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Friday October 26, 2007

Repudiation and calls for justice follow attack on the office of Justapaz in Bogotá

Repudiation and calls for justice follow attack on the office of Justapaz in Bogotá

ALC/CLAI, SAO LEOPOLDO and BUENOS AIRES, Brasil and Argentina, June 19, 2007

The Latin American and Caribbean Theological Education Community (CETELA in Spanish), has repudiated the attack Taxi Heathrow Airport on the office of Justapaz (“Just Peace”) in Bogotá, and has expressed its solidarity with that organization, the Mennonite Church of Colombia, and with all the persons of the two institutions who “feel at this time the burden of insecurity and arbitrariness.” Last weekend the Mennonite Church of Buenos Aires also joined the national and international denouncing of the aggression that took place on June 14.

The “message of repudiation and call for justice” was signed by the Executive Secretary of CETELA, Lutheran pastor Roberto Zwetsch, and conveyed to the World Council of Churches, the Lutheran World Federation, the Presbyterian churches of the United States and the Methodist of England, and the international cooperation agencies.

In their messages, both CETELA and the Mennonite Church of Buenos Aires repudiate the action by the delinquents who broke into the peace organization’s office and stole computers in which there was important information about victims and witnesses of violations of human rights in Colombia.

According to CETELA’s message, these actions bring back memories of those “sad years of the military dictatorships in Latin America,” and demands respect for the law, the identifying of the criminals, and that the Colombian justice authorities “proceed according to what is established in the Penal Code of that country.”

In their public denunciation, the Mennonites of the Argentine capital make available the addresses to which official manifestations of repudiation and calls for justice may be sent. The addressees to which these manifestations are to be sent include the office of the Attorney General of Colombia, the U.S. Ambassador in Bogotá, and the President of the Republic of Colombia, Alvaro Uribe.