Making peace in Central America : a call for today, Marta Benavides, 1985

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I am to talk with you tonight about making peace in Central
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America a goal for today.
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Buenas noches.
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You respond nice.
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When I noticed you noticed that in our tradition we don't know which one goodnight
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or evening to you.
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We wish you plenty of them Buenas noches.
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Buenos dias. We also say good days to you.
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This is a great privilege to be talking with you, not for you, but with
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you. For it is a privilege and yet a most humbling experience
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to have the opportunity to share the important concerns and dreams of our
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peoples of Central America and the continents.
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And then also to be able to share for our own edification their
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hopes and the many possibilities that exist in the United States to defend
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life, to bring peace for all in this continent.
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I feel very humbled by this experience.
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You know, it is hard for me to read statements to you for my message
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is one that is feeling the heart and mind of all our peoples.
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Usually I just share extemporaneously for I need to be conscious
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and looking at you. I am here to extend my hand, which is
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our hands in Central America, to torch and hold on to yours
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for the sake of translation and designers who are a great
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blessing. The sharing is being read for you.
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So I ask you to please stay with me and work and feel with me.
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Yes, my accent complicates matters.
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And on top of it, I speak Spanglish.
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I make up words.
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But please make sure you stay with me.
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I really beg you to be patient.
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It's hard for me. Hurts right here.
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And I am for getting Spanish on top of it.
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I have been studying your program and activities for this event.
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They are really good instruments for your theme.
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A visible sign to be a visible sign of God in today's world.
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From the Bible stories to the songs and dances in Europe, which they theme.
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They are so good. It's all like a reward, pointing clearly out
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to the aim to be assigned these people real of God's
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presence, who they are. That is good.
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But the challenge is hard for both of us to live every day making
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that seem a reality. And that is not easy.
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It requires commitment, dedication, intentionality, critical,
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mindless, and above all, a constant measure of effectiveness in
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reaching the goal, knowledge, awareness and commitment to
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challenge to be the light. The salt of the world is not enough.
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We must act it and act it effectively today.
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Is it too much?
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I know yes is too much.
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But we have the promise of God.
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The Scripture which we shared earlier this evening, I say 6517 to
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23 talks about the joy of the New Age.
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The member for God's through the Prophet says, I will rejoice
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in Jerusalem and be glad my people no more shall be heard in it.
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The sound of weeping and the cry of distress.
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No more shall there be in it an infant that leaves but a few days, or an old man
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who does not fill out his days.
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These are good news for us, who come from those impoverished nations of Central America
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and Latin America for weeping distress and premature death is plagued
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our history. Our Latin American women give birth to still children.
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1 million die before they are one year old, and almost half of that number
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die before they get to be five years old.
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Are women who are light bearers give birth to death because of
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our poverty, malnourishment and no health care facilities.
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Our people die of hunger and it is a slow and painful death.
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They die also from tortured disappearance, kidnaping from their homes.
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There is no meaning for good night.
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There is no meaning for when, not if or when.
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Of the thin, except for the hope of the promise of God.
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Yes, I am describing to you weeping and the cries of distress
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that sisters and brothers is terrorism.
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To leave us nursing, weeping and distress with no future assure is to live, terrorize.
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Then I tell you that to know and cry is not enough.
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Do not try. May be good and nice.
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But we must be of a critical mind.
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And we must be visible signs of God's presence to day.
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Here and now.
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The visible sign of God's love for humanity is that God gave God's
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only Son to die and leave for humanity.
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God through Jesus became a more visible sign.
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God became incarnate among us, with us.
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And God in this incarnate of physical form, said, I have come to proclaim
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the acceptable, the acceptable year of God for God has anointed me
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to preach good news to the poor, has sent me to proclaim release to the captives,
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recovering of sight to the blind, and said Are liberty those who are oppressed look
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for 18 to 19.
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Imagine God becomes the visible sign.
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So guys, very concrete artists speak freely God's angels
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and is not a light that not at all is.
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As these happened at the time that Israel is kept captive a colony
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of the Roman Empire, the people had no rights, just the burden of great
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success and slavery. So God, in his her visible sign,
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established clearly that the aim is for the nation to be free, to set
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free those who are oppressed. Release to the captives the slave.
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Good news to the poor. You are set free from being a captive, a
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slave. If you stop being oppressed, you can breathe.
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That is, you can live.
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That is what the poor cannot do. For they are kept, oppressed and captive.
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Now I know you not.
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You may not like what I am saying.
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It manosphere minus.
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Sisters and brothers. Please know that I say this with fear and tribulation.
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Yet I most spoke of Central America with you.
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You must hear this. You must hear us.
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If you are to be a visible sign of God for us in Central America and Latin
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America, in Asia, Africa, and in the efforts and reservations of the United
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States of America today and at this moment, again,
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I remind us of the promise.
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God has taken a choice for us.
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God has made a choice for us.
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It is people that God that are God's joy again.
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And I say on 65 tonight, scripture, we read for the Church of Die
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a hundred years old. They showed bill house is saying how with them they shall plan find
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yours and eat their food. They shall not build than another inhabit.
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They shall not plant and another eat for like the days of three shall the days
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of my people be and my chosen to long enjoyed the work of their
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hands. God's promises for a nation to live in peace, to have
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life for its citizens. God does agree with the pursuit of happiness.
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God agrees with your Constitution.
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The happiness is not seen as individual.
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Rather God thoughts about the days of his or her people
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in sober. My country is a very small country in Central America
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is the smallest in the continent.
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The indigenous name is Scotland.
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We are funny, says 22,000 square miles.
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And most beautiful country of lakes and volcanoes, rivers, fertile barley,
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sunny blue skies and high working people.
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We are 4.7 million Salvadorans.
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Our main product, not by the choice of the people, are coffee, sugar and cotton.
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My country is in the hunger belt, according to the United Nations.
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Yet we have some of the richest people in the continent.
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You see, 2% of the Salvadoran people control 50%
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of the best land. They decide to grow the coffee, sugar and cut them,
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which are world commodities.
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And they control close to two thirds of the national income through this.
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They control businesses and factories.
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The banks and the government and the life of the people.
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Since 1979, there has been more than 50,000 people murdered
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in El Salvador at their homes as they watch TV and in the presence
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of their families in the classroom or at the school entrance, in the presence of
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children in the parks, or as they come out of a dance theater
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at the union hall or as a result of bombardments.
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50,000 doctors, nurses, teachers and students, trade
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unionists, peasants, nuns and priests.
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The Archbishop, Oscar Romero, as he offer communion inside of a chapel.
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Men and women. Young, infant and old.
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All of them murder. No trials have been said yet.
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Nobody brought to justice for these murders.
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Not even the death of the monsignor can be accounted for.
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Lawyers and judges are killed and their offices bombarded.
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There are more than 5000 families mourning for mourning for the disappeared.
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Do you know what it is to have a loved one disappear for months and years?
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Not to know about them?
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It hurts. Just like a knife, cutting one's chest and breaking
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one soul. There are thousands of political prisoners who have been
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tortured and living in poor conditions.
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The families are broken. Poor people must finally flee for their lives.
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You hide and they hide you for days, weeks.
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But the threat is there and your friends and coworkers are killed.
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You must stop endangering your life and your family.
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You must leave all behind.
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Some of our people have gone to the mountains.
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Both men and women all died young.
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These brothers and sisters feel that the way to be a visible sign of life in El
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Salvador today is to make a political military force that will fight
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back and struggle and grab life from the forces of death in outside battles.
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My own belief is that these are very special people.
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I know that their efforts and programs for self-determination for the Salvadoran people
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are widely respected around the world.
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Governments, civic and humanitarian organizations, churches recognize
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their strength and seriousness in promoting political rather than military solutions
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to the conflict bred by gross inequality and repression in El Salvador.
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I believe they are a visible sign of life in Salvador, but
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the families are broken into the few thousand sons and daughters
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and husbands in the hills. We must.
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And more than 1 million uprooted people inside and outside of El Salvador,
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close to one fourth of the population with no route.
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This place at border in Mexico.
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In the in the U.S., some joining with United States, people
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in the sanctuary movement challenging the morality of the support of the United States
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government to the wine itself battle.
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This tragedy has broken not only the Salvadoran family, but the very moral fiber
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of the United States is at stake at this moment.
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All the deaths in El Salvador is going from the wilderness for the people to take a
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stand against what some people in the United States say.
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When we hear when we hear you, when we visit your country, then we know how
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lucky we are as a nation and as a people have good God has been to
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us. So here, this makes me so sad when I know that it will be very
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hard for these people to be a visible sign of life and liberation for us in Central
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America, in South Africa, in the ghetto, in the United States.
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If they are not able to begin for the history of our distress and our weeping,
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it is our riches and resources that has financed the development of the industrialized
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nations. God's Scripture shows very clearly that God
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did not mean that for us to live in slavery, diplomacy's for
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all God's children, for God has chosen humanity.
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I say 65, 1850, but be glad and rejoice forever
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in that which I create for behold.
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I create Jerusalem in rejoicing and her people a joy.
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A very quick look at the Salvadoran history tells us that we, the people of our side, of
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our, do not want to live in terror, that we live in the that we believe in democracy,
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for we have form all kinds of alliances and coalitions to elect governments
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with programs that are responsive to the needs of our people.
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Our history says or tells us that our people have been persecuted,
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disappeared, torture and murder for seeking a program of justice
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and equality, for trying to end the distress and the weeping and
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that they have been communists to legitimize that repression.
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Is it wrong to enact programs to bring they accept the acceptable year of God
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to fulfill the promise. No more shall there be an infant that leaves but a few days,
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no more to be heard. And yet the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.
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But you see, sisters and brothers, for this promise to be fulfilled, one
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must work at it with a program and a strategy.
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We must look at efficient means to reach it.
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We cannot enjoy the promise. If the 2% continue to control our resources
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in El Salvador, we must change that definitely.
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And for good. We must establish new structures and develop systems that will not
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allow anyone in El Salvador who we can reach by taking this threat.
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The blood of your brother or sister.
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Well, the 2% say that what they have, they work hard for
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and they will not give it away. That is communism, they say.
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So they develop a government supported by an army which is trained for,
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funded and armed by the United States since El Salvador is the United States
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allies and which effectively will stop communism.
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So the conflict is presented as a struggle for democracy and against communism.
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But it is precisely democracy which is at stake in El Salvador, the right of the large,
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large majority for the future to feed its people who live
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in El Salvador, to stop the distress and the weeping.
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It is not a matter of East and west.
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It is about the diplomacy.
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Now, how are these situations that not in 1979?
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The root of this comes from the time of the so-called discovery of the new
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world. Remember, I ask you to be of critical mind.
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That means that you want a life to check history.
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You see, to begin with, the arrogance and implications of saying that a new world
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which was created by God at the same time as the old, had been discovered
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actually before Columbus, who to begin with was not the first European
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to come to our continent, was lost and stayed by our indigenous peoples who
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shared their resources and food with him.
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Yet by declaring that they had discovered us and that this was
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a new world, they could they could come to conquer Christianize and
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civilize us in this process.
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They raped our women, they enslaved our people.
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And with foreign laws and concept, as well as by the force of thought, they robbed
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us of our land, made us grow. Coffee, sugar and cotton instead of may
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have been some vegetables. Our people fought hard against the invader, the so-called
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conquistadors.
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By 1821, our people unite there with the cry of those Spaniards
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born in our land.
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They to fight and declare independence from Spain.
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By 1838, there was the first indigenous people operating in El Salvador.
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After independence. They were fighting for their life.
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They were dying of hunger. Thousands die, repressed to stop the rebellion.
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The people continued to struggle.
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But by 1932 we had the great mass.
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Cancer. The great massacre in itself was due to the Great Depression.
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The conditions worsened and the people were starving to death and
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they rebuilt. More than 30,000 people were murdered by the Salvadoran
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army in two weeks. Children and adults, they were the poor, the
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peasants, the barefooted, the indigenous people.
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That was one eighth of our population killed.
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This was done to stop communism.
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But the promise still is within us for the poor.
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So the poor, despite repression, continue to look for ways to stop the distress
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and the weeping, to fulfill the promise and joy of God.
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Yet we continue to hear that this is communism and our people are repressed, as
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is the present situation of the people of Salvador.
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And this describes the conditions of most people in Central America and
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of the great majority of the 400 million people in Latin America.
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In Nicaragua, where the people have actually develop a social program to let
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the infants live to be 100 years old.
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We also hear that it is communism.
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It is not that the people of Nicaragua are against capitalism.
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Not at all. They just want this capital to serve the needs of the majority.
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For the majority. We have milk and honey.
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Rather, they are concerned on how this capital is distributed and for
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what is used. The promise and joy of God cannot be fulfilled
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while in the name of democracy.
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We continue to support the sabotage of hospitals, the destruction
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of medical fuel and food storages, the mining of ports, the received
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shipments of fuel for industry, the milk from Poland for the children,
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but for agriculture and industrial machines from the people of Canada to the people
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of Nicaragua. It cannot be fulfilled while we support who are.
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Yet in the last few days in public media, we have heard how the United States,
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Congress and Senate have supported more aid to the people who are attacking Nicaragua
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who bring death and sabotage.
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This recent decision is also a visible sign, a visible sign of a policy
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of theirs for our Central American region.
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In the Philadelphia Inquirer of July 7th.
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Representative Purcell said Congress has given the president pretty
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much what he wanted in a strong bipartisan effort to deal with the social and
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development problems that exist in the region and to help the people there build
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and maintain democratic institutions.
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Yet for us in Central America, this means support for
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the existing state of repression and inequality, for the weeping and the cry of
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distress. Go on and on and on.
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Brothers and sisters, I am here to cry out for you, to hear us and to be
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with us. You must on the responsibility of having a truly representative
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government. We know that that's not easy, but if we recognize ourselves
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to be God's children, we must be a visible sign of God's promise and joy.
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We must do it effectively and seriously.
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We must get our brothers and sisters to work with us intentionally at being
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effective in making making peace in Central America.
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We must make the difference.
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We must not accept the promise of the abundant, the fulfilling life
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be reduced to working two jobs in order to pay the mortgage and to have a few days
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of vacation each year. I think we have all our work and kill ourselves the whole
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year. But if we accept this, we shall be contradicting God's promise that
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my chosen to or long enjoyed the work of their hands.
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So what are we for, though, if we are to become a visible sign of liberation?
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For one thing, we must not be or liberal.
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That is to understand, to know and to try, but without paying
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the price. To be successful, without true and lasting commitment.
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Liberation is about the acceptable year of God.
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Good news for the poor, says free press.
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The oppressed release of the captive state to the blind, in other words, is
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to accomplish justice. That is liberation.
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It is the enjoyment of justice, then, that allows
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for peace with.
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Let us witness some of the main factors to be dealt with in Latin America for liberation
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to start becoming a reality.
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50 million people suffer hunger.
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1 million children under one year all die each year of hunger and malnutrition.
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50 million illiterate. 52 million unemployed or underemployed.
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A creeping inflation, which in 1984 reach 175.4%.
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Deterioration of the purchasing power of salaries of about 50%.
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A rapidly growing foreign debt, which is about $360 billion.
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To this, we must add very regionalized wire in Central America,
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the militarization of our countries, the millions of displaced, the thousands
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of political prisoners and disappear, the tens of thousands of the murdered
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sisters and brothers. We know we must not be liberal and do gooders
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and pretend that it is acts of charity that the situation demands.
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No, we must be daring, like our God.
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Let us go to the roots of the problem.
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Let us be transformed and enabled by that reality.
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Let us proclaim the acceptable idea of God how to set free
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the oppressed to release the captives in 1985.
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Let us be daring and clear. Let us.
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Let us not be afraid of being political.
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Let us be afraid of not being successful and effective at this.
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Let us see Moses.
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After he killed the Egyptian who was hurting the Israelites as they were slaves
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on their deferral was not followed by God to go, pray and repent.
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God say, take my people out of the land of slavery.
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We learn that gives milk and honey for everyone.
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He promised land. Imagine that is really daring to take
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your whole nation from the strong arm of the pharaoh that took a lot
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of organizing and struggling through the desert without food or
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water, through the heat and forth, they had to cross the sea to
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the land of the promised. Somebody promised.
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No more shall be heard in the sound of weeping and the cry of distress.
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This is our heritage.
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But this that was not only daring, but also political.
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Look, the people stood against the failed, brought slavery and develop
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a new society, a system where milk and honey will flow for all.
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Moses mother was also daring and political.
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She there to break the law. She failed to give her son Moses.
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And not only that, she also conspired to become his nanny.
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Imagine all the organizing she must have done in the neighborhood and.
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And even she had to convince her, convince her husband to hide Moses.
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And he cried. It took a woman to know when or how to break
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Pharaoh's law to be a visible sign of liberation.
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The 1918.
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Beneath the 1985 translation for United States women.
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Yes, we have. And we are power.
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Let's reverse the decision of Congress and Senate to sustain the war in Central
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America. Let us use our Washington offices, our media, and
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our programs for this purpose.
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This is what this is asking us to do, to go to the Promised Land, let us
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unite with other women groups and denominations and develop an effective, unintentional
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program for peace in Central America.
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Let us educate the people of color in the United States about the situation in Central
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America, South Africa, the Philippines, the Middle East.
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So they are able to seek common bonds.
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The General Accounting Office of the United States stated that since 1980,
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more than $2 billion have been given for economic aid to El Salvador and Honduras.
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And yet their governments have not committed themselves to bring about the reforms
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needed in response.
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This is what we to respond develop a program to stop your tax money, to go
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to support economies of work, and assure that the International Monetary Fund
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accepts the moratoria in interest rates and the payment of the countries of
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the Third World. The money for economy.
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A word to be poured with little interest or no interest at all for programs to fight
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unemployment, illiteracy, malnourishment, hunger.
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We send the 30% of the military expenditures of the United States.
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The problem of the killing for in depth of Latin America will be resolved.
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Think of the sisters and brothers.
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We must understand that in today's world, to feed the hungry means to change the
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International Monetary Fund guidelines, to control the budget, and to reduce
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the military budget of our country.
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Remember God as Moses to break the structure off of slavery,
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to face the Pharaoh. When we read in the front page of the New York Times of
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July 18th that our air role in war increases, number
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of government craft is set to double in a year.
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We must recognize that this is a visible sign of death and oppression.
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The fire of the Pharaoh attacking by air with the Air Force.
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Well, it is said that with the support of the United States, there is a new
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democratically elected government in Salvador.
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Our resources, legislative, educational, peacemaking, committees
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must fight back. Demand a political solution to the conflict.
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Support the consultative process, which is supported by Mexico, Panama,
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Colombia and Venezuela. All these are governments who are key allies of the United
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States in the region. But we must be a visible sign of liberation.
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Sister, son. Brother. Time is short to talk about this very hard,
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urgent and hurting question.
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I do hope that you have heard outcry from Central America and join with us
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in our work for the Promised Land.
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I live with you. I live with you.
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The challenge to study, to be aware and knowledgeable who is to be effective
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political beings? Builders of peace, bringers of justice.
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These are hard times we are living in.
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But also is this is the best time if I am to be a visible
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difference for life as children of the same God and in the name
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of our suffering people. I beg you.
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I challenge you. I demand of you to join us in Central America, in South
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Africa, in Palestine, in the Bronx, to proclaim the time of Jubilee.
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Let us work for the promise. Let us stop work.
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Let us be visible. Signs of peace.

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Title: Making peace in Central America : a call for today, Marta Benavides, 1985
Description: Recorded at the United Presbyterian Women's National Meeting, Purdue University, July 17-22, 1985. Marta Benavides (born 1943) is a feminist religious leader from El Salvador. She is a theologian, ordained American Baptist minister, permaculturist, educator, and artist. After the military coup in El Salvador in 1979 and the outbreak of the Salvadoran Civil War, she became the leader of the Ecumenical Committee for Humanitarian Aid, a group sponsored by the Archbishop Óscar Romero. From 1982 to 1992 she lived in exile in the United States and Mexico.
Creator: United Presbyterian Women. National Meeting (1985 : Purdue University).
Benavides, Marta
Date: 1985
July 1985
Type of resource: sound recording
Genre: speeches
Form: audiocassettes
Extent: 1 audiocassette
Topics: Central America--Social conditions
Central America--Politics and government
Sanctuary movement
Geographic subjects: El Salvador--History--Civil War, 1979-1992.
Rights status: IN COPYRIGHT - NON-COMMERCIAL USE PERMITTED; http://rightsstatements.org/vocab/InC-NC/1.0/
Physical location: CASSETTE 1167; Presbyterian Historical Society, Philadelphia, PA.
Related item: Making peace in Central America [sound recording] : a call for today / Marta Benavides.--http://catalog.history.pcusa.org/cgi-bin/koha/opac-detail.pl?biblionumbe...
Identifier (local): cassette1167
PID (Persistent Identifier): islandora:286242

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