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Peace Panel Reflects on Nicaragua Visit

Episcopal News Service. April 9, 1987 [87085]

Our task was clearly defined at the outset: we went to Nicaragua as the Standing Commission on Peace for the Episcopal Church. In ecclesiastical terms, we were seeking to learn more about a civil war. There are some Episcopalians (such as Vice President George Bush, Secretary of Defense Caspar Weinberger, Rear Admiral John Poindexter or Lt. Col. Oliver North -- all of whom are members of our Church) who support our government's efforts. For what we must remember as we seek to understand the situation is the fact that the Episcopal Church in Nicaragua is a part of our church community, as much as the Diocese of Vermont or the Diocese of Maine. Thus, when we speak of the contra war supported by our government, we are speaking of a war prosecuted against another country, Nicaragua, which includes a diocese of our own Church.

I can think of no more important task for the Standing Commission on Peace for the Episcopal Church to address than that situation in which Episcopalian is killing Episcopalian. And that, in a nutshell, is the situation we are dealing with in Nicaragua.

Consequently, we were not there to attempt a definitive statement on the situation. Rather, we had gone to Nicaragua as the Commission on Peace to seek ways in which the Episcopal Church might bring healing to a land torn by conflict initiated by our own government and paid for by our own taxes.

The membership of the Standing Commission on Peace is drawn from all over the Episcopal Church. One member, Thelma Wilson, is an active lay woman in the Episcopal Diocese of Nicaragua. At our first meeting she invited the Commission to visit her diocese; we were, after all, the Peace Commission, and the United States Government was supporting a war in her own country. Our initial response was affirmative, and the trip was tentatively scheduled. The decision was reviewed at the November meeting of the Standing Commission on Peace, as questions about available funding and responsible stewardship had arisen. The earlier decision to go to Managua was affirmed.

We set aside Monday and Friday as travel days; that was a wise decision, as it really does take most of the day to get to Nicaragua. On the plane to Managua, we met a delegation of 15 Methodist clergy who, along with their bishop, had decided to spend the first week of Lent learning more about the situation in Nicaragua. Later we would learn that several church groups come to Nicaragua each week and that the Nicaraguan people credit the care and concern of American church people with preventing a full scale invasion by American troops.

We stayed at the Inter Continental Hotel in Managua, a structure which survived the 1972 earthquake. An open field in front of the hotel reminded us that other buildings had not fared quite so well. We spent our time reflecting together on what we had heard and seen as we visited the following:

  • Comite National de Derechos Humanos -- (National Human Rights Committee) founded before the revolution -- now in opposition to the government;
  • Commission Nicarguense Para La Promocion Y Proteccion de los Derechos -- (Nicaraguan Commission for the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights) founded after the revolution - pro government;
  • SERPAJ - Servicio de Paz y Justicia -- founded by Nobel Peace Prize recipient, Adolfo Perez Esquivel; the Nicaragua chapter has offices in the Episcopal Diocesan Center;
  • Barricada -- the oldest newspaper, which was closed down by the government in August, 1986; their offices still operate; very much on the right;
  • El Nuevo Diario -- founded after the revolution, when the Chamorro family (owners of La Prensa) had a split in opinions -- their original policy was middle of the road -- they are now very much on the left;
  • Stephen Kinzer, a reporter for the New York Times who has lived in Nicaragua for ten years;
  • The Rt. Rev. Sturdie Downs, Episcopal Bishop of Nicaragua, and members of his staff;
  • A representative of Msgr. Miquel Obando y Bravo, Roman Catholic leader;
  • The People's Church -- committed to "liberation theology," this group has developed house churches among the poor and supports the revolution; the Roman Catholic hierarchy is very critical of them;
  • Carlos Nunez Tellez -- Commander of the Revolution and Chairman of the Council of State; generally regarded as Comandante Ortega's chief of staff and a key member of the Sandinista National Liberation Front.

We had planned to meet with an official at the Embassy of the United States. When we arrived for our appointment, we were told that there had been an unfortunate mix-up; they had us scheduled for a meeting on Monday, March 9, not on Tuesday, March 3. We accepted this explanation at face value until we later learned that other church groups had experienced a similar mix-up on their appointments. We concluded that embassy personnel had grown tired of trying to answer the same embarrassing questions.

The time with Kinzer had not been planned, but came about through Bishop John Walker of the Diocese of Washington, who had been given his name before he left for this trip. Our two-hour conversation with Kinzer proved to be most informative, since he had lived in Nicaragua for ten years and had known members of the Somoza family before the revolution. He underlined what we were told last November: the situation is very complicated and is not easily described through such code words as "Marxist government."

Perhaps Kinzer's most telling observation was to the effect that the United States Government is pursuing a policy that is not only immoral, but also a policy that is clearly not working. When we heard reports that the contra war has left 30,000 dead since 1981 and left 8,000 children as orphans, we had some sense of the human suffering which has been inflicted on this small country.

It would require far more space than is available here to recount all of what I learned on this Journey. As you can see from the listing above, we did try to speak with people from varying perspectives and therefore avoid the danger that we would hear only what we wanted to hear. I can't be sure that we were entirely successful in this regard, but that commitment did undergird our efforts.

I can, however, make three definitive statements which I know from my own experience to be true:

  1. I could find no one who felt that conditions under the Somoza regime were better than what people were experiencing under the Sandinistas. Clearly, the poor are better off today than they were ten years ago, and the government continues to place a high priority on dealing with problems of housing, hunger and illiteracy.
  2. I could find no one ho supported the war of the contras.
  3. The present leadership of the Nicaraguan government is intensely patriotic. As one person said, "This is not a Marxist revolution, it is a Nicaraguan revolution run by Nicaraguans."

I returned to the United States with a keen awareness that we are not receiving a clear picture of the situation in Nicaragua from our own press. On several occasions, we were told of the importance of visiting church groups who then returned to the U.S. to give a first hand report on what had been seen and heard.

We attended Ash Wednesday services on March 4 at St. Francis Episcopal Church in Managua. It was a special occasion for many reasons, not the least of which was the fact that it was the 15th anniversary of the Rt. Rev. Wesley Frensdorff's consecration as the Bishop of Nevada. Frensdorff is now the Assistant Bishop of Arizona; he is also a member of the Standing Commission on Peace and was with us on this trip. It was so moving to celebrate Ash Wednesday liturgy in a place where our corporate sin was so evident and so shameful.

[thumbnail: Members of the Standing C...]