Musings from Rev. Michelle Prentice-Leslie

Good News from Guatemala

      What does justice served feel like?  I've never been involved in a lawsuit, let alone one in which I was on the winning side, but some of you may have, so you may  be able to respond to this question more adequately than I. 
      Whatever justice feels like, I think I've experienced some of its feelings, however, this past week, with some surprising good news from Guatemala. As many of you know, I have been doing short term mission work in Guatemala since 1988, through the civil war (yes, with armed soldiers harassing us) and in years following it (yes, with armed soldiers harassing us).  During the Civil War, almost one million indigenous Guatemalans (we call them “Mayans,” you know, the ones who built the pyramids of Central America) were murdered, disappeared (that's a verb in this case) or forced to flee the country.  Guatemala is roughly the size of Tennessee, and had a population at that time of eleven million people.  So, if that number of people lost would be transported to the United States, it would be equivalent to losing to violence about 28 million people.
      I have made friends with, supported and advocated for some of those indigenous Guatemalans who lost family members, and/or those who themselves were tortured and/or raped, suffering all manner of unspeakable brutality, but who survived.  It's been thirteen years since the Peace Accords were officially signed.  There have been numerous excavations of mass graves where massacres occurred and meticulous record keeping of the dead so ill-regarded by their own country.  There have been numerous identifications of perpetrators by indigenous victims or family members of victims.  There have been numerous stays, blocks, intimidations and murders of forensic scientists, attorneys, and judges who have tried to pursue justice for victims. This year, this month, is the first successful indictment, prosecution and sentencing of one military leader involved in any of the atrocities perpetrated by the Guatemalan government and its mercenaries, aided by our USA government (yes, the USA was involved; some of us knew it before the official evidence, then the Freedom of Information Act of 1996 revealed the evidence).  
      Felipe Cusanero was tried, convicted, and sentenced to 150 years' imprisonment for the disappearances (i.e., murder) of six indigenous persons in the village of Choatalum in the Guatemalan state of Chimaltenango.  The 150 years represents 25 years' penalty for each of his six victims (that we know of).  (Another military man was convicted in 1999 of dozens of killings but none of those was termed 'disappearance,' which is an added layer of criminality.) 
      I try to imagine what it must have been like to be sitting in that court room among victims and families of victims.  I try to imagine what they must have thought and felt as they observed and heard legal proceedings, wondering, at any point, the trial would, again as in hundreds of times before, be halted or thwarted by the powers that be.  I try to imagine what they must have thought and felt as they thought about the years Felipe Cusanero has been able to live all these years, as a criminal on the lam in broad daylight, while they endured the pain of grief over lost loved ones.  I tried to imagine what they must have thought and felt when the verdict was delivered and the sentence pronounced.
      I realize I cannot.  What I feel -- so many thousands of miles away, in an entirely different and much safer political context -- is much gratitude, relief, vindication. But I know it would take Jesus Himself to enable me to actually feel what they must have felt.  It would take Jesus Himself for me to know true compassion, from the Latin com paseo, which means “to feel with.”  Still, what I do feel is indescribable.  All I know is that it feels very, very good.
            How long will you judge unjustly and show partiality to the wicked?
            Give justice to the weak and the orphan; maintain the right of the
            lowly and the destitute. - Psalm 82:2-3

Threatened by Resurrection

One: During the 1980s, refugees fleeing the terror created in their own countries by United States foreign and trade policies, came across both the Mexican border and the United States border seeking sanctuary. Guatemalan poet, Julia Esquivel, recognizing the terror, torture, and death in her own country, wrote a poem conveying her faith in a God who brings resurrection over and against terror, torture, and death.

Two: That poem remembered the sacred story of John the Baptist who threatened King Herod with his resurrection, the sacred story of Jesus of Nazareth who threatened Caesar and his Empire with his resurrection, the sacred story of Oscar Romero who threatened the rulers of his age with his resurrection, and the Guatemalan people who threatened the rulers of their age with their resurrection.

One: Resurrection reminds the powers and principalities that though they may have terrorized, tortured, and killed the prophets, God is still at work, still speaking, living while dying.

Two: The following litany is an adaptation of Julia Esquivel’s poem, “Threatened with Resurrection” recognizing that United States foreign and trade policies have again created a crisis leading to people leaving home to cross an ever-more dangerous border.

It isn't the noise from the gangs in the streets
that keeps us from resting, my friend,
nor is it the crying of the children in Postville,
their fathers detained in some obscure prison,
nor is it the tumult of those who pass by
in a hurry on their way to the border.

There is something here within us
Which doesn't let us sleep, which doesn't let us rest,
Which doesn't stop pounding deep inside,
It is the silent, warm weeping of Indian women without their husbands,
It is the sad gaze of the children
Fixed there beyond memory,
In the very pupil of our eyes
Which during sleep, though closed, keep watch
With each contraction of the heart
In every wakening...

What keeps us from sleeping
Is that they have threatened us with resurrection!

Because at each nightfall,
Though exhausted from the endless inventory
Of people who have lost their livelihood because of NAFTA,

Of people who have lost their lives in the Sonoran desert,

Of people who have lost their lives locked in a truck trailer in Texas,

Of people separated from their families in a place with unfamiliar terrain, climate, and food,

Of people terrorized by the Mexican or United States police,

Of people in fear of another ICE raid in Laurel, Mississippi, New Bedford, Massachusetts, Postville, Iowa, or Bellingham, Washington,

Of people detained in a who-knows-where U.S. prison.

Yet we continue to love life,
And do not accept their death!


Because we have felt their inert bodies
and their souls penetrated ours doubly fortified.
Because in this marathon of Hope,
there are always others to relieve us
in bearing the courage necessary
to arrive at the goal which lies beyond death.

They have threatened us with Resurrection!

Because they are more alive than ever before,
Because they transform our agonies,
And fertilize our struggle,
Because they pick us up when we fall,
and gird us like giants
before the fear of those demented drug cartels.

They have threatened us with Resurrection

because they do not know life (poor things!)

This is the whirlwind which does not let us sleep
the reason why asleep, we keep watch,
and awake, we dream.

No, it's not the gunfire from the gangs in the street,
nor the shouts from the drug cartels along the border,
nor the headlines about leprosy and swine flu.
It is the internal cyclone of a kaleidoscopic struggle
which will heal the wound of the widow, the orphan, and the migrant
forced off a Mexican farm, fallen in the Sonoran desert, forgotten in a U.S. prison.
It is the earthquake soon to come that will shake the world
and put everything in its place . . .


Accompany us then on this vigil
And you will know what it is to dream!
You will then know how marvelous it is
To live threatened with resurrection!
To dream awake,
To keep watch asleep
To live while dying
And to already know oneself resurrected!

Gloria Vicente at the Illinois Conference Meeting

by Rev. Michael Swartz

At the Illinois Conference Meeting at Springfield, Illinois, Gloria Vicente was the speaker at the Illinois Maya Ministries luncheon that took place on Saturday, June 6, in the Convention Center. Gloria, along with her husband, Santos, and their baby, Nicolas, were present with about twenty conference members, and we all had lunch together.

Gloria, as the speaker, shared some of her own journey with us. There is something remarkably engaging when persons give witness to their own experience. There is power when we construct the narrative of our life. Gloria began by talking about the experience of her family.

The village where she lived was totally destroyed by the military. It was quite near the village of the Nobel Prize winner Rigoberta Menchu, and Gloria’s father knew Vicente Menchu, Rigoberta’s father. Gloria’s father met with Vicente Menchu the night before he was killed in the 1980 burning of the Spanish Embassy in Guatemala City. The Campasino Unity Group had entered the Spanish Embassy and the Guatemalan police burned down the building on January 31, 1980, killing 36 persons, including the Spanish Ambassador. This was a defining event in the Guatemalan Civil War, and in Gloria’s life.

Gloria’s family fled to Mexico, and later to Texas. In Texas they were sheltered by a Presbyterian Church, and later they came to Chicago and were offered sanctuary by the University Church in Hyde Park. This was all part of the Sanctuary movement, and she came to Chicago in 1985, when she was ten years old.

Gloria remembers interpreting into English for her father as he spoke to groups in the Chicago Metropolitan Sanctuary Alliance and in the Chicago Religious Leadership Network.

Later, accompanied by a delegation of Disciples and members of the United Church of Christ, she travelled with her father and saw for the first time the village of Sac Ja in Guatemala. She saw the place where he grandparents were killed. She saw their names listed among those killed on the pillars in front of the National Cathedral in Guatemala City. She walked the land that they had worked as campasino farmers. This was a profound experience for Gloria, having grown up in the United States. This required quite a lot of emotional processing.

“As I learned to process the pain it made me want to go (back to the homeland of my ancestors) and serve as a missionary,” says Gloria. “I feel called to serve and to be a bridge builder.” Gloria is aware that on the one hand she has a lot in common with the people in Guatemala, and on the other hand her differences are significant as well – growing up in Chicago. “I want to return and accompany others as we were accompanied in our time of need.”

Gloria is now assigned by Global Ministries – a joint ministry of the United Church of Christ and the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ), http://www.globalministries.org/, and she is working in Santa Cruz, in the highlands of Guatemala with ACG – Guatemalan Cultural Action. This is in the K’iche’ region and Gloria is impressed with her co-workers.

Gloria has been living and learning in Guatemala. She was married to Santos Par, whom she met in Guatemala. Her husband is K’iche’, and she has been learning the language. Her husband is from Huehuetenango. Among her responsibilities with ACG is to receive international delegations. She said she hoped to see some of us who were at the luncheon in Guatemala!

She and Santos are in the United States right now. Her son, Nicolas was born in the US. He will soon have a surgery and then they will be able to return to Guatemala.

In the last few years Gloria has become ever more aware that her life has purpose. The very unusual experiences she has had, being born of Mayan people in Guatemala, travelling through Mexico to arrive in Chicago. Having been sheltered by the church and given sanctuary, then to return as a missionary and bridge-builder to Guatemala – give her an ability understand and to act in this moment.

Gloria’s talk was an inspiration to us all.

From Guatemalan Cultural Action

FOR OUR CHRISTMAS:

The environmental problems that affect the countries of the world are a clear sign that humanity has lost its values as well as [forgotten] the importance of considering ourselves part of the planet, and not owners of it. It has not been assumed that each one of us plays a very important role in preserving and conserving our world, beginning with concrete actions and not waiting for others to do something for us. We forget that we have to do something for ourselves, especially those that have the responsibility of governing. Global warming preoccupies governments right now, but there are no concrete actions that demonstrate that they have the will to diminish the factors that favor its worsening in the short term. The criminalization of social struggles, in the moment that we get on the train of development, is another way of negating the citizen’s right to make demands that lead to harmonious coexistence. The anchorage of the process of development is the consequence of the interest the few rich have of increasing the number of hungry mouths for the expansion of their sources of wealth. The parallel government, or the parallel governments, of our countries [I think he’s referring to corporations, and the power they have over actual governments] have kidnapped the law, tying the hands of state leaders to apply these laws. They have bought the will [translation?] so that it is them that have the greatest ability to act with freedom.

Individual interests are above the collective interest, where those that have benefited by the vote of the people act in such a manner that they besmirch the dignity of the people, proposing laws that benefit them [the rich], ignoring the initiatives that ought to help give life to laws that benefit the majority, like what happened with the initiative to compensate Congressional representatives and what the magistrates of the Supreme Court have done in order to maintain themselves in their posts, consenting to the aims of future authorities of occupying their posts without complying with legal requirements. The increase of violence is bleeding out the already very injured Guatemala.

The most troublesome is that they are blinding the life of young citizens and women. It seems that the effects of the post war are prolonging themselves and Guatemala is becoming in a very bad position in terms of human rights violations. The actions undertaken by the Latin American people to preserve their dignity and their free will have bothered imperialism, led by the World Trade Organization, the IMF, and the World Bank. One very concrete case is the efforts of the countries for the creation of MERCOSUR, ALBA, and the more recent Banco del Sur. Nevertheless, the most interesting is the tireless struggle of the people to be counted. The vicious circle of power in creating political demagogues has significant effects on the conscience of humanity. The United States’ fear of Iran, Venezuela, Cuba, Russia and other countries is because they are gaining ground in carrying out concrete action to stand up to health problems, education, and trying to create mechanisms to reduce social inequalities. The Latin American School is challenging the School of the Americas, producing professionals disposed to lend their services in the most marginalized communities, as is the case with Cuban doctors in Guatemala; young Guatemalans are also graduating, while the {School of the] Americas continue[s] producing professionals of torture and antiterrorism. Pacification by warlike means has allowed the interests of the powerful to openly control the wealth of other countries with their interventionist politics; such is the case in Iraq, Palestine, and very possibly, Iran. I hope that actions favor peace and development that fills us with hope. When the streams and brook come together they form grand rivers. I hope that our God, creator of all that exists, pours out his blessings upon each one of you.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year.

From Mary Naftziger, University Church Guatemala Partnership Group, Sharing a Message from Juan Carlos (ACG) who tells of Gloria Vicente's Arrival

Dear fellow Guate Partnership group members,

I imagine some of you have heard from Virgilio that Gloria got to Guatemala Monday. We've exchanged occasional e-mails with Juan Carlos and his latest one this week included the following message about Gloria's arrival. Anyone who wants to help me improve my Spanish is please to send me a private e-mail with corrections. Mary

From: Juan Carlos DeLeon Ventura:

Hola Mary y Bob,

Felicidades por el amor tan grande que sienten por ser abuelos, es otra etapa que nos presenta la vida.

Congratulations for the great love you are experiencing in being grandparents, another stage that life gives to us.

Gloria ya llego en ACG, lo fuimos encontrar en el aeropuerto de Guatemala, ahora ya esta en el Quiche, iniciando una planificacion en los multiples trabajos que lo espera en ACG.

Gloria has arrrived en ACG, and we went to meet her at the Guatemala City airport; now she is in Quiche, beginning to plan/organize for the many tasks that await her at ACG.

Todo bien sin novedad.

All is fine as usual.

Por favor de avisar a los resto de Grupo de Chicago que ACG esta pasando en momentos historicos de tener otra voluntaria mas, con en unico fin de mejorar la relacion, el trabajo y conjunto buscar una paz para el pueblo guatemalteco (indigena).

Please let the rest of the Chicago group know that ACG is experiencing an historic moment in having another volunteer, with the purpose or end result being improving our relationships and the work, so that together we search for peace for the indigenous people of Guatemala.

Hasta luego

Juan Carlos