This year, the 2010 Annual Awards Night will be held on October 23rd at 7pm at First Mennonite Church here in Denver.  The 2010 Global Justice and Peace Award will go to GRUFIDES, El Grupo de Formación e Intervención para el Desarrollo Sostenible, a grassroots organization based in Cajamarca, Peru that promotes sustainable development through the environmental conservation of natural resources with a particular focus on respecting human rights. Former executive director of GRUFIDES Mirtha Vásquez will serve as the keynote speaker and receive the award on behalf of the organization. The John Proctor Member of the Year is to be announced.

FRIDAY JULY 30, 2010

6:30 P.M.— 8:30 P.M.

DJPC’s Office located in the Denver Inner City Parish 1212 Mariposa St. Denver, CO 80204

Free parking available on streets and in building lots. Beverages and  utensils provided. Bring a dish (with serving utensils) to share.

R.S.V.P. TODAY!!! 303-623-1463

New house goes up with old house behind

Carrying cement block and mixing mortar by hand in 95 degree heat can be torture. Or, it can be a small offering of hope and solidarity to a family living in a one room wooden shack. Moving block after block, separating rock into piles of sand and gravel, I concentrated on the task at hand and not my aching back. I could take a break, but I hadn’t come all this way to rest and I felt better when I was working as hard as I could.  There was so much still to be done.
My husband Peter and I were in Getsemani, a community of more than 130 families in the department of Ahuachapan, El Salvador, to participate in Habitat for Humanity’s Lenten build in honor of Monseñor Oscar Romero. Thirty years ago, on March 24, 1980, as he celebrated mass, Monseñor Romero was assassinated the day after he spoke out against poverty, injustice and publicly manifested his support for victims of political violence.  Monseñor Romero became a beloved martyr and catalyst for the ensuing 12 year civil war. Yet today, the majority of the country’s 6 million people still lack basic necessities such as potable water, electricity, education and employment. It’s estimated that more than half of Salvadorans also lack adequate housing. Through local affiliates such as this one in El Salvador, Habitat for Humanity has provided more than 1 million people in 90 countries simple, decent housing and a better life.

Denise in the sand pit

Peter and I, with 3 friends, worked as part of a large group of about 70 volunteers– college students on spring break, a  high school class and a church group– to build 30 houses in 30 days to honor Monseñor’s legacy. Thankfully, we were assigned to a house where the foundation had already been dug.  Some groups had to dig foundations in the rocky  dirt– over 100 lineal feet and 2 feet deep,  with picks and shovels.  We helped two masons by mixing concrete and mortar to their specifications, delivering it, filling joints between the blocks, bending rebar, moving block, leveling dirt and a variety of miscellaneous tasks.
Habitat’s houses in El Salvador are made of cement block, heavily reinforced with rebar because of the seismic activity in the area.  The houses are generally three rooms– a living area and two bedrooms, with a bath (toilet and shower) entered from outside. Most women use firewood for cooking so the “kitchens” are outside the house so the smoke can escape. Houses average about $8,000 and the interest free loans are repaid over 20 + years. Families and/or friends contribute hundreds of hours of “sweat equity” (i.e. labor) to build the houses.

Mom and two of her kids at build site

Our family’s new house was being built next door to their old, wooden one. Mom took care of 5 children, sold chocolate- covered bananas out of her house, while her husband worked in the logging business in another part of the country.  Family incomes in Getsemeni average between US$100 and $250 monthly, and many adults work as housekeepers, security guards and market vendors.
Peter and I have been on several Habitat Global Village builds (i.e. outside the US) and upon returning, we are often asked, “Did you finish a house?”.  The answer is always “no”, we just completed a small portion.  On this trip, our basic accomplishment was helping lay about 8 tiers of cement block.  That didn’t seem like much at all.
The truth was, I wished I were in the capital, participating in the mass demonstrations and celebrations of the 30th anniversary of the death of the country’s beloved Monseñor Romero. Instead, we were in a remote area, and I moved some block.  Some sand.  Some gravel.  Some dirt.  I watched the kids that will live in the  new house and hoped that it would represent a change for the better in their lives.
We were given T-shirts that said “Somos albañiles, no maestros de obra.” That means, we are workers (or masons), not master builders.”
When I looked up that reference, I thought about the importance of being a small part of a larger whole.  Here is part of the prayer, composed by Bishop Ken Untener and often called the Oscar Romero prayer:

Some neighborhood kids look on

It helps now and then to step back and take a long view
The Kingdom is not only beyond our efforts,
it is beyond our vision.
We accomplish in our lifetime only a fraction
of the magnificent enterprise that is God’s work…
We plant the seeds that one day will grow
We water the seeds already planted
knowing that they hold future promise.
We lay foundations that will need further development..
We cannot do everything, and there is a sense of
liberation in realizing this.
This enables us to do something, and to do it very well.
It may be incomplete, but it is a beginning,
a step along the way, an opportunity for the Lord’s
grace to enter and do the rest.
We may never see the end results, but that is the
difference between the master builder and the worker
We are workers; not master bulders
We are prophets of a future not our own

Find out more about Habitat’s trips outside the U.S. at www.habitat.org/gv

When I was in Mexico recently, cab drivers and other service workers would volunteer that they had been in the U.S., often for several years before returning to Mexico.  They would say they had picked corn in Iowa, harvested tobacco in North Carolina, picked blueberries in Maryland, done landscaping in California, worked as a cook in Illinois, etc.  They had happy memories and were glad to share their experiences with an American.  What struck me was that virtually everyone told stories about either their journey to the U.S. to make a living for their family or that by a son or a daughter.

Their stories reminded me that just a year before in Guatemala, every Mayan person with whom I came in contact asked me PLEASE to work for immigration reform in the U.S. because families, even their country’s economy, depended on the remittances sent back to Guatemala from their relations in the U.S.

I cried when I heard that a young Mayan Quiché whose education Bob and Mary Buck and I have been supporting for many years crossed the Sonoran desert in scorching heat to work in the U.S. to pay his mother’s health bills.  Since there are no avenues for him to gain legal status in our broken immigration system, he is now undocumented and working in construction to pay off these family bills.

If you, like me, want to protest the inhumane detention and forced return of migrants to their countries by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), I invite you to join the first Monday inter-faith vigils at the Geo Immigration Detention Center.  The American Friends Service Committee (AFSC) organizes these vigils with local area churches or community groups sponsoring each month.  The next vigil is May 3rd at 6:00 p.m. at the northwest corner of 30^th Avenue and Peoria St. in Aurora.  To commemorate one year of resistance to the GEO Detention Center, the Romero Troupe will enact immigration experiences at the center through music, poetry and prayer.

If you have questions or want further information, please contact Jennifer Piper, Interfaith Organizing Director for Immigrant Rights, at AFSC at 303-623-3464 or jpiper@afsc.org.

During the Salon, Professor Margie Thompson also showed a video clip from youtube titled “Honduras Women Targeted for Resisting the Coup” showing civilians, including many women, protesting in the streets against the police in Honduras. There were also copies of the Spring 2010 (Vol 15 No.1) ¡Presente! newsletter, provided by Jane Covode, that includes a lot of articles on the SOA. The action steps were to either sign a postcard and send it to House Representatives not in district 1 or 2 to encourage them to cosponsor the HR 2567 bill that will suspend operations and investigate the SOA/WHINSEC or to write a letter to Congressman Jared Polis or Congresswoman Diana DeGette, who represent districts 1 and 2, thanking them for their co-sponsorship of the HR 2567 bill.

Professor Thompson showed a powerpoint presentation about FIRE (Feminist International Radio Endeavor), which communicates via mobile equipment and covers many different issues from a woman’s perspective. She also mentioned the Feminist International Solidarity Camp which was opening in Haiti and is geared toward women’s needs and concerns that might not be covered by other NGO initiatives. A youtube video titled “Haiti-Año Cero” was also shown to illustrate the devastation experienced by the country as a result of the earthquake. Her action steps included a cell phone campaign of $20-40/month to recharge a Haitian woman activist’s cell phone and calling the Haitian woman once a month, though a French speaker or translation on your end is required. Another action step was donations to provide hand-crank radios, flashlights(includes cell phone charger) and mosquito netting. Donation checks of $10-$199 should be written to Margie Thompson (put “FIRE-Haiti” in the subject line), write to mthompso@du.edu with questions.

Mr. Beaugelin is studying Political Science and film at UC-Denver and has family still living in Haiti. He mentioned current problems for people in Haiti such as lack of safe drinking water and why projects of Lambi Fund are relevant and needed, especially since the mass exodus of people to the countryside strained rural communities’ needs. One example is that trees are desperately needed to help stabilize the topsoil because they are used for charcoal, which heavily depletes their resources and allows mudslides and other problems from soil erosion to occur. His action steps were to donate to the Lambi Fund because they support long-term solutions that have the capacity to make a difference for the people in Haiti. The Lambi Fund channels financial and other resources to community-based organizations that promote the social and economic empowerment of the Haitian people and supports projects that embrace the following principles: non-violent, non-partisan, community-based, promoting the advancement of women, using education and training for empowerment, and promoting the overall democratic movement.

By now, most are aware of the terrible toll the recent earthquake has had in Haiti. Not only has it caused tens of thousands of deaths, it has also destroyed hospitals, schools, and government buildings, obliterating the country’s few health care and rescue services. The tremendous poverty and vulnerability made starkly clear by this disaster is but a legacy of Haiti’s long history of domination by powerful outside interests.

In 1804, Haiti became the first French colony to win independence and the first independent black republic. With stunning courage and at a cost of half their population, slave armies had alternately fought the forces of France, Britain and Spain to win their freedom. In honor of the island’s original inhabitants, they called their new country by its Taino-Arawak name, “Haiti” or “land of mountains.”

After this hard-won victory, however, France and Great Britain, later joined by the U.S., imposed a punishing economic boycott against the new nation. When Haiti finally achieved recognition by the French government in the 1860s, it was only by agreeing to pay 125 million francs to indemnify their former slave owners for the loss of their property. In addition, the French took control of Haitian finances to assure that timely interest-laden payments would be made. By the early twentieth century, Haiti’s burdensome debt obligation had turned what was once the richest colony in the world, into the poorest country in the western hemisphere.

U.S. hegemony replaced that of the French in 1910, when National City Bank of New York took over Haiti’s finances. When Haitian lawmakers balked at the arrangement, U.S. marines landed at Port-au-Prince, seized the half million dollars in the Haitian treasury and transported the funds to National City Bank of New York.

The marines continued in control until the 1930s when a professionally trained Haitian army took their place. In the decades that followed, a succession of dictators turned the army into a personal police force with the most notorious, “Papa Doc” Duvalier and his son “Baby Doc,” terrorizing their own population through paramilitary gangs known as tonton macoutes. Until finally ousted in 1986, Duvalier allies grew rich by embezzling government funds and seizing land from poor peasants. Public services fell into disrepair, illiteracy reached 90 percent, and poverty and malnutrition grew rampant. Because the regime remained staunchly opposed to Cuba’s Fidel Castro, however, it was rewarded with a steady flow of aid from the U.S.

In 1990, Haitian history changed. In the country’s first free and fair elections, voters chose parish priest Jean-Bertrand Aristide, who had worked many years in the slums of Port-au-Prince, to be their president. Upon taking office, Aristide promised to raise minimum wage, improve health care and education, and relieve misery in this country where one percent of the population owns half the wealth.

He faced stiff and often violent opposition among Haiti’s economic elites, however, who only ten months later backed the overthrow of their first legitimately elected leader. While Aristide was returned to office with help from the Clinton Administration, he was again ousted in 2004. The move was followed by a full revival of the debt-led model of trade and continued impoverishment of the majority.

Today, as the country struggles to recover from disaster, we must ask where recovery will take this country. Who will lead and what will the priorities be? Will elites continue to be favored over the 80 percent living in abject poverty? Or can humanitarians support a strategy where health care, education and a decent standard of living for all can be envisioned? In the midst of this great tragedy, it is up to those who care about Haiti to support a recovery process that can lead to a genuinely democratic system. In the absence of that support, only the most powerful interests will prevail – again.

Lynn Holland, Ph.D., is an adjunct professor of international studies at the University of Denver’s Josef Korbel School of International Studies and a Foreign Policy In Focus contributor, as well as a member of DJPC’s Salon Committee.

Jane Covode, Kathryn Rodriguez, Tommy Timm, Sarah Sloane and Denise Peine joined thousands gathered at the Columbus, GA Convention Center Saturday morning to hear introductory speakers, musicians and staffers of SOA Watch, the organization dedicated to closing the school. Three of us were there for the first time and we were all impressed with the numbers and enthusiasm of the participants, which ranged from college students to long time activists to members of various religious traditions. We joined in proclaiming our goal– to close the SOA/WHINSEC and to resist the oppressive policies that it represents; to stand in solidarity with our Latin American sisters and brothers and all those around the world whose lives are impacted by these policies; and to act in a tradition of nonviolence.

Anti-war protester at SOA photo by Sarah Sloane

Saturday afternoon we went to the gates of Ft. Benning where we heard various speakers reminding us of the immediacy and importance of our mission to close SOA.  Bertha Oliva from Honduras spoke about the repression, injustice, disappearances and deaths that have taken place in her country since the June SOA graduate-led military coup. In Colombia, U.S. military intervention intensifies as an agreement allowing U.S. access to seven new Colombian military bases was just signed by both countries, endangering the security and autonomy of neighboring countries.

Sunday morning was chilly and damp, reflecting the solemnity of the funeral procession. During this event, several people on stage chanted thousands of names of the victims of SOA/WHINSEC violence. The crowd responded with “presente”–meaning he/she (the victim) is here with us- and lifted crosses with names of the victims. The marchers slowly passed the razor wire fence surrounding the Fort’s gate, where people left crosses and other memorabilia.  Four demonstrators were arrested for “crossing the line” into the Fort.

Six giant “puppetistas” joined the march. This informal group of creative people crafted huge, realistic figures replicating the 6 Jesuit priests martyred in San Salvador. A mock “assassination” was held and then people with signs–love, hope, solidarity, equality, power, justice– arose to carry on the work of the Jesuits and other SOA victims.

SOA signs of hope photo by Sarah Sloane

The weekend was a powerful event for those involved with the continuing “lucha” for peace, human rights, and economic justice in Latin America. To learn more about SOA Watch, a grassroots organization that works year round to achieve these goals, see http://www.soaw.org.