wfn.org | NCCCUSA Visit Reopens "Disappeared" Debate

[CAROL_FOUKE.parti@ecunet.org (CAROL FOUKE)]

National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA
Email: news@ncccusa.org  Web: www.ncccusa.org

Contact: NCC News, 212-870-2227

114NCC10/18/99
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

NCC VISIT TO CHILE, URUGUAY AND ARGENTINA REOPENS "DISAPPEARED" 
DEBATE

 Oct. 18, 1999, NEW YORK CITY ---- Three weeks after a (U.S.) 
National Council of Churches (NCC) delegation visited Argentina, 
Chile and Uruguay to support families of the "disappeared," the 
public debate has been reopened in those countries.

 "Our presence helped to reinvigorate the public debate on 
the question of the disappeared," said the Rev. Oscar Bolioli, 
Director of the NCC's Latin America and the Caribbean Office and 
a delegation member.  "The press, especially in Uruguay and 
Chile, were a good instrument for that."

 Four NCC representatives, including Rev. Bolioli and NCC 
General Secretary the Rev. Dr. Joan Brown Campbell, were 
accompanied by the President of the Latin American Council of 
Churches, Dr. Walter Altmann, on a Sept. 22-29 trip explicitly 
designed to encourage the political will to resolve the 
`disappeared' issue.  Yet "it is not a political issue for us, 
but an ethical issue.  Family members need knowledge of what 
happened to grieve properly.  They also desire acknowledgment 
that their "disappeared" were not criminals just because they had 
different ideas.

Presidential elections will take place in all three 
countries before year's end, and the group met with leading 
candidates to press the case of the families.  Families want the 
return of the bodies of the disappeared to give them proper 
burial, and in some cases want help finding "disappeared" who are 
still alive today - children who were taken from their imprisoned 
parents and put up for adoption.

 "In fact, the disappeared children who are alive are the 
main issue now," Rev. Bolioli said.  "We met with the 
Grandmothers of Plaza de Mayo.  Most of them are in their 70s and 
80s, and they want to find the grandchildren lost to them before 
they die."

 "Recent reports from Uruguay note that a judge there has 
begun to interrogate some retired military officials who many 
suspect were perpetrators of disappearances," Rev. Bolioli said.  
Following the visit, "there is a lot of renewed energy around the 
issue again, with family members and churches feeling that the 
international community didn't abandon them.  Support from the 
outside is very important since these issues are not popular in 
the power circles."

 Dr. Campbell wrote a letter calling on President Clinton to 
open U.S. government files on the three countries to possibly 
help locate the missing and she spoke with him about her concern 
during his annual breakfast with U.S. clergy on Sept. 28.  So 
far, Dr. Campbell has not received a response but Rev. Bolioli 
said, "We will need to mobilize in Washington, D.C. around this 
issue."

 Although the NCC has pressed the issue for many years, this 
trip was "a catalytic element," Rev. Bolioli said.  "It 
visualized our solidarity with them."

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