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Volume 2, Number 31              September 8 - 14,  2002            Quezon City, Philippines







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Two Letters From The Heart

“The wounds inflicted through violent acts cannot be healed with more violence,” wrote members of the Ecumenical Women’s Forum (EWF) in one of the two letters addressed to fellow religious and to members of the American Churches. 

By ROWENA CARRANZA

Bulatlat.com 

EWF, which consists of Protestant and Catholic Church women leaders, will hold a “day of prayer and justice” on Sept. 11 to commemorate the first anniversary of the World Trade Center/Pentagon attacks that killed thousands of people. EWF members will share prayers, poems and songs about their hopes for peace. 

On Sept. 23-27, an international conference titled “International Conference on Terrorism In A Globalized World” will be held in Manila, sponsored by the National Council of Churches of the Philippines, World Council of Churches and Christian Conference of Asia.

Bulatlat.com posts one of the letters below. The first is addressed to fellow women religious, the second to members of American Churches: 

First letter:

Dear Sisters,

Greetings of peace and solidarity!

We are ecumenical churchwomen in the Philippines who share with you a deep concern over the extent of violence pervading in various parts of the world today.  We see clearly how greed, hatred, animosity, suppression, oppression and exploitation continue to wreak havoc in the lives of ordinary people.   

We share the tears and lamentation of the mothers and fathers, wives and husbands, daughters and sons, friends and relatives of those who were killed in the September 11 attacks.  As bearers of lives ourselves, we resonate with the anguish, grief and pain caused by political acts of terrorism, just as we agonize with mothers in poverty-stricken countries who must see their children die of malnutrition, hunger and disease because of economic aggression.  

The September 11 attacks, which we now commemorate, left us wounds that will take time to heal.  Yet, these also gave to the whole world a truth we can no longer ignore and, which compels us to seek and pursue peace more vigorously and more resolutely in order to put an end to all forms of violence.  

We are alarmed, however, that after September 11, the Bush administration never missed a single second in haunting terrorists and nations believed to be protecting terrorists.  Afghanistan was attacked ferociously and we have witnessed how the lives of innocent children were sacrificed.  The wounds inflicted through violent acts cannot be healed with more violence.  

Another cause for alarm is how the Philippine government is giving unqualified support to the US government by opening up its land, mountains and seas for joint military operations, and in pursuing a borderless war.  This act of connivance has transformed into an act of terrorism against ordinary people who must now live in fear, mistrust, and in the shadow of death, haunted by the horrors of this unwanted war.   

This reality brings to memory the terror felt by the generation before us, when US forces attacked our country at the turn of the century.  Hunting revolutionaries they called "bandits" and "terrorists", US troops stormed villages, combed every corner of the countryside, and wielded assaults that left 1,400,000 Filipinos dead in the period between 1988 and 1914.  Children, women and the elderly were not spared from these attacks.  

We now say: Enough of unjust wars!  Never again should innocent lives be exposed to the whims of those in power.  

We say: No to all forms of violence! No to political connivance! No to economic aggression! No to cultural subjugation! No to military intervention!  

We call on you, our sisters in the United States of America to appeal to your government not to use the people's taxes to buy arms and bullets, train young soldiers, and set up military equipment and facilities in vulnerable countries.  We do not need ammunitions.  Food, shelter, medicine, quality education, basic social services - these are needs that are ignored in the pursuit of needless wars.  A global community of conscious, caring, compassionate, free men and women - this is what we want to establish instead of a globalized and sophisticated military industrial complex.  

Peace is what we want to establish!  Violence is what we seek to overcome!  

Let our voices be heard!        

From the Ecumenical Women's Forum Manila, Philippines           

September 11, 2002  

Second Letter:

To our sisters and brothers in the American Churches, 

One year ago today, the world stood in shock to see the Twin Towers of the World Trade Center crumble like a deck of cards as a result of a terrorist attack by still unidentified persons.  The damage wrought by the bombing of the World Trade Center and the Pentagon is irreparable.  Our hearts go out to the hundreds who lost their lives and to the many more who, even to this day, bear the scars of such a horrendous happening.

After September 11, 2001, the string of events has driven an even deeper wedge between peoples of the world.  And the groaning of creation has become even louder cries that shout for justice and peace.  The September 11 attack was the harbinger of the US War on Terror which many governments, including that of the Philippines, have willingly supported, at the expense of their people’s freedom and sovereignty. The battlefield of this inhuman war was, first, Afghanistan. It has now moved to the Philippines.  Through the return of the US troops to the Philippines and the legislative activity in our law-making bodies to institutionalize the campaign against “terrorists,” the lives and basic rights of the common people are seriously threatened ”violated” sometimes discreetly, but in fact also openly, mercilessly and systematically.

Peace and justice are at the heart of the Christian gospel.  These valuable tenets of the Reign of God are the reason for being of all Christian churches the world over.  It is an insult to the God of peace when we allow acts of injustice and the condition of unpeace to hold sway.  The unabated war on terror being waged by the United States in our country is, for us, the highest form of injustice for no nation in the world can arrogate unto itself the right to decide who are terrorists and who are not.  No nation can lay claim to be the “policeman of the world” and bully others into toeing a single line.  God gifted us with freedom and self-determination... but lived out in the context of community.

This is what your Filipino sisters and brothers are doing: endeavoring to responsibly celebrate and appropriate God’s gifts of freedom and self-determination. Unfortunately, US foreign policy makes it an arduous task for us. In the name of Christian love and solidarity, we invite you to stand with us in our relentless struggle for life abundant.  We ask you to view with a critical eye the political moves of your government vis-à-vis the Philippines and to raise your prophetic voices in condemning the US-led war on terror.  Let September 11 be a call to repentance for the pain we have caused our sisters and brothers all over the world throughout history.  And may we be led to right the wrong by putting an end to this needless war on terror.

Bulatlat.com


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