Title: Lutherans Boost Peace in Guatemala ELCA NEWS SERVICE January 17, 1997 BEHIND THE SCENES, LUTHERANS BOOST PEACE IN GUATEMALA FE-97-01-ET* GUATEMALA CITY (ELCA) -- Now it can be told. When pens scratched the final signatures on peace papers Dec. 29 in Guatemala City, ending 36 years of civil war that claimed 140,000 lives, Lutherans were seen but not heard. No one mentioned the church or the Lutheran World Federation during the ceremony in the National Palace, but those connected with the peace process knew it probably would not have happened without Lutheran behind-the-scenes efforts since 1988. "Without you, we wouldn't be here," Jorge Rosal, one of four guerrilla leaders, told the Rev. Paul A. Wee, former LWF assistant to the general secretary for human rights and now pastor of Reformation Lutheran Church, Washington, D.C. A general amnesty the day before allowed Rosal to enter the country for the first time in 16 years. United Nations negotiator Francesc Vendrell of Spain told Wee the combatants should have mentioned the LWF from the platform: "Nothing would have happened in the peace process without you." But the Lutherans' low profile suits Wee, who maintains that "once you have a need to take credit for doing something like this, you're dead in the water." How were Lutherans instrumental in brokering peace for a Roman Catholic country where Lutherans are virtually unknown? The unfolding story reveals much about the worldwide Lutheran enterprise, which includes the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Its international relief efforts get press, but its peacemaking must be quiet. In 1981 Wee visited Guatemala as part of a National Council of Churches of Christ in the U.S.A. delegation and heard eyewitness accounts of murders and atrocities between government and guerrilla groups that hit him "like a ton of bricks." The country's wealthy elite owned 72 percent of the land and, aided by military dictatorships, kept the Mayan Indian and mixed-blood peasant farmers practically enslaved. The U.S.-based United Fruit Co. controlled huge land tracts and benefited from no taxation, duty-free import of materials and a low-wage labor force. After President Arbenz attempted to return United Fruit land to farmers, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency presided over a 1954 coup that forced Arbenz to flee, returning the country to military rule and the land to United Fruit. For most of the next 40 years, a scorched-earth policy ensued. Groups that questioned the government were branded subversive; 100,000 died, 40,000 disappeared. President Gen. Efraim Rios Montt, a born-again Christian, self-righteously justified burning villages suspected of harboring guerrillas. Four guerrilla groups formed, headed by unlikely people such as Rosal, a pathologist and professor, and coalesced into the Unidad Revolucionaria Nacional Guatemalteca (URNG). The United States supported the government against "communist" guerrillas, and Israel and Taiwan supplied arms to the military and the death squads. Wee promised himself and those who told him their stories that he would do something to help them. After failed 1987 United Nations peace negotiations, Wee, by then with the LWF in Geneva, worked with colleagues to make strategic diplomatic contacts. He met in Geneva with Rosal and other guerrilla leaders. In 1988 the LWF Executive Committee set up a special peacemaking fund; most of its $80,000 came from church-related aid societies in Scandinavia. A Vatican visit secured its willingness to be part of a pastoral delegation to Guatemala and encouraged its bishops to host it. The group that visited in 1989 included the Rev. Reginald Holle, then bishop of the ELCA's North/West Lower Michigan Synod. The group "didn't know the full agenda," Wee admits. The critical moment came when a private meeting with the Guatemalan minister of defense was arranged for Wee and the Rev. Philip G. Anderson, an ELCA pastor with extensive experience in Central America. That contact closed the circle, and Wee secured promises from the government and the guerrillas that they would attend a top-secret summit in Oslo, Norway. The LWF sent round-trip tickets to each participant from the special fund. Wee vividly remembers waiting at the Oslo airport in March 1990, hoping everyone would show up. They did, and they spent five days at a government-owned chalet, secured partly because the Rev. Gunnar Staalsett, then-LWF general secretary, is Norwegian. The talks were uncertain until an after-dinner discussion on the final evening (motivated by the Holy Spirit and Johnny Walker, the story goes). "The adversaries began telling stories about their childhoods, how they grew up in the same neighborhoods, went to school together and shared the same vision for a future Guatemala. Suddenly there were tears, abrazos (hugs) and a determination to hammer out an agreement," Wee says. "Paul and I didn't touch a drop of scotch because we knew we would be working on the document," Rosal says. They finished it at 4:30 a.m., and the Norwegian Foreign Minister witnessed its signing at 9 a.m. The LWF then offered to withdraw from the peace process and let the United Nations mediate. "But both sides begged us to continue," Wee says. So the LWF began arranging meetings of strategic leaders: Guatemalan politicians from all 32 political parties met in Spain, landowners and industrialists in Canada, religious groups in Ecuador, and small business owners, journalists and academics in Mexico. Each group built support for peace as it dialogued with major participants. Between the 1990 Oslo Accord and last December's signing, reconciliation came in fits and starts. The demise of the Soviet Union helped, as did Pope John Paul II's visit to Guatemala. Jorge Serrano Elias, an Oslo participant, was elected president of Guatemala, running on the "Oslo" platform. A formal peace agreement was almost signed in 1992 at the Ecumenical Center (home of the LWF) in Geneva. Wee says, "We had all kinds of security there. The guerrilla leaders were all present. But Serrano (then president) backed out at the last minute, possibly because of military pressure." But finally, all the pieces were in place. A definitive cease-fire was signed Dec. 4 in Norway, constitutional and electoral reforms were signed Dec. 7 in Sweden, and the final signatures came Dec. 29 at 6:18 p.m. "I felt the shivers go through me," Wee says. "It was as if I had suddenly been released from detention and saw the light of day for the first time. Even at the Oslo signing, I remember thinking that if nothing else happened in my ministry, I would be content." Wee says that although a military coup could easily destroy the hard-won peace, all sectors intensely desire the war's end. "The people are simply tired of so much killing. Even military leaders have economic interests which are not benefited by a prolonged conflict," he says. Jorge Rosal, remembering death threats to him and his wife, said "the difficult thing will be to incorporate people back into regular Guatemalan life." The URNG will become a political party. Rosal said he trusted the Lutherans because they "had insight into the structural issues that created injustice." Mario Permuth, a Jewish lawyer and a member of the National Commission for Reconciliation, said simply that "you Lutherans were real. We sensed that we could trust you. It's as simple as that." [The Rev. Edgar R. Trexler is editor of "The Lutheran" magazine.] For information contact: Ann Hafften, Dir., (773) 380-2958 or [log in to unmask]; Frank Imhoff, Assoc. Dir., (773) 380-2955 or [log in to unmask]; Melissa Ramirez, Assist. Dir., (773) 380-2956 or [log in to unmask]