|
| Volume 3, Issue 9 -- May 12, 2006 |
|
From the JPIC Office It is with great enthusiasm that I introduce Theresa Polk as the JPIC Office’s newest staff member. Theresa is our Policy/Advocacy Associate. With her in the office just two weeks, I recall Luke 10, which is the story of Jesus sending out his disciples in pairs saying, “The harvest is abundant, but the laborers are few . . .”. Theresa’s presence reminds me of the symbolic and practical importance of working in twos. Indeed, mission is best lived in community. I have asked Theresa to write a bit about her experience. Please join me in welcoming Theresa to the JPIC Office, and indeed, the Columban community. If you would like to contact Theresa directly, her e-mail address is This e-mail address is being protected from spam bots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it .
By Theresa Polk As I sit here thinking about how to introduce myself, spring is in full swing in the Mid-Atlantic, complete with sunny days, warm weather and lots of green. Although I grew up on the Chesapeake Bay in northeastern Maryland, it has been more than 10 years since I have been here in the spring. I had forgotten just how beautiful it is. With new growth, leaves and flowers appearing almost daily, it seems an inspired time to take on new challenges and begin a new journey. As a girl, my world didn’t stretch far beyond the baseball diamond at the edge of town where I would watch the stars on clear summer nights. Although I couldn’t have imagined then where it would take me, my parents sowed the seeds, encouraging me to look at the world through my own eyes, teaching me that everyone deserves a fair shake. Years later, curled up in a corner of my poetry teacher’s classroom, as I read my way around the world poem by poem, something sparked. Those poems, the stories they told, their implicit cries for justice, were a window to seeing and knowing not only places far away, but my own country, community and reality. A passion, and a need to do something, was lit in me through those poems. Perhaps that passion once born needed a direction, a focus, a struggle. For whatever inexplicable reason, I got hooked on Central America. That innocent beginning took me through a degree in Latin American Studies and a year in Mexico and Central America studying social movements and liberation theology. It was an important time of reflection of what it had meant and what it could mean to be Catholic: that beyond the ritual, ceremony and gestures of my upbringing, there was something much deeper. Hearing the stories of so many priests, nuns and lay people, seeing their commitment to the poor, accompanying the daily lives and struggles of the marginalized, spoke to me in a profoundly challenging and inspiring way. Back in the United States, I began working with immigrant pre-school children and their families in a Head Start program in Seattle. I loved it. The kids made our classroom a fun, exciting and wonderful place. But supporting the families in their day-to-day struggles and hearing their stories, I was forced to look at the big picture. It seemed we were sticking a lot of figurative Band-Aids on a lot of not-so-figurative wounds, and maybe it was time to look at what was causing those wounds and address those issues. I moved back to Washington D.C. and began working on trade issues, specifically the Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA). When, a year later, an opportunity to return to Guatemala fell into my lap, I couldn’t say no. It was a challenging, yet beautiful year that I spent living in a community that had suffered one of Guatemala’s most brutal massacres of the 1980s. We were accompanying witnesses, survivors who had stepped forward to testify in court against the presidents and their cabinets for genocide. We provided both moral support for their struggle and a hopefully dissuasive presence against harm coming to them. I remember how hard it was for me at first, this idea of accompaniment. What does it mean to accompany someone? It seemed that we did so little; it felt empty to me at first. I longed to be active, useful and involved. I remember sitting on the porch of one of our friends, a community leader very active in the search for justice, one hot Sunday morning in May. We were cutting corn off the cob to be used for masa, always a good activity for thoughtful conversation. I asked him his opinion of us, the accompaniers. Are we needed? Are we useful? People had been asking me, and I don’t know how to answer. I didn’t feel necessary. He looked at me, continuing to shuck kernels from the corn. Yes, he said, yes. Your presence lets us do the work that we need to do and not always be afraid. There are so many people who don’t want to see justice here, who don’t want to see healing. There are so many reasons for us to be afraid still. The work is ours, he reminds me, it is our country, it is for us to do, but you open the space for us to do that work. We need your presence. This grain of wisdom I carry with me still. The importance of solidarity, of walking together, of supporting the struggles, each for the other. That I don’t always have to take the lead, but that I can add my grain of sand to the lot, my few words of support and encouragement. And maybe I won’t see the results of my work today, or tomorrow, or even a year from now, but that each little bit we can give helps open that space for real change. As I embark on this latest journey here in the Columban JPIC Office, I throw my grain of sand in with the Columban family and hope I can foster that sense of solidarity and interconnectedness. We will continue to support in a meaningful way the struggles and victories of the communities accompanied by the Columbans. I am so excited and honored to be joining you in this journey and very much look forward to working with you.
Message from the Border We are grateful to God for a beautiful, well-attended Holy Week at the little chapel of Jesus de Nazaret on the mesa in Lomas de Poleo here along the U.S.-Mexico border. We enjoyed the presence of many visitors such as Marek Stupek, a young Slovakian immigrant discerning his missionary vocation, and Tim Mullroy, the rector of our Columban Theologate in Chicago. Our three-hour trek through the desert for our via crucis on Good Friday was especially poignant as Luci, the widow of Luis Guerrero, along with her son, Pablo, and daughter, Honi, helped carry the large white wooden cross at the station on the spot where her husband was beaten last August 17. On Holy Saturday, we were packed into the little chapel for a beautiful ceremony of blessing fire and light and holding vigil for the resurrection of the Lord. We continue our journey with the Risen Lord, trusting in his presence on our way toward a just and peaceful solution to the struggle for land for “holy ground” on the mesa for all the brothers and sisters there. We have shared with you before about the attempts by the Juárez municipal government to force the people into a relocation with much less land and much smaller houses. Apparently, there has been a kind of media block against any accurate reporting on what is really going on. The media keep portraying the mayor, Hector Murguilla, as having mediated between the Pedro Fuentes Zaragoza family and the settlers on the mesa and having resolved the land dispute. Nothing could be further from the truth. Many who did sign for the relocation are now disenchanted and are trying to get out of it. Many others never signed at all. There is a formal complaint in the Federal Attorney General’s office in Juárez against the municipal government for violating the civil rights of the settlers and illegally trying to force them to resettle. That complaint has not yet been ruled on by the judge, but if it falls in our favor the city will be forbidden from intervening further in the dispute. At the Juárez priests’ weekly gathering on May 9, Columban Father Kevin Mullins and I were given time to address the gathered clerics and our bishops, Don Renato and Monsignor Jose Guadalupe Torres, about the facts in Lomas de Poleo as opposed to what they are seeing in the media. Fr. Kevin clarified that the parish would not accept the land that the Zaragozas were trying to donate for a chapel in the relocation area to try to further legitimize the city’s illegal efforts. He said the community was happy with Jesus de Nazaret and that, in fact, the community there had grown tremendously as a result of the threats and abuses of the Zaragozas and the city government. We clarified that the city government is not the competent authority to resolve the dispute. Since the land belongs to the federal government, only an agrarian magistrate, a high-ranking federal judge, can determine the ownership of the land. Lord willing, such a federal magistrate will be here this coming week and he will hear 87 cases of the people on the mesa. We ask you to pray for the people and the judge that the proceedings will be marked by sober, legal principals and that the influence of the Zaragozas will be kept outside the court. When many nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) began their involvement with this land dispute in last fall, they saw that one reason for the relentless attempts by the Zaragozas to get control of the land was the impending business development in San Geronimo, Mexico, and Santa Teresa, New Mexico. This multi-billion dollar project, which has been proposed and promoted without success for more than 20 years, was given a big push when the Juárez City Council voted to approve in December. In reaction, the NGOs along with the academic community, business people, environmental groups and many Catholics, founded a group called “The Juárez Citizens United Front” and began promoting a referendum to stop the development and give citizens a chance to vote on whether or not they favored this "Plan Parcial San Geronimo." More than 54,000 signatures were collected and sent to the State Electoral Institute in Chihuahua for approval. The newspapers this week headlined the apparent refusal of the Electoral Institute to allow the referendum to go forward. There was an immediate outcry from the Citizens United Front and many others claiming corruption and fraud. Conveniently, out of the 54,000 signatures received, the Electoral Commission threw out about 15,000, putting the referendum just short of the required 40,000 needed to allow the referendum to go forward. There is already an appeal to the Mexican Supreme Court and other appeals for intervention from the Federal Electoral Commission to review the process in Chihuahua. At the same time, there has been an ongoing analysis in the papers about corruption in the Mayor Murguilla administration, which may slow or stop the development process with or without the referendum. Though the halt to the referendum is a disappointment, the surrounding publicity has focused much more attention on this corrupt development scheme, designed to benefit a handful of wealthy elites, their families and friends. Cynical opponents are actually calling the proposed development “Ciudad Vallina” after Eloy Vallina, the millionaire, principal landowner and PRI party contributor who is the main force behind the scheme. Vallina is also on the board of directors of Grupo Verde in New Mexico, the U.S. investors who are pushing the development on the U.S. side of the border. We will give more details about how this development process unfolds in upcoming updates. Thanks again for all your prayers and support. Migration Columban Father Peter O’Neill in Taiwan shares this inspirational story of a young migrant worker from Indonesia. Dina references a conference in Taiwan that took place in 2000. The Columban Hope Workers' Center was the organizer of that conference.
From migrant worker to union organizer: I’m the third of six kids from Malang in East Java. My father is a farmer, who has always had a second job to make ends meet. When I was a kid, creditors used to come knocking on our door every week. Dad insisted we all get an education, even though he’d only finished primary school. But when I finished high school I knew there was no way he could afford to pay for me to go on to university. So in 1996 I decided to work overseas. I knew if I succeeded, I could help Mum and Dad and save enough money to eventually continue my studies. A lot of people were looking for opportunities to work overseas, because there were no opportunities at home. Lots of Indonesians went to Malaysia to work on construction sites and on the palm oil plantations. Many others went to Taiwan and South Korea to work in the factories. Most of the women went to work as domestic workers in the Middle East, Hong Kong and Singapore.
Domestic work in Hong Kong I chose Hong Kong because the wages were better than what I could earn in Singapore or Malaysia and, unlike the Middle East, it wasn’t too far away. The agent said conditions were good in Hong Kong and that I’d be treated well. Before I left in June 1997, I had to do three months training in Java. After spending a few days in the local office of the labor sending company, we were sent to Madiun to a training centre, where we had to sleep in a garage for two months while we were trained. Then I did on-the-job training for another month with a local family. I had to sleep in a storeroom that was full of rats. In Hong Kong, things weren’t quite as I’d expected either. In addition to the housework, I had to look after a nine-year-old and clean the house of my boss’s father. Sometimes they took me to other relatives’ houses and I had to clean them. too. For the first two months, I got no wages while I paid off my debt to my agent. After that, they only paid me HK$ 2,000 (A$ 330) per month, even though the contract specified that my wages were to be HK$ 3,860. They didn’t even give me my days off. For the first two years I sent almost all my money home. Finally I decided I needed to find a boss who would pay me properly. I had to pay HK$ 8,000 to make the move. My new boss had a huge house, so I had to work harder, but they paid me fairly and I had a day off every Sunday and on public holidays. This gave me a chance to learn Mandarin and computer skills.
Computer course changed my life By the end of 2000, I’d become the head of the union’s reintegration department and represented the union in the Coalition for Migrant Rights (CMR). Through the CMR, I got to be part of a research team that looked at discrimination and violence against migrant workers in Hong Kong. We presented the results of our research at the World Conference against Racism in Kathmandu in April 2001. I loved being part of IMWU because we really made a difference. We made other domestic workers realize that, like us, they could take control of their lives. As I told the audience at the conference in Kathmandu, ‘we don’t want anyone to see us as victims; we are survivors because we struggle for our rights.’
Migrant workers at home When I got home, I found out about a whole range of organizations run by ex-migrant workers that involved people and their families who wanted to go overseas. There is so much to be done. Migrant workers are exploited at every stage of the migration process. They may be tricked, subject to extortion, or physically or sexually abused during recruitment. It’s often no better when they arrive. They may be prevented from having any contact with the outside world, tortured, or even deported, as has happened in Malaysia. And when they get home, they are again at risk of extortion, not only from gangsters but also from the police. We decided we needed to get together. We ran a series of meetings with the help of a group called the Consortium for the Defence of Indonesian Migrant Workers (KOPBUMI) and set up the National Network of Migrant Workers (Jarnas BMI). We had our first congress in Solo in Central Java in February 2003. There we established the Federation of Indonesian Migrant Workers Organizations (FOBMI), which involved 14 member organizations from eight provinces. We decided that we had to work hard on organizing, not just advocacy work, because organizing is the heart and soul of a worker organization. At that first conference, I was elected head of the national committee. I was deeply aware of the challenges we faced. There were no laws to protect us and there was so much work to be done raising awareness in the villages.
Pressing for legal reform We took the case to the parliament so it would have to listen to our perspective. We knew that we needed as much support as possible, so we worked together with community groups, academics and unionists who were concerned with the plight of migrant workers to establish an advocacy coalition. We also got support from our union friends in Hong Kong. After our long struggle, the parliament finally announced it had prepared a draft law in the dying days of Megawati’s presidency in mid-2004. We were deeply disappointed. The draft law was little better than the Ministerial Decision it was supposed to replace. Under the law, migrant workers were still just commodities. In fact, many of the articles actually legitimized the exploitative practices we were hoping to abolish. We held protest after protest against the draft law. On August 27, 2004, our members came to Jakarta from all over Indonesia, and we protested again. Two days later we all went to the parliament where the law was to be passed. We had big banners that urged the members of parliament to listen to their consciences and not pass the bill. But they mustn’t have had consciences because they passed it anyhow. One of our members got beaten up and the security people took our camera. FOBMI achieved a lot in its first two years. Besides legal advocacy, we ran training sessions in sending villages and worked hard to recruit new members. We also started to network internationally, when in 2004 we became a member of the Migrant Forum in Asia (MFA). But there’s still so much to be done, because for all our activism, migrant workers’ lives are basically the same. In June 2005 we had our second congress in Malang in East Java. We decided to change our name to the Indonesian Migrant Workers Union (SBMI) and to establish a more formal national structure in the hope that we could be more effective. We started thinking, too, about how we could organize migrant workers while they were outside Indonesia. I’m still very much involved, but I decided it was time for me to take a different and less demanding role for a time while I concentrated on finishing my studies at university in Malang. Getting this degree is part of achieving the dream that first sent me overseas. Economic Justice Following in the wake of the highly criticized Central American Free Trade Agreement (CAFTA), the United States Trade Representative (USTR) opened negotiations with the Andean countries of Peru, Colombia and Ecuador for an Andean Free Trade Agreement (AFTA). After many fits and starts, an agreement was signed between the United States and Peru on April 12. It remains to be seen whether Colombia and Ecuador will be added to this agreement or whether it will be sent to Congress as is. “As is” is problematic enough. Building on the models of NAFTA, CAFTA and other similar free trade pacts, the U.S.-Peru Free Trade Agreement leaves a lot to be desired. Weak, unenforceable labor and environmental provisions, intellectual property rights provisions that restrict access to medicines, and an opening of the agricultural market that will imperil the livelihoods of small producers and threaten food security in Peru are just a few of the problems with the agreement. With approximately half of the Peruvian population living in poverty according to the United Nations Development Programme (hdr.undp.org/statistics/data/countries.cfm?c=PER), many of whom dependent upon agriculture for their livelihoods, this agreement will perpetuate the current pattern of globalization for the benefit of the few, at the expense of the many. Throughout the process of negotiations, religious leaders from the affected countries have expressed doubt and concern about the motivations and effects of the underlying agreement. A delegation of bishops from the Andean region released the following statement in February 2005. Now that a final text has been signed between the United States and Peru, this document can provide an important moral sounding board to analyze key aspects of the pact, such as the texts on agriculture, intellectual property rights, labor, and the environment, as well as the secretive manner in which the agreement was negotiated. In the coming weeks and months, we would like to offer you various perspectives, alternatives and analysis on the agreement. Our hope is that when the moment arrives and the trade agreement is sent to Congress for approval, that you will join your voice to ours in encouraging our Congressional representatives to vote no. CAFTA, after much arm-twisting, passed by the slimmest of margins. It is time to send an emphatic message to the USTR and Bush Administration that trade agreements that put corporate profits before human dignity are unacceptable. It is time for a new trade policy.
Statement of the Delegation of Bishops from the Andean Region on Free Trade between the United States and the Andean countries Our pastoral vision, which is inspired by the Gospel and the social teaching of the Church, holds that the human person is the focus of all economic activity. In an increasingly interdependent world, it is imperative that economic globalization be humanized by globalizing solidarity among individuals and peoples. In fact, “If globalization is ruled merely by the laws of the market applied to suit the powerful, the consequences cannot but be negative” (Ecclesia in America, 20). The overall situation of the people of the Andean Region is characterized by high levels of poverty, social exclusion and a growing gap between rich and poor. In particular, there is a lack of opportunity for small-scale agriculture and small businesses and micro enterprises—sectors that employ the majority of people in our countries, as well as inadequate educational and public health systems, insecurity and violence, the lack of food security and migration due to limited employment opportunities. Trade policies need to be fashioned in ways that will stimulate economic growth while at the same time combating poverty and overcoming hunger. We urge decision-makers to give equal importance to these twin goals. From our experience as pastors among our people we have concerns that the free trade agreement currently under negotiation between the United States and the Andean countries may fail to reach its potential in increasing opportunities for the poorest and most vulnerable. For the poor to really benefit from an increase in trade, complementary measures need to be adopted that will improve education and public health, that will include minorities and disabled persons, and that will strengthen the participation of all concerned. Given this, in light of the principles and values that we have stated and the situation of our people, we express the following concerns about key points in the negotiation of the free trade agreement. Agriculture. The provisions under negotiation could leave small farmers and their families in our countries very vulnerable. Given the huge subsidies received by North American agriculture businesses, the time frames and other measures proposed to replace the current price band system may well be insufficient. The programs that exist in our countries for the substitution of coca and other illicit crops would also be affected. Each of our countries needs the flexibility to adopt policies that allow our farmers and rural workers to produce food for their people, maintain a stable income for their families and ensure authentic rural development. Intellectual property. The U.S. is proposing the patenting of seeds and life forms, in addition to the extension of the existing monopoly period that international pharmaceutical companies enjoy over the sale of medicines. These measures may well endanger farmers’ access to the resources on which they depend, as well as access to medicines particularly by the poor and most vulnerable. Labor. Trade agreements should offer an opportunity to strengthen the protection of workers. In the absence of binding commitments to respect workers’ rights, such workers, especially the majority of the working poor, may not enjoy some of the potential benefits of increased trade. Furthermore, the possible loss of rural jobs and the resulting migration to cities or emigration from the region due to the failure to provide adequate safeguards for small and medium-scale farmers must be considered. Environment. An increase in trade will likely result in an increase of waste products. Without adequate enforceable environmental protections, the trade agreement will not live up to its potential of contributing to the rational, sustainable use of resources such as water and forests, especially given the important role that the Amazon region plays in these four countries. At the same time, we are concerned that the United States has been unwilling to include in the agreement the Andean countries’ proposal to protect biodiversity. Citizen participation. Such trade agreements offer a unique opportunity for the peoples of the region to express and strengthen a sense of participative democracy that will lead to greater security for all. We urge that the time frame for negotiation of the free trade agreement be expanded to allow for inclusive, participatory dialogue in the region and in each country. In this way, the sectors potentially affected will have an opportunity to present their own proposals, and have them taken into account in the negotiations. Comprehensive Agenda: More broadly, any trade agreement should form part of a comprehensive agenda for sustainable human development that is supported by adequate financial and other resources. The moral measure of any trade agreement should be its positive effect on the life and dignity of families and of poor and vulnerable workers, whose views should receive special attention in this debate. Signed by the representatives of the following Bishops Conferences:
Action Alerts
Support Fair Trade Support living wages, environmental sustainability and workers rights! As the NAFTA model of trade is expanded to include ever more countries, it is important that we offer our support for just alternatives that invest in local communities and dignified human development. Join thousands of people around the world to celebrate World Fair Trade Day on May 13. This year’s theme, “Fair Trade Organizations Now,” encourages consumers to support fair trade networks that provide just wages for producers and invest in local development. A better trade is possible! For more information, local events, and other ideas on how to support fair trade, please visit fairtraderesource.org/wftd/index.html#redirect Contact Us
We welcome submissions, comments and suggestions.
|