wfn.org | [PCUSANEWS] U.S.-travel boycott is war protest

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Note #7647 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

U.S.-travel boycott is war protest 
03157

U.S.-travel boycott is war protest 

Theologian says no pretext justifies 'bombing a people'

by Alexa Smith

LOUISVILLE - A prominent Latin America theologian is urging Christians to
refuse to travel to the United States during the Bush presidency to protest
the U.S. government's invasion of Iraq.
	
Elsa Tamez, a professor at the Biblical University in San Jose, Costa Rica,
issued a letter on March 14 in which she urges Latin American Christians to
follow her lead and boycott travel to church gatherings and other meetings in
the United States.
	
She is also asking Latin Christians to work for the disarmament of Western
governments, including those of the United States and Britain, and for the
elimination of weapons of mass destruction in the West.
	
She has cancelled speaking engagements at Harvard University and Notre Dame
University and decided against serving as Bible-study leader for the assembly
of the United Methodist Church in April.
	
Tamez is a frequent speaker at Presbyterian Church (USA) events and has
published articles in denominational journals.
	
"From this small country of Costa Rica -- a nation without an army and in
which 90 percent of the population is against the war, I invite my
colleagues, theologians, church leaders and all Christians of Latin America
to abstain from travel to the United States in protest against the war,"
Tamez says in the English translation of her letter, which is circulating in
the United States, "and to unite themselves in the ... struggle against the
possession of chemical weapons and weapons of mass destruction ... beginning
with those countries of the West, which certainly are in the first place in
this."
	
The letter argues that President Bush's pleas for prayer for the Iraqi people
is  religious hypocrisy. 

"This for honest Christians is a complete inversion of all Christian values
which we see in Jesus Christ, the Prince of Peace, and in God, the fullness
of love and mercy," she says. "How can one bomb a people with weapons of mass
destruction and at the same time, pray for them?"
	
Citing Romans 1:18, she describes the drive to war as an "imprisonment of
truth in injustice," and compares the United States to the Roman Empire.

"We theologians know that the only law of God is grace, mercy and love for
the neighbor," she writes. "The only valid legality is that which puts itself
at service of persons, because the law, impregnated with the Wisdom of God,
was created to serve the human being and not the human being to serve the
law."
	
Tamez says Christians who approve of the war are "deluded."
	
"In light of the facts, there is no pretext that validates bombing a people,
neither the dictator Saddam Hussein, nor any possible resolution of the
United States, nor of the United Nations in favor of war," she says.
	
Maria Arroyo, the PC(USA)'s liaison to Latin America, said many partner
churches in her region are opposing the war and expressing anger at the U.S.
government's intransigence.
	
"More than anything, Elsa is an educator," Arroyo said of Tamez. "And this is
something she felt compelled to do. It is her form of protest."
	
The Presbyterian News Service spoke with Tamez by telephone on March 25 in
Peru, where she is teaching. She said that country has been the site of many
anti-war demonstrations, including one in front of the home of the U.S.
ambassador. 
	
Tamez made a personal pledge not to travel to the United States in the fall
of 2002, when the U.S. government was trying to garner international support
for military action. She said she only recently decided to encourage others
to join her in the protest.
	
"I wanted to express myself as a sign of protest," she said. "I don't know
what else to do."
	
Tamez is best-known in Presbyterian circles as the organizer of the
successful "Million Women Campaign" to help build the Protestant seminary in
San Jose, Costa Rica.  

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