Note #9258 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:
06227 April 20, 2006
Pastrana cancels Sterling College speech
Students had raised questions about Colombia's human-rights record
by Alexa Smith
LOUISVILLE - The Colombian ambassador to the United States has cancelled plans to deliver the commencement address at a Presbyterian-related college in Kansas, according to a spokeswoman for the institution.
Former Colombian President Andres Pastrana, now the country's ambassador to Washington, was scheduled to speak at the May 13 commencement at the invitation of the Sterling President Bruce Douglas.
But some students raised questions about the choice, citing Pastrana's human-rights record as president and the policies of current Colombian President Alvaro Uribe Velez, who is running for re-election on May 28.
Because of repeated death threats against clergy and other church leaders in the Presbyterian Church of Colombia (PCC), the Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.) keeps teams of volunteers inside the denomination to deter violence against the church's human-rights outreach and that of its ecumenical partners.
The Student Government Association (SGA) scheduled a public forum early this week to debate the issues, but Pastrana cancelled before the assembly convened.
At least one PC(USA) accompanier had contacted the SGA.
"Ambassador Pastrana cancelled. He said that ... he had other things come up that had to be taken care of," said Melanie Lightner, Sterling's communications director, adding that she understood Pastrana is traveling now in South America.
"So, we're looking for another commencement speaker."
Lightner said the ambassador knew about the students' concerns.
Juan Carols Iragorri, director of the press office of the Colombian Embassy to the United States in Washington, DC, said Pastrana cancelled his May commitment just before leaving for meetings in Ecuador and Colombia. Iragorri said the ambassador was honored by the invitation.
Karen Lederle, the SGA president, said the Colombia matter is moot since the ambassador cancelled. She said she doubted that the pending student forum had much impact on the decision.
Pastrana may speak at the college sometime in the fall, she said.
The PCC has maintained that it works only through democratic and peaceful methods.
The PCC helps poor farmers who have been forcibly displaced from their land in Colombia's armed conflict, where even the military has been accused of abetting the assassinations of leftists by right-wing paramilitaries intent on squelching the hemisphere's best-established guerrilla conflict.
Three illegal armed groups - guerrilla and paramilitary - repeatedly violate international humanitarian law by committing kidnappings and other atrocities.
Among the dead or kidnapped are journalists, union organizers, human-rights workers and Protestant and Roman Catholic church leaders.
Critics of the Uribe administration say that while curbing civil liberties has reduced some crime and guerrilla activity, the administration is neglecting grave social and rural development problems that abet violence.
Approximately 80 students are scheduled to graduate from Sterling College, which was founded in 1958.
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