wfn.org | Human Rights Work More Important Than Threats,

[PCUSA_NEWS@ecunet.org]

20-Dec-95

95458     Human Rights Work More Important Than Threats, 
                    Guatemalan Christians Say 
 
                          by Alexa Smith 
 
GUATEMALA CITY, Guatemala--The nurse's station where Ester Martinez works 
keeps getting telephone calls wanting to know what time her shift ends. 
The male caller claims to be her husband. But Ester Martinez doesn't have a 
husband. 
 
      She lives with her parents, Lucio and Josefina Martinez, and her four 
sisters in rural Chimaltenango.  Her father, a Presbyterian minister, has 
spent the past four months living with death threats. Martinez has been 
threatened with death because of his strong support for human rights and 
his refusal to keep quiet about last June's brutal murder of his friend, 
the Rev. Manuel Saquic, another human rights worker. 
 
     "I have talked to them about the situation, to prepare them in case 
anything happens to me or to Josefina. ... They should have life," said 
Martinez.  His daughters are losing sleep, getting headaches and becoming 
accustomed to living with their nerves on edge, he added.  "They know very 
well we aren't doing anything harmful.  The work we do in the communities 
is very important. 
 
     "But it wasn't easy to talk about these things.  We all cried, 
embraced each other," he said, his eyes filling up with tears.  
 
     Those conversations never get easier.  They are frightfully common in 
Guatemala's Christian community -- where the stress in families targeted 
for harassment is almost unrelenting. Because in Guatemala, those who work 
to improve the lives of the poor get killed.  
 
     A Presbyterian minister on Guatemala's south coast told the 
Presbyterian News Service that he is able to visit his wife and children 
only once about every two weeks since his life was threatened.  The 
absences -- and the stress -- are hard on them all, especially the 
children. 
 
     "They've seen ... they know neighbors have been killed.  They've seen 
bodies after they've been discovered," he said.   Often those bodies are 
horribly mutilated.  He says he cautions his wife to keep their four 
children close to the house, instead of letting them run and play.  Fear 
that one of the children might be kidnapped is the worst, he says. 
 
     Presbyterian elder Rodrigo Batz is unable to live at home either.  He 
also worries that his children will have psychological problems because of 
prolonged tension and violence.  The children have stopped playing with 
firecrackers, he says, because they sound too much like gunshots -- and 
gunshots mean someone else has been killed. 
 
     Batz has publicly denounced threats against human rights workers' 
lives and knows at least 10 assassinations have been carried out in his own 
neighborhood.  None of them has been investigated by the authorities.  "It 
would be easier to be doing nothing," he said.  "But there is lots to be 
done.  So, from here we continue." 
 
     The stress either draws families closer than ever or pulls them apart. 
 
     "There are moments when we are more concerned than others ... and then 
I just spend more time with my family," said David Son of the Conference of 
Evangelical Churches of Guatemala (CIEDEC) in Guatemala City.  Those 
moments come when CIEDEC denounces another human rights abuse.  "In my 
case, my family is convinced this work has risk, but it is worth doing." 
 
     Maria Francisca Ventura de Saquic was not always so sure.  She says 
there were many nights she wished her husband was not the one doing such 
worthwhile human rights work.  And, since his murder, she and her six 
children have been living in hiding, away from home and away from the 
children's schools and friends. 
 
     She is not sure how she will support her brood or pay for education 
for her oldest two girls, ages 17 and 15.  She sews bed covers and dresses 
to try to make ends meet.  "Constant prayer has always been what sustained 
me,"  she says to explain how she keeps going. "I must keep in mind the 
welfare of my children." 
 
     Guatemala's pastors have to keep in mind the welfare of a church with 
way too many orphans and widows in a world prone to ever escalating 
violence. Some congregations use prayer rituals as a response to threats of 
more violence. 
 
     In his Pentecostal tradition, Son says, a pastor will gather for 
prayer a family facing a death threat, often accompanied by other elders in 
the church.  "At times," he says, "in church itself ... we'll call a person 
to the altar and the elders will pray for protection."   The solemnity of 
those moments stands in stark contrast to the clapping, singing and joyous 
prayers typical of Pentecostal worship. 
 
     In Reformed circles, the constant pressure of threats and intimidation 
has brought about an understanding that life itself is nothing less than 
miraculous, says Presbyterian Elder Andreas Lopez. He has been kidnapped 
twice but is still alive.  "We thank God for our lives ... and we pray God 
gives us the strength to continue," he said.  "We're like the salt you 
place on food.  We're a few.  But we're the voices God speaks to the 
world."  
 
     "There are people who want to hate," Lopez continued.  "I hear orphans 
say, 'I wish I were older. Then I would do something.' Or, 'If I have the 
chance, I'll kill a soldier.'  But that's not the way to correct the world. 
Violence only generates more violence.  It's better to pardon, when there 
is a confession of sin," he Lopez said.  " ... We don't want vengeance; we 
do want justice." 
 
     Batz says if church members start nursing hatred -- which would be 
easy to do -- the risks would be greater than the risks taken now for 
justice.  "We would end up just like them," he said, meaning those who do 
violence and those who help it along for a little bit of money. "What is 
happening is being done by people just the same as we are.  Just people ... 
 
     "Because they are ignorant or want a little bit of money.  But they 
are the ones paying the bigger price," Batz said, referring to people 
working as lookouts or informers.  "They are not the real ones responsible, 
not the ones who plan the acts.  Behind them are the real guilty ones. 
 
     "So we are always waiting for justice." 
 
     In the meantime, Josefina Martinez says some of her neighbors -- who 
know nothing about the death threats -- wonder why national police officers 
stay close to Lucio.  As active as her husband in church and community 
work, Josefina says the threats have, strangely enough, made the couple 
"love each other more." 
 
     Her husband responds:  "We are together in the work.  Because of the 
difficulties, we've had to be together ... When we're together, we take 
care of each other. 
 
     "The fact is, we have our work to do." 

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  Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.), Louisville, KY 40202
  phone 502-569-5504            fax 502-569-8073  
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