Sister Parish, Inc.

Guatemala Representative's Meeting, October 2009

Participants:
Las Margaritas 2: Ramiro and Ricardo
San Andres Itzapa: Otto and Juan
Sepalau: Oralando and Daniel
UPAVIM: Dina, Silvia, Esperanza, and Esmirna
Tierra Nueva 1: Lester, Noe and Andres
Tierra Nueva 2: Mario and Miriam
Chontala: Lorenzo and Tomas
Chichipate: Pedro and Francisco

Saturday, October 10th

The meeting began with a prayer and a welcome led by the Directive President, Dina from UPAVIM.

Educational theme: Global Warming

We wasted no time jumping into the discussion of global warming, the theme that had been selected for the meeting. Sergio, Sister Parish staff, facilitated the presentation. He began by asking the participants what they know about the theme, which everyone soon realized was very little. Sergio explained what global warming is, the causes and consequences of the problem and finally the solutions available in our communities to reduce the impact that this problem will have on our children’s future. During the presentation the representatives asked questions and gave examples from their experiences. Noe from TN1 had experience using water filters made with sand, solar water filters and improved ovens that save on energy.

Then we enjoyed a lunch prepared by Berta from Tierra Nueva 1.

After lunch, we continued with the education theme, breaking into small groups to discuss a number of questions about how global warming affects communities and families. Representatives were given an opportunity to share experiences and look for solutions. Many people shared that they had noticed an increase in the temperature in their communities, as well as a change in weather patterns, specifically the drought affecting Guatemala this year.

Next the UPAVIM representatives led a group activity that emphasized personal motivation. Basically the activity was a variation of hot potatoe, but with a ball of small papers that they called a cabbage. When you ended up with the cabbage, you had to do the task that was written on the outermost piece of paper. The representative’s antics revived the group and provided many laughs.

Sharing experiences among communities

UPAVIM explained that they are a women’s cooperative that have had success in many of their programs, but also that some have not worked out as they had hoped. Many of the women involved in UPAVIM are single moms that began with UPAVIM in order to support their children.

LM2 representatives explained the scholarship program that they are facilitating in their community. They also talked about the successful Medical Mission carried out in their community last year.

Chontala representatives talked about the Sister Parish committee that recently formed in their community. They have little direct experience with Sister Parish meetings and were pleased to be able to participate on this occasion.

Sepalau representative also shared that there are new people participating in the committee in their community. The new representatives were also very pleased to be able to participate. They shared that they are working on the second phase of a chicken farm project.

San Andres Itzapa shared their experienced working with a group of scholarship students from their community school, Chay Balam. They have been working together with their brothers and sisters from Blacksburg from many years.

Tierra Nueva 1 also explained that they are new to the Sister Parish committee and representative’s meeting. They are looking for new people to participate in their group in TN1 and continue to seek out information about how to start a project that will benefit their relationship and their community.

Tierra Nueva 2 stated that they also work with scholarship students, as well as with women from their community. Miriam talked about the recent delegation from TN2 o St. Joan of Arc and how they always feel like they are going to visit family when they go to SJA.

Chichipate representatives also explained that they are content and grateful to be able to participate in the meeting. They also talked about the typing school project that they work on, together with their brothers and sisters from St. Thomas. This year the typing school will graduate 18 students and will certify 40 total.

Sister Parish staff shared information from activities in the north, including the Northern Assembly of Churches that took place in Decorah in August, as well as the upcoming meeting of the Board of Directors in Louisville in November.

In the evening, representatives watched the film “An Inconvenient Truth,” the Al Gore film about global warming. Everyone was worried about this situation and discussed different ways to decrease the affects of the phenomenon in our communities.

After dinner, the Guatemalan Directive met with Sergio to plan Sister Parish activities for the upcoming year.

Sunday, October 11th

After breakfast, we celebrated an ecumenical service led by the Directive. Representatives from Chichipate, Chontala and Sepalau led the singing, while Ricardo from Las Margaritas 2, gave the reading.

After the service we discussed and explained again the project guidelines. Representatives from TN2, San Andres Itzapa and UPAVIM shared their experience in developing and facilitating projects together with their brothers and sisters in the north.

Sister Parish staff shared that the Solidarity Delegation would be arriving soon and would be visiting UPAVIM, TN2 and San Andres Itzapa.

Finally, the Directive explained the calendar for 2010 activities, including the Southern Encounter planned for August. It was voted to learn about the Mayan Cosmovision during the upcoming representatives meeting next spring.

A Delegation from Tierra Nueva 1 to Association Unidas Para Vivir Mejor (UPAVIM)

I would like to share with all our friends from Sister Parish a reflection from the visit that Tierra Nueva 1 made to UPAVIM (United to Live Better). The trip was for one day, but it gave both communities the opportunity to meet new people, and to share experiences and ideas. It was the first time that these two communities visited each other. Representatives from TNI included, Lester, Rhina, Gary, Noe, Noe’s daughter, Cintia, Aury and Andres.

The Montessori school group welcomed us. They began the tour by explaining the work that they do to support their community and how they started the Montessori program. While we were walking through different areas, Angela Bylon, one of the leaders of UPAVIM, explained the history of the building. Angela and others also explained the different programs including the nursing program, primary school, clinic, library, bakery and the work in the crafts-textiles shop of 80+ women from the community of La Esperanza, the neighborhood where UPAVIM is located. The UPAVIMAs also showed Tierra Nueva 1 a new recycling program that they are implementing. They demonstrated all of the things that we can do with the trash that many people just throw away.

On the third floor where the workshop, administrative offices, store and meeting room are located, we met Barbara Lorriane, a long time Sister Parish supporter. She was happy to tell us the history of how she started to work with a few ladies about 20 years ago. She said that while many things had changed, the spirit of work with the group is the same.

During the visit the two communities realized that they both share relationships with two of the founding women of Sister Parish in the North. The Northern hermanamiento of TN1 includes one of the founders of Sister Parish. The UPAVIM group has a relationship with Barbara, who was a witness to Sister Parish from the start.

We had a great meeting because both communities shared their history and learned how each one started to participate with Sister Parish. Tierra Nueva 1 asked for ideas about how to start a project that benefits both communities in the north and south. They would like to start a solidarity project, but wanted to hear from people who had more experience. UPAVIM offered support and also offered to help facilitate a workshop in the community of Tierra Nueva 1.

Barbara motivated both groups with encouraging words, saying that we all need to organize more, to have happiness, hope and humor. She said that it is important to work together and in this way they can achieve anything that they want. Barbara lives in the US and travels a couple times of year to spend a few months at UPAVIM to develop new crafts, to implement new programs and to motivate the UPAVIM group.

We had lunch together, in the store room and we were delighted by the crafts that the UPAVIM women make to sell in different areas of Guatemala, as well as in the United States. Most of the programs of the UPAVIM cooperative are economically supported by the crafts sales. This type of economically sustainable project is a prime example of the kinds of projects Sister Parish encourages in other communities.

At the end both communities said that the visit was satisfying and educational. They hope that we can do this more often with other communities in Guatemala. Of course, visits from the U.S. are also welcome!

Pictures of the visit can be found on the left hand side of the page.

Shared by Guatemala Sister Parish staff, Sergio Balan

Community Leader Killed by Private Security Guards

The following events took place near the Sister Parish community of Chichipate, Izabal, Guatemala. Sister Parish committee members have been personally affected by this repression.

On Sunday, September 27th, approximately 150 private security agents from the Canadian owned, Guatemalan Nickel Company (CGN), members of the National Police and Departmental Governor arrived unannounced in the community of Las Nubes in the department of Izabal.

Because the governor was accompanied by such a large show of force and taking into account the violent land evictions and repression that occurred in this region two years ago, the community members believed that a land eviction was likely to take place. The governor fueled this perception by stating, “CGN pays taxes and you don’t.” She did not posses any documentation that would have allowed for a so called, legal land eviction. Shortly thereafter, community members from La Union (located on the outskirts of El Estor) arrived to support the people of Las Nubes.

Community members from Las Nubes and La Union began to walk to El Estor to denounce the eviction threat. While walking they were ambushed and shot at by the private security forces. One person was killed and 8 people were gravely injured.

The following day a micro bus transporting community leaders to a workshop in Cobán was ambushed and shot at, killing one person other and seriously injuring at least two others. Rights Action, a Canada based solidarity organization, organized this workshop and are actively resisting the CGN projects and land evictions, as are the community leaders that they work with. This attack is not considered an isolated incident, but rather a continuation of the repression being carried out by CGN and the local police and government.

WHAT TO DO

WRITE TO HUDBAY MINERALS - WITH COPIES TO YOUR OWN POLITICIANS - ASKING THEM:
To suspend all work at the Fenix Project mine site;
To make public which of their private security forces were involved in the one attack, and possibly both attacks;
To fully cooperate with any and all investigations - legal or otherwise - that look into these crimes.

HUDBAY MINERALS
C/O Manager Investor Relations
Dundee Place, Suite 2501
1 Adelaide Street East
Toronto, Ontario, M5C 2V9, Canada

Peter R. Jones, Chief Executive Officer and Director
Michael D. Winship, President and Chief Operating Officer

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Please continue reading below for information written by Rights Action as it give historical background important to understanding the situation in the region. This is a complex land struggle that dates back many years.

BACKGROUND

Since the 1960s, Canadian nickel companies have been working on what could one day become one of the world’s largest nckel mines. The initial concession was obtained in 1962, in the wake of the United States-CIA sponsored 1954 military coup that initiated 40 years of military governments and extreme repression.

The area that the Canadian nickel giant INCO obtained would have been subject to agrarian reform had the 1954 military coup not taken place. There are historical Maya Qeqchi land claims to all the land that INCO “bought”, putting in question the ownership question going back to well before the arrival of nickel mining companies.

The prime nickel deposits were located in and also north of the lands INCO allegedly purchased, so INCO unilaterally and illegally re-drew their land title map to include an area known as the “Lotes”, to the north of the land they “purchased”.

The “Lotes” are thus called because the large swath of land had been measured into lots for the purpose of giving legal title to Maya Qeqchi communities (each one with its own lot) that traditionally had possessed the lands but which never had been properly titled.

In the 1970s, INCO’s illegal usurpation of the lands, that communities had struggled for decades to acquire title, resulted in high levels of tension between the Maya Qeqchi communities, INCO and local cattle ranchers that INCO maintained close relations with – INCO ‘leased’ land to cattle ranchers.

(This strategy of leasing land to armed cattle ranchers has been implemented in different countries and is one of the origins of paramilitary organizations, like the AUC in Colombia. In Guatemala, this is the origin of some of the strongest organized crime networks.)

As the tensions grew, and community resistance grew to being forcibly evicted by INCO, INCO resorted to repression in collaboration with the Guatemalan regime.

During the 1970s, community leaders were kidnapped by death squads and tortured in INCO offices. Repression against nickel-mining affected communities grew through the late 1970s, until the country-wide violence and genocidal massacres of the 1980s contributed to the closing (moth-balling) of INCO’s mining operations. They maintained their (ill-gotten) mining liscence and (questionable) ownership of the land.

After the signing of Guatemala’s so-called “peace accords” in 1996, executives associated with the INCO project in the 1970s purchased from INCO the rights to the concessión and land, and formed a new company, Skye Resources Inc, and began to reactivate the mining operations in El Estor, which they called the Fenix Project.

The Fenix Project, as it is currently proposed, would be one of the world’s larges nickel mines, and small Skye Resources – not a major company - seemed unlikely to develop it. In 2008, Skye was purchased by HudBay Minerals, which maintains the project as a high profile in their portfolio (http://www.hudbayminerals.com/index.php), though the project is on hold while project financing is being developed.

Tensions mounted in 2005-2007, as then-Skye began to prepare the moth-balled nickel mining plant and terrain for a new beginning. In 2006 and 2007, there were 5 very violent, illegal forced evictions of local Maya Qeqchi communities, including deaths and gang rapes, that were carried out by the Guatemalan military and police, by CGN security forces and off-duty CGN employees, and contractors.

Since that time, many other communities continued to live under constant threat of eviction. Two such communities are La Union and Las Nubes, those affected in the attempted massacre, assassination and forced disappearance that occurred yesterday, September 27.

The mini-bus that Rights Action had rented, that was shot up by automatic weapons early today (September 28), was carrying leaders from communities that have been in conflict with Hudbay Minerals/CGN as they attempt to defend their land rights. Though this kind of highway attack is also the kind of attack carried out by organized crime, Rights Action believes that this morning’s attack may well be related to yesterday’s attack and killing.

The crimes and repression carried out in the past by INCO together with the army and death squads, have never been investigated or tried in any court, though some of them were reported on in the 1999 United Nations Truth Commission. Does CGN (Hudbay) today have relations with some of the same state elements and hired thugs and killers as INCO in the past?

Rights Action, September 28, 2009
www.rightsaction.org

Responding in the Spirit of Sister Parish

In May 2008, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) conducted the single-biggest immigration raid to date at the Agro-Processors plant in Postville, Iowa. The faith community, including the Sister Parish committee at the First United Methodist Church in Decorah responded to the fall-out caused by the raid. Some months later, workers from Palau were brought in to work at the plant, but by that time Agro-Processors was bankrupt and the workers from Palau were left in crisis.

One of those workers was bound for Seattle, Washington, and Nikki Nichols, a member the Sister Parish committee of Wallingford United Methodist Church, responded to a call for help from the committee in Decorah.

Jay’s Story

This is the story of Junias Blesam, also known as Jay, who came to my house on December 12, 2008. Jay was one of the victims of the Agro-Processors debacle.

Kathi Mitchell from Decorah Methodist church contacted Wallingford United Methodist Church‘s lay leader and former Sister Parish board member, Tom Pouliot, and asked him if he could meet Jay and take him to a shelter when he arrived in Seattle. When Kathi made the call, Jay had already begun the 55-hour bus ride from Iowa to Seattle. Tom put the word out for someone to meet Jay.

I called Kathi and asked her about Jay. She assured me that he was an honest and good person. I met Jay at the 9 pm bus on that cold winter night and brought him home. Since it was unlikely that he would have gotten into a shelter, I invited Jay to stay with me for a while. For the first 4 months I did not charge him anything, but in April I asked him to begin paying a minimal amount for rent, which was mostly to cover a portion of the utilities.

When Jay arrived he had no idea how to use the computer so I helped him register for free computer classes at the library and got him an e-mail address. He wanted to get a driver’s license so I helped him establish residency and loaned him my car for his test. That process took about 2 months. Jay also went to a job readiness class then took the 8 week CDL (commercial driver’s license) training class and did quite well. He had to catch the 5:30 am bus Monday through Friday, and got home around 8 at night. He is looking for work in that arena now, a challenge in and of itself. Jay has learned a lot and has had to adapt a great deal to this culture. Though it’s tiring for him, he is doing a pretty good job.

In order to pay his rent, I helped Jay find jobs with my friends, several of whom are from the church. He is doing gardening, painting and other residential work and people are consistently pleased with his quality of work. We are both hoping that he’ll be able to get driving work soon.

Why did I invite Jay into my home and then provide housing for him for so many months?

Jay was a total stranger, a person in need, a homeless person

• In Matthew 25:35 it says I was a stranger and you invited me in –blessed are you.

Hospitality is something I have valued for many years and yet I felt as though I had not provided enough of it. This was an opportunity to provide hospitality for the stranger in need.

• I had wanted to do something for the homeless for a while but did not know how, especially because I live alone and did not want to put myself at risk. With Jay I had been given a character referral by Kathi Mitchell and her description fit what I was able to offer.

• As a world traveler for all my life, I have been a recipient of many people’s generosity. This was a chance to give back. It was an especially attractive opportunity because Jay is an immigrant.

The Mexicans in Chiapas are an example of generosity that has inspired me ever since the 1980s when I learned the story. Hundreds of Guatemalans fled their country during the war and went to the very dry scrub brush area of Chiapas. Although the Mexican population there had hardly enough to keep themselves alive, they shared what they had –splitting even their last tortilla in half to provide for their Guatemalan brothers and sisters.

Sister Parish hosts in El Salvador have provided for me, despite the fact that I am much wealthier, financially speaking, than they are. They have shown me their wealth in spirit.

I want to follow these examples.

Written by Nikki Nichols

FMLN creates Commission for the Disappeared

Seventeen years after the signing of the peace accords, the government of El Salvador has announced the creation of a Commission for the Disappeared. Previously the work of reconnecting families was done by the NGO Pro-Búsqueda, which was founded by the Jesuit Priest Jon Cortina that lived and worked in Sister Parish communities in El Salvador for 20 years. The Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES), reported on this and other news on their blog http://www.cispes.org/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=624&Itemid=1

On Monday, August 31, Minister of Foreign Affairs Hugo Martinez announced that the government of El Salvador will create a Commission for the Disappeared to investigate cases of children forcibly disappeared and separated from their families during the Civil War. Martinez will ask President Mauricio Funes to decree an executive order for the creation of the Commission during the 15th anniversary celebration of the non-governmental organization Pro-Búsqueda. Since 1994, Pro-Búsqueda has investigated cases of disappeared children and reunited 214 people with their families. Reyna Portillo of Pro-Búsqueda notes that this will mark the first time that their organization has had a relationship with the government.

During the Civil War in El Salvador, the Armed Forces and other State security forces were responsible for the separation of many children from their families. According to Pro-Búsqueda, some of these children were literally torn from the arms of their parents, although the majority became orphans after State-sponsored massacres and armed confrontations. Such children, found amongst the cadavers following military massacres, were given away, sent abroad for adoption, or eventually put to work in the Armed Forces. Martinez said that he believes that the government should recognize its responsibility to the separated families. He explained that previous administrations refused to acknowledge the disappearances and he emphasized the importance of these investigations for the historical memory of the country. “Forgetting is laying the groundwork for other boys and girls in our country to continue being [forcibly] disappeared,” said Martinez.