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Resolution
on Colombia, 2001
Mennonite Church USA
Hon. George W. Bush
President of the United States of America
Hon. Colin Powell
Secretary of State of the United States of America
Esteemed Gentlemen,
We, the official delegate
body of Mennonite Church USA, along with other members of the church,
including over 5,000 youth gathered in Assembly in Nashville, Tenn.,
July 2-7, send greetings and our prayers that you may have wisdom and
courage to lead our country and the global community in ways of peace
and justice for all.
We speak from our faith
in Jesus Christ and from our history as a Christian people who have
believed in and attempted to practice ways of peace and love. We
present for your consideration and action the following Resolution
regarding Colombia and the involvement of our government in that
country.
Preamble
Our concern for the
situation in Colombia is informed by regular reports from the Mennonite
Church of Colombia, along with frequent communications from other
church and peace groups in that troubled land. The following statements
are based largely on these sources, which give us information not
always found in the normal news media.
- We know that for more
than 40 years Colombians have been living in serious social, political,
and economic realities that have produced a culture of violence, a
destroyed economic infrastructure and a fragmented and desperate civil
society that leaves millions of common people's life-dreams frustrated.
- We are informed of
some 30,000 deaths yearly and the displacement of 2 million rural
people from their land. From February through April of this year 55,000
such persons have been driven from their homes and farms.
- We are told that the
problems of this ongoing conflict have been augmented over the past
15 years by the terrible drug-trafficking business, which has its root
in the demand for illegal drugs in our country and elsewhere.
- We are informed that
under the pretext of a war on drugs the United States has become a
partner with the Colombian armed forces in a counter-narcotics campaign
that is devastating the country, stepping up the levels of violence on
all sides through military "aid," and thus sending a message of death
and destruction to the Colombian people.
- We are told that the
fumigation efforts of Plan Colombia have destroyed food crops and
caused sickness of both humans and animals, only to drive desperate
people elsewhere to grow coca and cash crops, as well as intensifying
the conflict between guerilla and paramilitary groups.
- In light of these
facts, we believe that Plan Colombia does not adequately address the
long standing problems of poverty, injustice and violence, but instead,
in its military assistance aspect, exacerbates these problems and
increases the frustration and misery of the majority of Colombian
people.
- We recognize that the
Colombian situation is very complex and that it is exacerbated by the
demand for drugs in our country. We do not have easy answers to the
problems that beset Colombia. However, we lament, along with our
Colombian brothers and sisters, the decision of the United States
government to send funds and support to the Colombian security forces.
Therefore be it resolved
that
We, MENNONITE CHURCH USA,
hereby express solidarity and support for the churches and agencies in
Colombia who have borne the heavy burden of cultivating peace in a
culture of violence. We pledge our support for initiatives that uphold
human rights and encourage peaceful dialogue in Colombia.
We call on you as leaders
to direct our nation in the reduction of the demand for illegal drugs
in our country, thereby also lessening the incentive to produce them.
We request a change in
Plan Colombia, a plan that uses violent means, including the
destruction of cash crops and the homes of poor people, with the
consequent displacement of millions within their own country. We urge
an increase in funding and support for alternative cash crops and
markets for the farmers of the Andean area.
We promise to pray that
God will give you and other leaders of our country wisdom and courage
to do what is right and pleasing to God, remembering that we should
treat other nations the way we would like them to treat us.
Respectfully submitted
this seventh of July 2001 on behalf of the delegates of the Mennonite
Church USA Assembly meeting in Nashville,
James Schrag, Executive
Director
Lee Snyder, Moderator
Mennonite Church USA Mennonite Church USA
Adopted by Mennonite Church USA Delegate Assembly, Nashville,
Tennessee, July 7, 2001, Minutes, pp. 47-48.
This action of the
Mennonite Church USA Delagate Assembly was prompted by appeals such as
the following:
A Call
from the Colombian Churches to the Churches in the North in Response to
Bill Clinton's Visit to Colombia
September 10, 2000 -
BOGOTÁ, D.C., Colombia - So that when one member suffers, all of
the members suffer as well.... - 1 Corinthians 12:26
Dear brothers and
sisters. We send you fraternal greetings in the name of our Lord Jesus
Christ.
A few months ago we wrote
you to inform you that the U.S. Congress had approved a $1.3 billion
dollar economic aid package for the Colombian government, almost 90% in
arms and training to strengthen the army in its confrontations with the
different guerrilla groups and against drug production.
On August 30 of this
year, the President of the United States himself, Bill Clinton,
traveled to our country to reinforce his support towards the Colombian
government and ratify the economic aid approved by the U.S. Congress.
Thus, we see concrete evidence that the war that has caused so much
bloodshed during more than 40 years will receive a strong thrust
through millions of dollars in modern arms. This fact produces a deep
concern for us; although the help in itself is positive, the content
could create many problems to our country.
Three times in Colombia,
there have been attempts to eliminate the guerilla groups and the
drug-trafficking by strengthening and modernizing the army. However, as
a result, the guerrilla groups have always ended up stronger and
drug-trafficking network has multiplied its tentacles. In response to
the guerrilla groups growth, paramilitary groups or self-defense units
have expanded beyond control. As the combats intensify, peasant farmers
and many other people feel obligated to leave their land, producing
greater displacement. These people need some way of surviving, but the
State is not offering them alternatives. For that reason they move into
the rainforest to grow the only crop that they can sell -- coca leaves;
other types of crops are not marketable due to a lack of roads and
transportation to take the produce into the cities, and in addition,
opportunities in the agricultural market are cut off by imported
products at much lower prices coming from other countries, including
the United States and Canada. The Colombian agricultural sector can not
compete with agricultural production in countries in the North that
offer State subsidies and high levels of technology.
In contrast,
drug-traffickers buy coca leaves from the farmers right where it is
grown, and they pay in cash. If what they have planted gets fumigated,
they will abandon this land and move deeper into the rain-forest. One
can see that this military intervention leads to greater displacement,
more coca crops and greater ecological damage. At the same time, the
peasant farmers conclude that the only thing that the State does is
take away their source of survival by force, without giving them any
other alternatives. Since the guerrilla groups protect the coca crops,
they appear as the farmers' defender. This takes away the government's
legitimacy, strengthens the guerrilla groups and opens opportunities
for more drug-trafficking. Moreover, when farmers lose everything due
to the combats and fumigation on their land, many of them join the
guerilla groups. Additionally, the guerrilla groups are responding to
the increase in military aid and arms received by the government
looking for ways to augment their own resources to buy more arms, thus
feeding the arms build-up.
For that reason we
believe that this type of military aid will only intensify the war,
disperse the coca crops and strengthen the drug-trade business. As more
arms are given to the Colombian government, more drugs will reach the
United States.
Thus, we as churches must
offer life-alternatives to the farmers, to the displaced peoplke and to
the unemployed. We should offer proposals that legitimize and
strengthen the institutional authority of the State -- proposals for
social justice that become real alternatives to the insurgent groups
militaristic proposals. We need to open new options so that the farmers
can stop cultivating coca and fortifying the drug trade. Essentially,
as churches we must offer proposals that lead people towards abundant
life.
In reality, the
government of the United States, using the tax-payers money, is
supporting the Colombian government in what we consider to be a
negative form. This means that the message arriving from the North to
the Colombian people becomes a message of death and destruction. For
that reason we are calling the churches in the North to redeem their
taxes, on one hand by demanding that the U.S. government invests this
money in life-producing projects, and on the other hand by redirecting
part of their taxes towards a different project in your community or in
the world that promotes abundant and dignified life, as our Lord Jesus
Christ has commanded us.
Thus, just as the
Colombian government needs support from the United States government to
continue in the war, we as churches in Colombia need defenders and
supporters among the churches in the North in order to build peace and
our alternative life project. Most importantly, we must build up
inter-dependent relationships that allow for an exchange between us,
sharing not only responses to the violence in Colombia but also to the
daily experience that you live through in the North. We know that you
also suffer from direct violence in some cases, as well as unemployment
and poverty in your country.
We must positively
transform our conflicts, and seek as a result more human relationships
between the North and the South. We call the churches in the North to
become sisters churches to those in the South, such that we can count
on 300 sister churches in the North relating to 300 churches
sanctuaries of peace in Colombia.
May this be the
opportunity to incarnate the global family of faith. We need a strong
base of churches that can strengthen our work as churches here in
Colombia. We need to recover the networks of sister churches and other
initiatives that have supported other people groups in the middle of a
war context.
Brothers and Sisters, we
need to transform the message of destruction and death sent by the war
and the drug-trafficking into the message of dignified life, love and
peace that we have as ambassadors of the Prince of Peace. We can not
fulfill this call alone. We must integrate ourslves between the North
and the South, because the churches are one body, and just as the
apostle Paul says, "when one part of the body suffers, the whole body
suffers."
We are annexing a
concrete proposal about our churches' sanctuaries of peace in Colombia.
Please read it, enter into a discussion of discernment within your
church communities and send us your comments and reflections, as the
Spirit speaks to you. We want this proposal to be constructed between
all of us.
May God bless you and may
God's peace stir you.
Ricardo Esquivia Ballestas
Director Justapaz - Mennonite Church
Coordinador of the Human Rights and Peace Commission of the Evangelical
Council Of Colombia Peter Stucky
President - Mennonite Church of Colombia
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