussion and the way of being Church cannot remain on the sidelines of the realities of violence, injustice and misery.
It is not possible to talk about an integral mission, without giving it a face, he said. In the case of Guatemala, he cited the alarming statistics that register 97,913 people with HIV/Aids.
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BRAZIL
The Black Spiritual is a song of hope in the midst of pain, affirms professor
SAO LEOPOLDO, April 5 (ALC). The music genre known as Black Spiritual represents more than beautiful songs, as it incarnates a lack of fear to sing of hope in the midst of pain, said music professor and theologian Ruth Kratochvil, of the Superior School of Theology (EST).
The Black Spiritual is an expression of the presence of the Creator, said Kratochvil, in the Ethics Encounter of the Humanitas Institute of the Valle del Rio dos Sinos University (UNISINOS), held Monday.
Emerging in the period when black people were enslaved in the United States (1619-1808), the Black Spiritual recovers Biblical stories and individuals who played an important role in the salvation plan, she affirmed, a musical testimony.
The EST professor spoke of the sense of belonging of the slaves, separated from their tribes of origin, a single family, not biological but of faith. "Music offered the possibility that these people overcame the pain of slavery in a space of creativity and integration that mobilized the body, the voice and emotions," she said.
She also underscored the ability of the Black culture to manifest its deepest pain and feelings through music. She recalled how the Black Spiritual mobilized the individual through gestures, movements, interjections, in a true cry of freedom. "It is a way that communities talked about their experience with divinity through music," he said.
The Black Spirituals are characterized by their simplicity, their improvisation, the repetition of phrases and the absence of a composer. As Black people did not dominate English, the compositions were written in a rudimentary form. The backdrop of the melodies was the perspective of an active transformation through songs on the part of American Black people, converted by Protestants.
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CHILE
Lutheran Bishop reveals declaration on the part of Pinochet justifying torture during dictatorship
By Héctor Carrillo
CONCEPCIÓN, April 3 (ALC). Lutheran Bishop Helmut Frenz, president of the Salvador Allende Foundation of Madrid revealed affirmations made by Chilean General Augusto Pinochet during the military dictatorship in a visit to this capital of the VIII Region that concluded Sunday.
Frenz talked about an interview he had with Gen. Pinochet in 1974, one year after the dictatorship began. The bishop attended the meeting as a representative of the Pro Peace Committee; a Christian organization to denounce cases of torture carried out by the Secret Service and heard a "monstrous declaration" from the mouth of the Chilean dictatorship.
"The Chilean people are sick, they have been attacked by the bacillus of communism and in order to cure it, the communists must be tortured, otherwise they do not sing," he said, according to Frenz.
The Lutheran bishop visited Chile at the invitation of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Chile (IELCH), Grassroots Education in Health (EPES), human rights organizations and the school "Piececitos."
On Friday he met with the Students' Federation from the Concepcion University where he spoke about "Divine Rights and Human Rights" before hundreds of students and professors.
He recalled that after the military coup on September 11, 1973, lead by Gen. Pinochet and supported by the US Administration, Christian Churches formed a committee to defend human rights.
He said that the current human rights situations in the world is a disaster but is not lamented enough. He said it is necessary to understand how this situation has arisen in order to plan strategies and possible solutions.
He cited the case of Iraq with thousands of victims among the civil population and the military "where the suffering cannot be addressed in figures and where there is no more talk of respecting human rights."
He said that in the case of torture in the Abu Ghraib jail, US soldiers did not deny it and both the Pentagon and the White House have tried to minimize and justify the events, said the Bishop. The dark power of torture has seduced the United States, concluded Frenz.
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