wfn.org | ALC Noticias July 17 2005 Argentina Brasil Columbia Peru

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

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

------------
CONTENT

PERU: Latin American Needs To Return to Theology That Helps Create Community
COLOMBIA: Social and religious organizations call on Colombian president to
not approve Peace and Justice Law
BRASIL: Federal Police detain IURD bishop transporting millions of dollars
by air
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC: Evangelicals call for Concordat with Vatican to be annulled
ARGENTINA: IERP: Authorities are not decisively interested in clarifying
attack on AMIA

-------
PERU
Latin American Needs To Return to Theology That Helps Create Community

LIMA, July 14 (alc). Latin America needs a theology that articulates the
theory and experience of faith, that promotes the Church as a fraternal
community, marked by solidarity, and which contributes to constructing an
autonomous social movement, said Chilean Helio Gallardo.

"This can be called liberation theology or not, the important thing is that
the liberating religious believers do not forget that their struggle is to
witness the God of Life in the world and that this God shine in creation,"
he said.

Gallardo, professor from the University of Costa Rica, was the main speaker
at the Socio-Theology Formation Seminar, organized by the Latin American
Biblical University (Lima Chapter), the Proceso Kairos and the Ecumenical
Communication Pastoral Service (SEPEC) from July 11 to 13.

He lamented that Liberation Theology did not fulfill its mandate to build
autonomous communities and social movements as its theologians locked
themselves in chapels or small circles and drew away from the grassroots.
"And when the theologian no longer listens, people stop asking," he said.

The liberation theologians, he said dictated their ideas from their disks
and pulpits while the grassroots did not know how to reconcile what they
heard with what they experienced. This "abyss" kept them from growing together.

According to Gallardo, the main sociological and political problem was that
the liberation theologians did not manage to create an autonomous social
movement in the 1970s, but rather inscribed it in the Unidad Popular de
Chile, Christians for Socialism, or other similar groups and forgot that
their struggle was to Witness the God of Life. This stripped them of the
freedom to criticize all the institutional idols, he said.

Gallardo, author of several books about Latin American politics and reality
said that one of the main strengths of Latin America is its enormous
religious ranks, made up of millions of believers and he said that the
faith of the believers can be a motor to transform this part of the world.

He invited the faithful to come out of the Churches, without abandoning
their spirituality to build community and to strengthen a movement with
people from the grassroots. "Outside of the institutional Church one has to
learn to be light, to be salt, to be leaven," in a world that is marked by
the destruction of nature, wars, domestic violence, the invisibility of
Black and indigenous people and power of television to render people
thoughtless, he said.

-----------
COLOMBIA
Social and religious organizations call on Colombian president to not
approve Peace and Justice Law

BOGOTÁ, July 14 (alc). Social and religious organizations called on
Colombian President Alvaro Uribe to not ratify a Peace and Justice law as
they consider it an "impunity law" that protects paramilitary groups.

"If you do this, you will be responsible before national and international
opinion and above all before the victims of the horror of the paramilitary
barbarity (.) of these crimes, that wound the conscience of humanity and
clamor to the heavens, remain in the most absolute impunity," said the
letter delivered Tuesday to the government.

Those signing the letter include: Lilia Solano, of the Justice and Life
Project and former president of the Latin American Theological Fraternity
(FTL);	Gladys Ávila, of the Association of the Relatives of the Detained
Disappeared,  Gloria Mancilla, of the National Solidarity Help Association,
Sister Cecilia Naranjo, of the Inter-Church Justice and Peace Commission
and Jairo Ramírez of the Permanent Committee for the Defense of Human Rights.

The organizations signing the letter, linked to the National Movement of
the Victims of Crimes Against Humanity, Human Rights Violations and
Genocide, sustain that the law will allow the authors of the crime to go
unpunished, specifically disappearances and tortures caused by paramilitary
structures that, between 1998 and 2003, left more than 14,000 dead in their
wake.

The Justice and Peace law defines the legal framework to demobilize
paramilitary groups and was approved by Congress last June 21. It sparked a
wave of protests among civil society organizations and world bodies such as
Amnesty International. President Uribe remains firm in his decision to
approve the law.

Meanwhile, the UN Working group on Forced or Involuntary Disappearances,
called on Uribe to veto the law.

The group, which wrapped up a 10-day visit to the country invited by the
government, said that the Project includes a series of gaps that could
diminish the criminal responsibility of the authors of forced
disappearances and concluded that the measure should be improved.

President Uribe, visiting Europe, responded some uncomfortable questions
Wednesday on the part of Spanish legislators during his intervention in the
Senate, where he denied that the new law contemplates pardons for crimes
against humanity and insisted on involving the European Union as a
guarantee of the law.

Uribe traveled that same day to England where he met with Prime Minister
Tony Blair in a global tour that, according to some analysts, is a
diplomatic offensive on the part of the Colombian government to obtain
international support for the controversial law.

---------
BRASIL
Federal Police detain IURD bishop transporting millions of dollars by air

BRASILIA, July 12 (alc). The Federal Police turned a case involving the
Bishop of the Universal Church of the Kingdom of God (IBRD) and federal
representative for the Frente Liberal Party, Joao Batista Ramos da Silva
over to the Supreme Court. Ramos da Silva was detained Monday in the
Brasilia airport with seven suitcases containing close to $4 million.

According to Federal Police delegate Davi Sérvulo Campos, it is up to the
Court to decide whether or not it will open an investigation, at a time
with the country is being buffeted by denouncements of corruption and
alleged cash payments to legislators allied with the government.

In a statement published Monday, the Universal Church said that the money
corresponded to tithes collected by faithful from its different churches.
On Saturday July 9, the IURD celebrated its 28th anniversary.

From Congress, Senator and Bishop of the Universal Church Marcelo Crivella
said Monday that the money was being transferred from Manaos and that the
plane stopped in Brasilia to collect the money from faithful in that city.

"It was offering money. It had nothing to do with dollars hidden in
intimate apparel or with corruption," said Crivella. He was referring to
the arrest, Friday, of former congressional advisor for the Partido de los
Trabajadores (PT) in the state of Ceará, José Adalberto Vieira da Silva,
detained in the Congonhas airport in São Paulo, with close to $81,500 in
one suitcase and another $100,000 in a bag together with his underwear.

Crivella told the senators that the IURD rented the plane to transport the
money because the State banking agencies "did not accept a deposit of such
a large volume of small bills to be counted and transferred to the city of
Sao Paulo, where the headquarters of the Church operates."

In Brazil, it is not illegal to transport large amounts of cash.
Congressman Joao Batista Ramos da Silva, who was president of the Record
Television Network, owned by the IURD, said he sent a letter to the
authorities informing them that he was transporting a significant amount by
plane. The other six people on the plane, two pastors, their wives, the
pilot and co-pilot, also testified before the Federal Police.

The Federal Police are now investigating the origin and destination of the
money, to see if there are irregularities. They want to know if the local
tax authorities or air transport authorities were informed that the money
was to be transported.

Meanwhile, the money has remained in the custody of the Central Bank until
the case is clarified. The plane rented by the IURD left from Manaos,
stopped in Belen and Brasilia where it was heading to Goiania, capital of
the state of Goias in central Brazil.

-----------------------
DOMINICAN REPUBLIC
Evangelicals call for Concordat with Vatican to be annulled

SANTO DOMINGO, July 12 (alc). Pastor Reynaldo Franco Aquino, president of
the Dominican Confederation of Evangelical Unity (CODUE) has called for the
annulment of a concordat signed by the Dominican State with the Vatican
more than half a century ago, claiming it discriminates against non
Catholic Churches.

The concordat gives exaggerated privileges to the Catholic Church and
violates necessary religious equality in the country, said Franco in a
phone interview with ALC.

The CODUE leader said that the agreement was signed in 1954 by the Rafael
Trujillo dictatorship and Pope Pio XII in a religious context that is
different than today's. In the 1950 there were few Evangelicals, today
between 16 and 20% of the 9 million Dominicans are Evangelicals. Moreover,
this 16 to 20% are actively involved in their Churches while only 4 percent
of Catholics regularly attend religious activities.

Under the Concordat, the Dominican Catholic Church enjoys broad freedoms
regarding its role, it has municipal and import tax benefits and receives
government economic support for maintenance.

The Evangelical leaders criticized government authorities because they
never consider any type of support for Evangelicals works in the national
budget, despite the fact that these Churches have a wide range of social
and educational projects in the country.

Evangelical Dominican Churches invest some $100 million in social aid
programs, with donations coming from Europe and the United States, he said.

"Therefore, a sector that makes an investment of this magnitude should be
treated with more respect and should not be the object of discrimination it
currently suffers."

He denounced the discriminatory treatment that Churches receive in customs,
while goods that have the seal of the Catholic Church "are automatically
brought in, without any type of restriction."

He indicated that in the Dominican Republic, a new generation of
Evangelicals has awakened and is not willing to remain silent, but rather
seeks religious equality. "We have the power of God and the power of the
vote," he told the daily Hoy Monday, after stating that there are more than
1,350,000 Evangelicals in the country.

------------
ARGENTINA
IERP: Authorities are not decisively interested in clarifying attack on AMIA

BUENOS AIRES, July 12 (alc). Eleven years after a terrorist attack against
the Argentine-Israeli Mutual Association (AMIA) authorities still lack the
will to clarify the case, said the Evangelical Church of the River Plate
(IERP), which warned of the danger that the attack is one more event marked
by impunity.

In a letter supporting a public act to commemorate the anniversary of the
attack, to be held July 18, the IERP affirmed that despite the time that
has gone by there is still a "lack of clarity and will on the part of
public authorities to clarify the attack."

The terrorist attack against the AMIA took place in July 1994 during the
former President Carlos Menem government. Hundreds were injured and 85
people were killed. No one is being processed or is detained related to the
case.

The solidarity message that the IERP sent to Rabbi Angel Kreiman-Brill,
signed by IERP president Federico Schäfer, adds "We have felt ourselves
sink in a deep swamp, without having any firm ground to stand upon, we have
felt that we have reached the deepest part of the water and have been
dragged by the current. The current of impunity and a lack of justice."

It agrees with the position of the representatives from the Argentine
Jewish Community who said the crime not only led the families and friends
of the victims to mourn, but all of Argentine society.

The investigations into the attack against the AMIA demonstrated
difficulties in the Argentine justice system, which made some arrests but
then released those involved due to a lack of evidence.

The investigation, in the hands of Judge Rodolfo Canicoba Corral, maintains
the suspicions formulated more than a decade ago, who blame members of the
Lebanese militia and Hezbollah and Iranian diplomatic authorities.
-----------------------------------------
Latin American and Caribbean Communication Agency (ALC)
P.O. box 14-225 Lima 14 Peru
E-mail: director@alcnoticias.org
http://www.alcpress.org