Letter from the Coordinator 2006-08-29

It is a great pleasure to link up with you again through this Letter from the Coordinator, my second since June this year. I had hoped to send you one on a monthly basis, but my workload and unusually heavy travel commitments for the rest of the year would seem to preclude a project more ambitious than a bimonthly letter.

Drawing much of our attention at this time is the unabated political slayings in the Philippines which have reached outrageous proportions, with yet another pastor from the United Methodist Church felled by assassins’ bullets only last month. This brings to 21 church workers, nine of whom priests and pastors, who have been martyred for their work among the poor under the increasingly isolated Macapagal-Arroyo dispensation. The unprecedented spate of extra-judicial killings that have victimized more than 700 activists since the onset of the war on terror in 2001 have thus been the main subject of most of my meetings during recent travels and international gatherings I had the privilege of attending.

But the tremendous response from the churches and partners all over the world, specially from the US, Canada, Japan, Australia, Hong Kong, South Korea and Norway, have been a source of much strength and encouragement. Particularly notable were the series of high-profile visits from international church leaders, e.g., the United Methodist Church (UMC) of the USA and the National Christian Council of Japan, which brought to Manila recently Continuation Committee (CC) member Michinori Mano and network participant Toshifumi Aso. Growing international and local outcry over military atrocities have now prompted the government to create a commission to investigate the killings.

We are grateful that many partners have taken up the Philippine issue and the role of empire, for instance, the United Church of Canada (UCC) which invited me, along with several global partners including CC member Eugenio Poma of the WCC Indigenous People’s Program, to participate in their recently concluded 39th General Council meeting held in Thunder Bay, Ontario on August 12-20, 2006. I was most privileged to represent Peace for Life in this triennial gathering of 800 church leaders from all parts of Canada. I was even more privileged to give a testimony on our experience of empire, at the plenary presentation of the Report on “Living Faithfully in the Midst of Empire”, a two-year project undertaken under the auspices of UCC’s Justice, Global and Ecumenical Relations (JGER) Ministry headed by leading PfL partner Omega Bula. The report provides a compelling theological critique of empire based on the witness of UCC’s global partners from Asia, Africa, Latin America/Caribbean, Middle East, and the Pacific. Prefaced by a confession of church complicity in empire, the report was overwhelmingly endorsed for urgent action by the General Council, UCC’s highest decision-making body. Also resonating deeply with Peace for Life is the newly adopted poetic rendition of “Statement of Faith”, which lamented complicity with empires, systems of domination and demonic powers.

The Council meeting gave me the opportunity to touch base with network participants I had not seen for sometime, Rhea Whitehead and Bob Smith, who both provided leadership and support to PfL during its infancy. Earlier in Toronto before the Council meeting, I had fruitful conversations on continuing partnership between UCC and PfL as well as support for a proposed Philippine conference in North America with Bern Jagunos, UCC-JGER area secretary for East Asia and member of our Continuation Committee.

Meanwhile US churches, in cooperation with Canadian churches, are currently looking at a proposal to hold a major solidarity activity in the US next year that will center around the presentation of a UN report by a high-level delegation from the Philippines during next March’s Ecumenical Advocacy Days in Washington. CC member Levi Bautista, who is co-chair of the Philippine Working Group, a subgroup of the Christian World Service Asia Task Force, is taking the lead in this important initiative. The proposed undertaking, which may include an international solidarity conference, was taken up at my various meetings in New York on September 5-9, particularly with PfL colleagues in the UMC-USA who are among the initiators of the project: David Wildman, Mia Adjali and Levi. David, who was unable to join us in Hong Kong, gave reassurances that he is still very much on board, while Mia who is with the Women’s Division of the General Board of Global Ministries (UMC-USA) expressed enthusiasm for a possible joint project on women and war. I also had occasion to discuss, among other issues, ecumenical responses on the alarming situation in the Philippines with partner Brian Grieves of the Episcopal Church of USA and Lester Ruiz, CC member and newly appointed academic dean of the New York Theological Seminary.

Also of special interest to Peace for Life is the attention that the whole issue of empire is generating now among progressive ecumenical leaders and theologians. You will have by now received the 17-page theological declaration on global empire issued by a landmark international consultation convened by the Geneva-based World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) and hosted by our Peace for Life secretariat, along with the United Church of Christ in the Philippines, in Manila on July 12-15. Drafted by some of the most progressive theologians associated with WARC, it is the strongest and most comprehensive theological critique of empire ever undertaken. WARC’s outgoing executive secretary for Cooperation and Witness and CC member, Seong Won Park, organized the three-day meeting, which also issued a strongly-worded statement condemning political killings in the Philippines. A number of people participating in said event are CC members and leading network participants: Chris Ferguson, Ninan Koshy, Ulrich Duchrow, Bishop Erme Camba, Sr. Mary John Mananzan, Omega Bula, and Kim Yong Bock, with whom I shared panel time on the subject, “Signs of the Times”. Yong Bock is convening in October a drafting workshop for the Peace Charter in time for the opening celebration of the Bell Park of Peace for Life in Hwacheon, South Korea.

Following the consultation, our secretariat organized a public forum on “Theology in the Era of Empire” featuring PfL-related speakers in the WARC consultation. Attended by more than 300 Filipino church leaders and activists as well theology professors and students in local seminaries, the meeting provided an opportunity for local Christians to engage with WARC leaders on the discourse of empire.

The secretariat has had its hands full during the past two months, addressing various proposals arising from the meeting of the Working Group (WG) held in Kathmandu in conjunction with the Nepal peace and solidarity mission in May. We have continued monitoring developments in Nepal where imperial maneuverings are placing roadblocks on the peace process, which initially showed great promise following the overthrow of the monarchy by a broad people’s movement based on the alliance of seven parliamentary parties and the Maoist rebels early this year.

Meanwhile, preparations have begun full steam for PfL’s interfaith peace festival on “Celebrating Life, our Common Humanity, and Resistance to Empire and War” with focus on South Asia and scheduled to take place in Mumbai on December 1-3. We hope the event will highlight anew the still critical Nepal situation as well as the recent outbreak of hostilities between the government and Tamil rebels in Sri Lanka, which CC member Lakshan Dias has been calling attention to. A Muslim member of our WG, Irfan Engineer, is taking the lead in organizing the activity through the Center for the Study of Secularism which he heads, enlisting the participation of other local groups, the National Council of Churches in India women’s program among others, as well as PfL network participants and CC members in India.

A concept paper on women, war and empire, a project being developed for implementation next year is being drafted with the assistance of WG member Kathryn Poethig. The same theme will be highlighted in our participation at next year’s World Social Forum (WSF) in Nairobi where we plan to hold a women’s festival. Centering on women’s stories of suffering and struggle, the activity is being organized in collaboration with women’s groups in Africa, including the Women for Change in Zambia, headed by CC member Emily Sikazwe. In keeping with our commitment to exert greater effort in the area of interfaith solidarity, the secretariat is drawing up plans together with another Muslim colleague in the WG, Farid Esack, a workshop on theology of liberation from an interfaith perspective to be held at the World Forum on Liberation and Theology, also in Nairobi, just before the WSF.

Moreover, we have started exploring through WG member Gabriel Habib and other colleagues directly involved in the Middle East issue, among them Chris Ferguson, whom I met again in Thunder Bay during the UCC gathering and who is currently connected with a WCC program in Jerusalem, possibilities of holding in October or November next year the next People’s Forum, our second since Davao, in Amman, Jordan. The crisis in Lebanon, where the war on terror is currently being played out to the hiltif by proxyunderlines the tremendous urgency of ending the illegal occupation of Palestine and the US wars of plunder and occupation in Iraq, Afghanistan and the rest of the beleaguered Middle East. This we hope to address as we plan our next People’s Forum in 2007.

Indeed we have been blessed with rich opportunities these past two months for meaningful and fruitful international and local engagement. In the meantime we covet each other’s prayers and solidarity as we in Peace for Life continue to move forward in our common quest for peace and justice.

Yours in solidarity,

Carmencita

CARMENCITA P. KARAGDAG

Coordinator

Peace for Life

Photo Album: WARC Ecumenical Consultation on Faith Stance on Global Empire