wfn.org | ALC News 15 June 2003

[Worldwide Faith News <wfn@igc.org>]

ALC NEWS SERVICE
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org

ALC HEADLINES:
EL SALVADOR: A sector of Evangelicals support electoral coalition lead by
FMLN
VENEZUELA: Evangelicals call for calm and fulfilment of agreements
BRAZIL: Catholics for Free Choice to launch educational CD
PERU: Assemblies of God confirms participation in CONEP and rejects division
ARGENTINA: Evangelical plan to help flood victims receives strong support

EL SALVADOR
A sector of Evangelicals support electoral coalition lead by FMLN

SAN SALVADOR, June 10, 2003 (alc). An Evangelical religious group decided 
to support a political coalition lead by leftist Frente Farabundo Marti de 
Liberacisn Nacional (FMLN) with an eye on elections slated to take place 
next year in El Salvador.

This group includes the Lutheran Church, the Calvinist Reformed Church and 
sectors of the Baptist Church.

Pastor Ricardo Cornejo, one of the leaders of the Salvadoran Lutheran 
Church, said that the FMLN must be committed to eradicating the roots of 
social violence. We have been convened by civil society to tell candidates 
that they must fulfil their electoral promises. As a Church we must 
accompany them in favour of the country so that the violence is 
eradicated, said Cornejo.

The coalition was announced last Friday by Guillermo Mata, president of the 
Medical Board and pre-candidate for the vice presidency. The group also 
includes representatives from union organizations and retired members of 
the Armed Forces, as well as members of the mentioned religious organization.

The general coordinator of the Front, Salvador Sanchez Ceren, said that 
they would not be intimidated by the voices from outside and will make 
significant changes if they come to power. Mata said that the objective of 
the FMLN is to bring together the hopes of different sectors in one single 
movement.

Another sector that supports the leftwing block is the ANDES June 21 
Teachers Association. Arnoldo Vaquerano, general secretary of this group, 
said that the FMLN initiative seems like a good option because no 
government can operate in an isolated fashion. If the FMLN reaches power, 
he said, it will carry out educational reform that is adapted to the 
reality of the country and not other places.

Col. David Munguma Payis, former congressional candidate, said that there 
would not be any substantial changes in the armed forces but rather in the 
way it is run. There is a need to have more consideration for the armed 
institution. ARENA has turned its back, he said. The rightwing Nationalist 
Republican Alliance (ARENA) won the March 1999 elections and elected 
Francisco Flores president.

William Caceres, responsible for communications from the Association of 
Salvadoran Transport Workers (ATP) said that they have supported the FMLN 
because it has supported a just battle for the rights of his sector.

Sanchez Ceren said that the FMLN is a space to unite different social 
sectors that seek to solve their needs. We have told social sectors that 
they cannot falter regarding peoples needs, he said.

Mata said that this new alliance will allow the grassroots population to 
construct an alternative social process, through a democratic programme in 
the midst of a crisis situation that began nine months ago.

VENEZUELA
Evangelicals call for calm and fulfilment of agreements

CARACAS, June 10, 2003 (alc). The Venezuelan Evangelical Council (CEV) 
warned that the country is living through an intense social storm and 
political operators must understand that it is time to begin to submerge 
ourselves in calm.

In the statement, CEV president Pastor Samuel Olson, added the agreement 
reached between the government and opposition must be upheld. We must leave 
aside violent rhetoric and be must begin to build the peace of this nation.

The statement was published as trouble began to brew due to comments made 
by Venezuelan foreign minister Roy Chaderton regarding a legal project 
about media content.

At the XXXIIII OAS Assembly, Chaderton said that a serious problem in the 
media, not only in Venezuela but also in the western world is the 
discourse that seeks to create a stereotype of our Muslim brothers as 
potential terrorists.

We Christians are not exempt from blame as throughout our history we have 
committed acts that present us as very dangerous people, he said.

The CEV communiqui states that the urgently required national peace 
demands that government be exercised within the cannons of representative 
democracy, which is the system that Venezuelans have chosen as a way of 
social life. For this we manifest our profound rejection of violence, in 
any of its origins and forms.

Political and religious positions should be respected by everyone. The 
State, through its government bodies, should guarantee this, it added.

It then indicated the importance of tolerance and noted that impunity 
should not continue to occupy spaces that corner and diminish peoples 
rights.

It then expressed its recognition for the Agreement, the international 
bodies that participated and noted that in order to implement this pact 
there is an urgent need for understanding among different political actors 
so that the National Assembly can name the rectors of the new National 
Electoral Council.

It also called for the appointment of a Truth Commission so that what 
happened in Caracas in April and December 22, what happened in Los Porceres 
last January, in Los Valles del Tuy in February and last May 1 and 24 can 
be clarified. Truth is an inalienable right, it affirmed.

In this speech before the OAS Assembly, meeting in Chile, Chaderton added 
to his list of inhuman acts committed by Christians throughout history that 
the suppression of freedom of opinion and the destruction of dissident 
thought, should not only be reproachable when committed by the State but 
also when they are the product of private initiative.

In Venezuela, he added the media has usurped spaces abandoned by 
traditional political parties, displaced from power by the democratic route 
and in the name of private interest the news is created, information is 
manipulated and deformed.

In response to Chadertons words, Jesuit Priest the Rev. Mikel de Viana 
said that the foreign minister is trying to set up a smoke screen and 
distract attention from the in-depth problems affecting the country.

The true problem is that in Venezuela democracy is severely threatened, 
with a package of laws that restrict democratic liberty and with blows to 
instituitonality, he said.

BRAZIL
Catholics for Free Choice to launch educational CD

SAO PAULO, June 11, 2003 (alc). The organization Catholics for Free 
Choice	(CDD for its initials in Spanish) will launch its CD Sexuality, 
birth control and religion with educational programs about birth control 
methods and health next Monday.

The launch will take place in Sao Paulo during the debate organized by the 
CCD about the issue Sexual and Reproductive Rights: Under the law and in 
practice.

According to the Health Ministry, 50 percent of women who were mothers 
between 1990 and 1995 in Brazil had unwanted pregnancies. Clandestine 
abortions are the third leading cause of maternal mortality.

According to a document from the Ministry, one of the main difficulties 
regarding access to birth control is a lack of economic resources on the 
part a high number of municipalities and an insufficient number of doctors 
trained to work with some of these methods.

The debate will involve members of the Womens Health Network and the 
Womens Attorneys Commission from the Brazilian Attorneys Order of Sao 
Paul. The Agenda includes how to confront public health services that 
refuse to fulfil the law regarding sexual and reproductive healthcare.

The religious aspect is also a strong component and religious arguments are 
frequently used to reject birth control methods. For the members of CDD, 
controlling the number of children people have and preventing sexually 
transmitted diseases is not a sin and does not interfere with the religious 
practice.

CDD is defined as a nongovernment feminist ecumenical organization that 
seeks social justice and a change in cultural and religious patterns. It 
seeks equality in gender relations and a recognition of womens 
citizenship, both in society and within the Catholic Church and other 
Churches and religions.

Progressive religious thought, argues the CDD, favours womens autonomy. 
The organization has been present in Brazil since 1993 and acts in a joint 
fashion with the Latin American network, with women from Spain and the 
United States.

The movement was created in New York in 1973 after the UN Congress 
legalized abortion. In 1995, the CDD participated in the Beijing Conference 
even though the Vatican sought to impede their participation. Today it is a 
recognized interlocutor in the public debate involving religious issues and 
womens rights.

PERU
Assemblies of God confirms participation in CONEP and rejects division

LIMA, June 11, 2003 (alc).  We totally reject the behaviour of a group of 
people and institutions that seek to obtain personal benefits by taking 
advantage of the current constitutional reform process, said an official 
communique from the Assemblies of God of Peru.

According to the Pentecostal denomination, this statement arose because of 
recent events arising from the Constitutional Reform Project about 
religious equality. It also responded to statements published by an 
institutional called the Union of Evangelical Christian Churches of Peru 
(UNICEP) that are misinforming and confusing the Evangelical people, in 
particular our membership, it said.

The statement from the National Board of the Assemblies of God is signed by 
Pastors Eliseo De la Cruz Quispe, superintendent, Rodrigo Espinoza 
Celadita, vice-superintendent, Carlos Jara Depaz, secretary Anmbal Valle 
Pascual, treasurer. The National Board of the Assemblies of God said that 
this group has used a sensitive issue such as religious freedom to seek 
representation and has failed to respect organized bodies.

However, the statement also says that the denomination questions the 
unfortunate management of the Board of the National Evangelical Council of 
Peru (CONEP) for failing to maintain a firm position about the right to 
religious equality.

It stated that in an extraordinary CONEP assembly, held last May 10, they 
agreed to reject Art. 71 of the Project to Modify the Constitution, as 
they considered the fact that it gives express recognition to the 
preferential treatment of the State toward the Catholic Church to be 
discriminatory.

The Inter-Confessional Committee, that includes the participation of the 
Bishops Conference and CONEP, Evangelical Churches and the Jewish 
Committee proposed a text to Congress last April that states within a 
regime of independence and autonomy, the State recognized the Catholic 
Church as an important element in the historical, cultural and moral 
formation of Peru and offers its collaboration.

It then states The State recognizes and respects all religious confessions 
and establishes collaboration agreements with them through their 
representative bodies, with criteria of equity. The text was approved by 
congress representatives and is included in the Constitutional reform
project.

CONEPs acceptance of this modification when Congress seemed willing to 
remove all discriminatory treatment sparked the creation of UNICEP by a 
group of Evangelical Churches and organizations.

However, the statement from the Assemblies of God added that we continue 
respecting the institutionality and trajectory of the CONEP. It 
constitutes an instrument created by God in Peruvian society to impel the 
unity of the Evangelical Church, as was the original aim born in the hearts 
of those of us who sponsored this institution, including the Assemblies of 
God of Peru.

The document states it does not deny the right of all people or groups to 
constitute organic bodies within the Church community. However, it adds 
that we consider that these efforts should be oriented toward 
strengthening the unity of the body of Christ and should also be based on 
Biblical principles complemented by ethics, respect and solidarity that 
characterizes all good institutions and their leadership.

The communique warns that representatives from this new group have been 
misinforming and confusing the Evangelical by stating that CONEP has 
disappeared and UNICEP has become the new representative of the Evangelical 
sector in the country.

This non fraternal, irresponsible conduct denaturalises the ministerial 
ethics of those who lead and sponsor this new body, they said.

The statement concludes by calling on its membership to now be surprised by 
tendentious information and rejecting any motivation for division within 
the Evangelical people.

ARGENTINA
Evangelical plan to help flood victims receives strong support

BUENOS AIRES, June 13, 2003 (alc). The proposal that each Evangelical 
Church adopt a family affected by catastrophic flooding in northeastern 
provinces last month received massive support thanks to a television program.

The project was made public when television host Raul Portal interviewed 
the head of the Christian Alliance of Evangelical Churches of the Argentine 
Republic (ACIERA), Ruben Proietti on his program UPA, el Animo on channel 
7 along with Susana Ibarbaiz, president of the ACIERA Womens Commission. 
Proietti was representing the National Evangelical Christian Council (CNCE).

Immediately the central ACIERA office received dozens of phone calls from 
Churches and individuals who offered to help the families of Santa Fe, the 
city most affected by flooding in the provinces of Santa Fe, Entre Rios and 
Santiago del Estero.

As a result of the floods, 23 people were killed, 600 disappeared and 
140,000 were affected. A total of 24,000 homes suffered some damage and of 
that total 4,000 were completely destroyed.

In the face of the disaster, Argentine Evangelical Churches swiftly 
mobilized and sent aid. The ecumenical body Churches Action Together also 
contributed. The provincial and national government also sent aid, although 
they are limited by the economic crisis in the country.

The UPA, el Animo programme is known for its moral quality, its 
inter-religious and racial respect and for encouraging solidarity. It 
contributes to childrens homes, schools, poor people, people with 
different skills and promotes humanitarian aid.

  During the program, Proietti and Ibarbaiz explained how the plan Each 
Church Sponsors a Family is developed. The aim of the program is to 
provide a family with everything they need to return to their homes and it 
includes all families from Santa Fe, not just Protestants.

The head of ACIERA said each donation will reach a needy family thanks to 
a guarantee from the Santa Fe Pastors Council who have been doing excellent 
work since the beginning of the catastrophe.

In the programme, Portal recognized the Evangelical work in the country and 
underscored food donations and a recently donated ambulance.

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