PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Twelve: Fr. Rafael Sivatte

 

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Tuesday, 15 October 1991 - 4:10 PM - Fr. Rafael Sivatte at the UCA

We are seated once more in the library of the Monsignor Romero Center on the campus of the Central American University. As I look around, I note that the machine-gunned volumes which had last year been exhibited open on chairs along the one wall are now in glass covered display cases lining the same wall. The scorched and mutilated portrait of Archbishop Romero, glass stalactites still appended to its frame, is also enclosed and glass covered once again. These are mute reminders of the night of slaughter which took place here nearly two years ago.

George introduces our group to Father Sivatte, who greets us graciously. We have asked him specifically to speak about the recently concluded trial of those accused of murdering the six Jesuits and their two housekeepers.

"I am delighted to be able to receive you. I am Vice Rector of the University and Assistant to the director of the Monsignor Romero Pastoral Center. I also give classes in Old Testament and in theology, and I assist Father Sobrino [Father Jon Sobrino, who had escaped the massacre two years before because he was out of the country at the time.] in editing "Letters to the Churches," a bi-weekly journal published by the University. I have been here two years since they killed my associates.

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Eleven: ONUSAL

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

 

Tuesday, 15 October 1991 - 2:20 PM - ONUSAL (United Nations Observer Mission in El Salvador)

The ONUSAL headquarters is located in the Sheraton Hotel, high atop the ridge overlooking Escalon [an elite neighborhood in San Salvador]. As the van makes its way through the broad streets of this wealthy neighborhood, with its lavish mansions hidden behind high brick walls and barbed wire barricades, we wonder how many poor peasants will be able or willing to make this daunting trip in order to denounce the injustices they have experienced. The entrance to the Sheraton courtyard is guarded by armed soldiers who are not certain at first if they want to let us pass. We are more uneasy entering what is supposed to be a UN safe haven than we have been at any other visit this year.

Once in the lobby we are kept waiting for ten to fifteen minutes, then taken to one of the upper floors and seated around a conference table in an office which had quite obviously until recently been a regular hotel room. Jake introduces the group to the ONUSAL representative, Ingrid Kircher, a young woman from Austria who mentions that she had worked for Amnesty International before joining this mission.

"ONUSAL is part of the whole peace process. There were two major initial meetings: in April 1990 both sides committed to continuing negotiations; then in May 1990 in Venezuela they set up the agenda for the negotiations. The first agreement which was concluded, signed on 26 July 1990, covered human rights and provided for an observer mission to be set up after a cease fire had gone into effect. But the commission in April 1991 decided that both sides to the negotiations and the people themselves wanted the mission set up as soon as possible.

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Ten: CRIPDES

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Tuesday, 15 October 1991 – 9:00 AM – CRIPDES

Once again we are on familiar territory as we enter the CRIPDES offices and clinic. Last year we left the bus a block away and walked quickly and quietly to the location. This year the van pulls right up into the courtyard; our driver is proud to bring us to his home base. We view with delight the architect's model of a substantially enlarged clinic which is on display in the reception room. This represents their hope and their goal for the future.

After we are seated in the meeting room, Sally introduces our group, saying how glad we are to return and to see the improvements and expansion that they have made since last year. She also expresses our deep concern for Mirtala's safety, and describes the actions we had taken to help to secure her visa to enter the United States. We are speaking with Elizabeth, who works in the secretariat of relations.

"Thank you for all that you have done for our organization and for our companion. In the end there were five different threats against Mirtala and against CRIPDES. What they are always trying to do is to terrorize us, hoping that we will disappear. But they have never been able to do this. So thank you for all that you have done. We know that we are not alone; there are many international supporters who will respond.

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Nine: Fr. Antonio Canas

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Monday, 14 October 1991 – 3:00 PM – At the UCA (University of Central America)

We arrive early on campus for our meeting with Fr. Antonio Canas so stop in the cafeteria for drinks. I order tea, which turns out to be an herbal tea with sugar already added, not at all what I had wanted and too sweet to be refreshing. There are definite disadvantages to not drinking carbonated beverages. The cafeteria itself is a pleasant structure, open on three sides, with tables and benches in rows, looking more like a fast-food restaurant than an academic institution.

From the cafeteria we walk over to the administration building and are seated in a meeting room. Fr. Canas begins the discussion by asking if there are any specific areas which we want to explore. As our delegates speak, he takes notes on a small pad that he has brought with him.

Linda: Please discuss military reform and the underlying social conditions which caused the war.

Gregg: I am concerned about foreign aid, especially that which comes with strings attached, encouraging privatization. How will that affect Salvadoran society?

George: Would you speak about the role of DEBATE both now and in the future, in the reconstruction.

Linda: When we return to the U.S., we have appointments scheduled in Washington. What is it important for us to stress to our Congressional representatives?

"I have been working for seven years here at the University in information, as editor of the journal 'Processo' and also as a professor. This work is dedicated to analyzing and unraveling the political and economic situation in the country. This is the task that Fr. Ellacuria gave us, and it is one reason that he was killed. [Ignacio Ellacuria SJ was one of the six Jesuit professors at the UCA who, along with their housekeeper and her daughter, were assassinated by the military on November 16, 1989.]

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Eight: Dental Clinic

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Monday, 14 October 1991 - 1:00 PM - The Dental Clinic

We are back in familiar territory for several of us, having visited this clinic last year, and we are eager to learn what advances they have made since we were here before. There is also the pleasure of having Sally, who works as a dental technician, with us this time, since she had not been able to make the visit last year. We are seated on wooden benches in an open garage area, talking with O., who had been one of our guides the previous time and who recognizes us as repeat visitors.

"Welcome to our country. Thank you for coming to see the reality that we have. Our project specifically is the formation of dental promoters. Here we train people in how to extract teeth, cleaning, denture making and fitting; and we build the equipment needed to do these things.

"Owing to the situation in our country, 90% of our projects are installed in the countryside where there is no electricity, so we need to buy generators. This means that our dental promoters must also be trained in generator maintenance. Our project is now about five years old. It came out of the need of the people, as there was no government program around. Before we started, campesinos had to walk nearly all day to get to a clinic for one extraction. This meant a whole day lost, with the danger of leaving a conflicted area, spending money for transportation and food, and of course losing the day's wages.

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Seven: Lutheran University

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Monday, 14 October 1991 – 8:30 AM - The Lutheran University

We leave the guest house before eight in the morning, planning to stop and exchange dollars for colones on the way to the university, but find that the exchange does not open until 8:30, so continue on and are a bit early for our appointment. While we sit waiting for our host, Gary gives us some background information on the Salvadoran press. There are two morning papers, both of which are extremely right wing. Of the two afternoon papers, only Diario Latino can be considered progressive. El Mundo will at least take paid ads from the popular organizations. Diario Latino, on the other hand, will even carry FMLN press releases.

Señora Alva Zuri Molina, the General Secretary of the University, enters and introduces herself. Later we also talk with Rene Mauricio Mejia, the Admissions Director.

"Thank you for your visit here in the fifth year of your work. Your activities have been serving the interests of our people.

"From 1989, when your previous delegation visited us, until now our growth has accelerated. Programs have been developed and fulfilled. The first stage of the modification of this building has taken place. We have prepared eight classrooms, which allows us to serve 200 to 300 students simultaneously. We have also built administrative offices, and the personnel and administrative sectors occupy permanent facilities. We have prepared professor's offices to allow them individual privacy. The pastoral center has been developed. We are now working on the cafeteria, which will be the final area to be done in the first phase of renovation. The library is complete with about 3000 volumes. (Project Via Crucis raised $10,000.00 for this library in 1989.) Later we'll go take a look at it!

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Six: Sunday Evening

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Sunday, 13 October 1991 – Evening in the Guest House

As I write this, there is a frisbee game going on in the living room of the guest house. Sally is playing with Felicita's two younger children, with Gregg and Wanda looking on.

We have had a bit of a chance to meet the other delegation. They are Presbyterians from Alberta, Canada, near Calgary. There are eight of them, I think, with a female pastor as leader. It appears to be a senior citizens group, with one younger woman among them.

Nancy has arranged a craft fair for us at the guest house. The Canadian delegation did their shopping while we were at Exodus 29 October, and now it is our turn. There are representatives from several different craft organizations, including 22nd of April. We gather first in the living room to hear introductions, including a request from Project Salvador to carry crafts back with us when we return to the states, and an opportunity to subscribe to an English language edition of Letters to the Churches, the periodical from which the stories in the Springs book were drawn. I agree to the first and take advantage of the second. Then we scatter to the tables to look over the wares of the gathered artisans. This is a wonderful opportunity for us to shop at our leisure, and for the artisan groups who depend on international delegations for the bulk of their sales to have our undivided attention.

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Five: Community Exodus 29 October

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Sunday, 13 October 1991 – 2:30 PM - Exodus 29 October

We are visiting a community on the outskirts of San Salvador which was occupied on 29 October 1989 by people who had been displaced by a bad storm. They occupied previously vacant land and put up housing with the help of the CCM, The Council of Marginalized Communities. Our guide through the community is A., a member of the CCM directorate. CCM provided the tin siding, and the rest the people had done for themselves. Before coming here some had lived along the banks of the sewage rivers which run through the capital, or in tenements which had fallen down. Others had been evicted from their homes when the rent got too high.

After they were established, they asked the city for permits to hook up to the city water and electric supplies, but there was no action for months. So they tapped into the water main and into the power lines themselves. Once the city saw that the hook-ups were an established fact, the permits were issued. Now both electricity and water are legal and metered. Water is available to them on week-ends and after 6:00 PM on week-days, but all day during the week it is turned off.

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Four: Resurrection Lutheran

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Sunday, 13 October 1991 - Morning Worship

After the talk [Saturday evening] we have an orientation meeting to go over the schedule and house rules, then to bed around 9:00 PM, which is 11:00 PM according to our not-yet-readjusted body clocks. I sleep fairly well, but am up several times. Finally up for good, showered and dressed around 6:00 AM. Breakfast had been scheduled for 8:00, but we are all up and around well before that time, so we eat around 7:15, then hold a short meeting and walk to church, accompanied by Felicita's two younger children.

Because of the international conference just ending, there are quite a few visiting ministers and bishops in the congregation. The service begins almost on time – about 9:40 AM. As usual, Medardo forms the procession out on the sidewalk in front of the church, brilliant and vulnerable in his red chasuble. Linda has brought her service book, so we are able to follow the liturgy. The processional hymn is Ein' Feste Burg [A Mighty Fortress], with a Latin rhythm. Unfortunately, the Spanish words are not in the service book, so all we can do is hum along.

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Three: Evening Conversation in the Guest House

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Saturday, 12 October 1991 - 7:00 PM

We are gathered in the living room for our first meeting, and as he did last year, Father T. has come from one of the local parishes to talk with us about the current situation in the country. He has brought with him M., who works with Christian base communities in another parish. They request that we list some of our questions, and then they will try to address these issues in particular during their talk. The delegation asks for the churches' view on the negotiations [Peace talks were then on-going, resulting in the signing of a Peace Accord early in 1992]; changes which have taken place since last year; is military reform possible? and a discussion of the recent persecution of educators. Just as Father T. is about to begin, a woman enters the room and is introduced as Th., who works with expectant mothers and newborn infants, and also with M. on Bible study.

"Let me say this first. In this country, through the efforts of the negotiations, even though not all of the agreements have been signed yet, to this point there are things which have not been fulfilled, but the agreements have opened spaces at every level - for the popular organizations, political parties, churches. In the years before the accords, there was a continuous struggle for economic justice, for the right to organize ourselves, for human rights, land reform, against the impunity of the armed forces. We had all of these issues as struggles, but with the accords, there is something concrete for the people to grab onto. Before there was no legal structure (to back us up), even though our struggles were legitimate and just. From the point of view of the government, anything which came out of the popular organizations was seen as illegitimate. So the accords are legitimizing forces, opening spaces in which we can work.

PVC 1991 Delegation – Part Two: The Flight In

 

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Saturday, 12 October 1991

9:23 AM - We are airborne at last. We started boarding the plane at just about the time we were supposed to have taken off.

I left work yesterday just a few minutes before five, was at Mary's house about twenty after six, and we had the car loaded and were on the road by 6:30 PM. There was a light rain, but nothing like what it had been earlier in the day. When we stopped about 8:20 PM at the single rest stop on I95 between Baltimore and Washington, we met Linda, Betsy, Linda's husband Russ, and her sister Donna coming in as we were leaving. A bit later two accidents within a mile of each other just at the I95-495 split at the Washington beltway held us up for a while, but not terribly long. The far worse traffic jam was going onto I95, not our direction. We reached the Hampton Inn at 9:30.

George followed us into the lobby. Linda and her crew had just gotten there. Everyone else had arrived earlier. After some confusion, rooms were sorted out: 237 - Mary, Jake, Marian; 239 - Linda, Betsy, Lucy, Kathy; 243 - Gregg, George, Sally, Wanda. There was no meeting for reflection or devotions; Lucy and Kathy were already in bed. We got settled and lights out in our room by 10:30, but had very fitful sleep.

When the wake-up call came at 5:00 AM, I was already wide awake. The buffet breakfast in the lobby was just being set out when we entered. Vans had been arranged for 6:30 and 7:00, but at 6:30 they called the Holiday Inn van to help and loaded everybody but George, Gregg, and me. We followed at 7:00, arriving at the airport about 7:20 to discover Linda at the ticket counter and all the rest being treated as a group. So much for acting like separate couples at the airport. George lost track of one bag in the confusion. We will hope that it was checked through and will be waiting for us in El Salvador. (It was.)

PVC 1991 Delegation - Part 1: The Delegates

 

The following notes have been edited to correct errors and to add explanations and updates. Parenthetical notes and remarks from the original are enclosed in parentheses. Present day [2022] updates are italicized and enclosed in square brackets.

Project Via Crucis is a Pennsylvania-based ministry committed to building mutually empowering relationships between communities of faith here and communities of faith served by the Lutheran Church of El Salvador. The work of Project Via Crucis includes accompaniment of our Salvadoran sisters and brothers through delegations; sharing our resources by assisting Salvadoran communities with economic aid and projects that facilitate self-sufficiency; educating people in the United States about El Salvador; and advocacy on behalf of the Salvadoran poor to promote respect for human rights, non-violent resolution of conflict, and a society built on a just peace. (Statement of Purpose adopted September 1991.)

This ministry has sent a delegation to El Salvador each October since its founding in 1987, and with each passing year our relationships with the people we visit have deepened and broadened. In early 1991, after a lengthy process of discussion and discernment, Project Via Crucis committed itself to a sister relationship with a cluster of congregations associated with the Lutheran Church in the department of San Miguel. We did this knowing that San Miguel has had very little international attention, that it is an extremely militarized area, and that the Lutheran work there had been dealt a major set-back by the assassination of Pastor David Fernandez in 1984, a blow from which the congregations were only now recovering. We also knew that San Miguel was the family home of Bishop Medardo Gomez, and that the work there was again growing under the leadership of a dynamic young pastor, Walter Baires. The messages we were receiving indicated that sistering with San Miguel would be much more difficult than with one of the already conscienticized and thriving parishes nearer the capital, but that PVC had proven itself capable of fulfilling commitments over the years and that we would be equal to the challenge.