Letter from the Coordinator 2006-06-30

Greetings from Germany, where I am currently on the last leg of my 16-day European visit that began in Norway on June 14. I head back to Manila in a few days. This is my first attempt at keeping you in regular touch with our work and travels, so I beg your indulgence for being lengthy. The Letter from the Coordinator, which I plan to write every month, will help ensure that participants and partners of our network are kept in the loop and provided with relevant updates. Very soon we also expect to come out with a regular newsletter.

Peace Mission and PfL Working Group Meeting in Nepal

I trust, meanwhile, that you have all seen our communiqué on the International Solidarity Mission for Peace in Nepal on May 26-31, highlighting our international team’s findings with regards to the encouraging but still volatile developments in Nepal. Among others, it challenged the US, India and UK, not to meddle in Nepal’s internal affairs, particularly the now-ongoing peace negotiations and upcoming constituent assembly, underscoring that the people of Nepal have achieved a level of political awareness and sophistication unseen at any time in their history and, hence, are in the best position to chart their own political future. Hosted by National Council of Churches (NCC) in Nepal general secretary Dr. K.B. Rokaya in cooperation with the local Inter-religious Council and the Citizens Peace Commission, the team was composed of PfL Working Group (WG) members Gabriel Habib, Kathryn Poethig, Irfan Engineer, and myself, as well as Ecumenical Coalition on Tourism head Ranjan Solomon and a team from the NCC India, including Sagarika Chetty, who like Ranjan is a member of the PfL Continuation Committee (CC).

I also hope that our WG members have received the minutes of the meeting on May 25-26 just prior to the Nepal peace mission. This first meeting of the WG centered on program priorities for the next two years and sought to address organizational issues left unresolved during the first meeting of the Continuation Committee mandated by the Davao inaugural forum and assembly in 2004. The CC, which is a body that meets in between people’s forums, convened in Hong Kong in conjunction with international protests during the WTO ministerial meeting last December. It elected a seven-member Working Group, which acts both as an executive committee and an extension of the secretariat. In the selection of WG members’ geographical, gender and religious balance was taken into account. Apart from Gabriel (Gaby), Kathryn (Kerry), and Irfan who also joined the peace mission, others elected to the WG were: Eunice Santana, Farid Esack, Namsoon Kang, and John Jones.

IGNIS Conference in Oslo

Much of this account will center on recent events in Oslo which I visited on the invitation of PfL network participant IGNIS (Institute for Global Networking, Information and Studies) in cooperation with Karibu Foundation. Under the leadership of John Jones, IGNIS convened an international seminar on June 16 on the theme, “Development—the White Man’s Burden? Building Alternatives, Resistance, Mobilization and Justice Seen from the South”. Among the eminent persons who graced the occasion was former President Kenneth Kaunda who traveled all the way from Zambia to honor his long-time colleague, outgoing Karibu director Øystein Tveter, and who also gave an introduction to one of the keynote themes.

I was among the three panelists who responded to the keynote presentation delivered by WCC executive secretary Dr. Rogate Mshana on “Globalization and the Role of the Church”, along with Molefe Tsele, general secretary of the South African Council of Churches and Emily Sikazwe, Director of the Women for Change in Zambia and member of our Continuation Committee. My talk called attention to the emergence of religion as a major ideological force and its dramatic revival since the rise of terrorism, the war on terror and empire. I stressed in my conclusion that “it is incumbent on progressive faith-based communities to reclaim religious space for radical transformative action, which if left uncontested and abandoned solely to so-called religious extremists, can only give free rein to the very forces that would in the end destroy life and demolish the hard-won gains of human civilization.” Dr. Alejandro Bendaña of the Managua-based Centre for Foreign Studies delivered the first keynote address on the subject, “Civil Society in the Age of Market Fundamentalism”. Panel respondents were Hellen Wangusa (also a member of our CC) and three other Filipinos: Antonio Tujan of Ibon and Reality of Aid, Alice Raymundo and Frank Pascual, the latter two representing the former secretariat of the International South Group Network.

Celebrating Øystein Tveter’s 70th Birthday Anniversary in Oslo

The IGNIS conference was also an occasion to honor and celebrate the 70th birth anniversary of Øystein Tveter, a leading partner of PfL and other progressive South initiatives in Asia, Africa and Latin America. Many of you will recall that Øystein, along with Alejandro, was a guest speaker in the NCC Philippines-initiated conference in 2002 on “Terrorism in a Globalized World”, seen as the precursor of the current Peace for Life movement. During the June 16 conference, Øystein was awarded the most coveted King’s Golden Medal of Merit for his “lifelong engagement in the development of human rights and international solidarity work”. County Governor Hans Rorjorde, who presented the award on behalf of His Majesty King Harald V, also cited Øystein’s “outstanding service” in the “frontline state” of Botswana and also South Africa under Apartheid where he sought to promote understanding of and support for the liberation struggle.

More tributes were lavished on Øystein at a formal reception in the evening of June 16 hosted by IGNIS and Karibu Foundation, whose chairperson of the Board, Cecille Nustad, and fellow Board member, Pedder Nustad toasted the honoree, along with other guests from the churches, academe and prestigious institutions like the Nobel Peace Prize. Particularly powerful was the testimony shared by Øystein’s oldest daughter, Anne, a medical doctor and former member of the WCC Central Committee, who concluded that as a man passionately devoted to the liberation of the poor and the oppressed-often at the risk of personal safety, comfort, security, and normal family life-her father was “guilty of being Christian as charged”. In his response to the tributes, Øystein traced his ecumenical journey and narrated how over the years he has been liberated, only “to be bonded in a new way to his fellow humans with whom he shares a passion for another world”. He specially referred to the poor, wherever they may be and regardless of the creed that may be theirs. Similar accolades were once again shared, this time mainly from family and friends, at a garden reception the following day, June 17, hosted by Øystein’s family in their lovely home perched on a forested hill overlooking the city and coastline of Oslo. One of Øystein’s former high school classmates in South Carolina, where he resided for a year as an exchange student, and whom he endearingly calls his American brother, testified with strong emotions that it was Øystein at the tender age of 16 who opened his and his classmates eyes about the horrible injustices suffered by the blacks specially in the American South. The visit to Oslo was also an occasion to be acquainted with Øystein’s successor in Karibu, Eilart Rostrup who will finish his term as international director of YMCA and YWCA. Indeed l consider myself singularly blessed for having taken part in the above activities honoring so deserving a man, a great friend and comrade.

Reality of Aid Workshops on the Philippines and Nepal

Also in Oslo I spoke about the abominable human-rights situation and the spate of political killings aimed against political activists and local mass leaders in the Philippines, which most disturbingly are now taking place with almost daily regularity. As a panel speaker in a workshop on the Philippines organized by Reality of Aid, I drew attention to the escalating state terrorism unleashed by the Macapagal-Arroyo regime as part of the war on terror and of a comprehensive counter-insurgency campaign heavily funded by the US. In another workshop, this time on Nepal, I shared the results of our recently concluded peace and solidarity mission, drawing attention to the geopolitical interests of the US, Great Britain and India in Nepal and the need for heightened international vigilance and solidarity during this extremely fragile period of transition. I also had occasion to take up the issue of Nepal with officials of the Norwegian Foreign Ministry, underscoring PfL’s intention to pursue follow-up work to the Nepal mission, including an international information campaign and a tri-country program involving sharing of experiences on the peace process among the conflict-ridden countries of Nepal, Philippines and Sri Lanka.

Raising Philippine Human Rights Issues in the Netherlands and Germany

After a week in Oslo, I flew to Holland on June 22 where I had the opportunity to take up Philippine human rights issues once again with Ms. Ineke Bakker, general secretary of the NCC in the Netherlands, Archbishop Vercammen, newly elected member of the WCC Central Committee and head of the Old Catholic Church in the Netherlands which has close relations with my church, Iglesia Filipina Independiente, and Rev. Cesar Taguba who is leading a Philippine human rights campaign in the Netherlands. During this visit, I was appraised by Filipino colleagues in the Netherlands of plans to hold in the Hague later this year a Permanent People’s Tribunal (PPT) to try the Macapagal-Arroyo regime for gross human rights violations at the suit of Bayan Muna, a progressive party list organization whose local leaders and activists have borne the brunt of the political slayings. The first PPT session on the Philippines was held in 1980 at the height of the Marcos dictatorship. The same agenda of escalating political violence and human rights abuses was the subject of my meeting on June 29 with colleagues in the Wuppertal-based United Evangelical Mission (UEM), including Jochem Motte, who was part of the WCC-coordinated Pastoral Ecumenical Delegation Visit to the Philippines, a fact-finding, pastoral and solidarity mission initiated by NCCP, together with PfL, in June last year. I shared with European friends plans for an international ecumenical conference on human rights in the Philippines to be held in March 2007 in Stony Point, New York, in which a CC member based in NY, Levi Bautista, is playing a role.

Reviewing PfL Activities in the First Quarter of the Year

This letter will not be complete without recalling major activities that took place earlier in the year. Much of our energies during the first quarter of 2006 had been devoted to activities in connection with the WCC General Assembly in Porto Alegre in February and the polycentric World Social Forum (WSF) for the Asian region in Karachi in March. Around 25 PfL network participants, who were invited to the Assembly in various capacities, joined our solidarity dinner and caucus on February 15. The caucus was a space to strategize on ways of promoting progressive ecumenical and theological discourse in the Assembly particularly on issues of globalization, war on terror, and empire. It helped that Continuation Committee member Gregor Henderson was a rapporteur of the Public Issues Committee and that WG and network members Namsoon Kang and Lei Garcia were panelists in some plenary presentations. Another CC member Seong Won Park and myself served as moderators of two Ecumenical Conversations dealing with issues at the heart of PfL’s concerns: human rights, peace and economic justice. An important activity that PfL specially organized during the Assembly was a very well-received mutirao offering (workshop cum cultural event) that focused on Christian-Muslim solidarity in the face of empire. Panel speakers were Kim Yong Bock, Ninan Koshy, Eunice Santana, Maake Masango and John Jones. Also in the same quarter, PfL continued its involvement in the WSF, organizing this time, with the assistance of the Church of Pakistan in Karachi, a workshop on the same theme of Christian-Muslim solidarity. PfL consultant Vivian de Lima and myself led the workshop held on March 27, which also featured religious leaders, social activists and academics from Pakistan.

This has been a fairly extended letter, being your first Letter from the Coordinator for the year 2006. But before I close and wish you well, let me extend our congratulations to CC members Rev. Ofelia Ortega of Cuba and Dr. Soritua Nababan of Indonesia for having been elected president for Caribbean/Latin America and Asia respectively at the WCC General Assembly in Porto Alegre last February. Still in relation to the Assembly, it may interest you to know that Gregor and myself were reelected to the Central Committee. Congratulations are also due to Kerry Poethig for her recent promotion as associate professor of Global Studies at the California State University. Now that she has a tenured post and cannot be fired, we expect her to do more work for the Working Group.

Till my next letter and wishing you well in our common quest for justice and peace,

Yours in solidarity,

Carmencita

CARMENCITA P. KARAGDAG

Coordinator

Peace for Life