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Bolivian President and Nicaraguan Priest
Slam Catholic Hierarchy, French Copters Not in Darfur
Byline: Matthew Russell Lee of
Inner City Press at the UN: News Analysis
UNITED NATIONS,
November 17 -- Bolivian president
Evo Morales took questions from the Press on Monday, flanked by UN
General
Assembly president Father Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann. Inner City Press
asked
both men to respond to a comment to the Pope by a conservative Bolivian
cardinal, Julio Terrazas, that Morales is not working "for all the
people."
Morales
began by apologizing to "Father Brockman,"
saying that his history is as a union organizer. He said that while
many in the
Catholic Church support "my changes," the hierarchy does not. He said
it was inappropriate for Terrazas to participate in referendum
campaigns for
the break-away of richer areas of Bolivia. He recounted an approach by
the hierarchy,
which told him a particular Church minister wanted to speak with him,
alone. He
called an attempt to bribe him, which he rejected. Video here,
from Minute
38:15.
Father
Miguel d'Escoto Brockmann, formerly the Sandinista foreign minister of
Nicaragua in a government with other priests including Ernesto
Cardinal, said
that "the hierarchy is not the Catholic Church... the Church is the
people." He said that "unfortunately there is not a single case in
history in which the hierarchy has been in support of revolution for
the
dispossessed."
While the
examples of Camilo Torres and others came to mind, d'Escoto concluded
by saying
he wouldn't be surprised if Jesus, if he came today, were
excommunicated. And then the two men left.
Bolivian President Evo Morales, Catholic hierarchy and bribes not shown
Also in
answering the church and state question, Morales said that in order to
serve
Bolivia, he has had to meet with terrorists, he has had to meet with
genociders. In this latter category he has put his predecessor Gonzalo
Sanchez
de Lozada, whose extradition he has requested from the United States.
The
question of the wider genocide of indigenous people in the Americas and
elsewhere did not come up on Monday.
Footnote: Moralez
was about throwing the U.S. Drug
Enforcement Agency out of his country. He accused DEA of participating
in the
protests against him. Inner City Press asked him to confirm a statement
by his
minister of defense, Walker San Miguel, that Bolivia is asking for
France's
help in replacing the U.S.'s ostensibly anti-drug funding to Bolivia of
$32
million a year. Most of that money, Morales said, goes back to the US.
He
confirmed talks with Brazil, Russia and France, saying these talks
involved
getting helicopters, perhaps with emergency loans.
If these
countries have copters, why are none of them in Darfur?
Click here for Inner City
Press Nov. 7 debate on the war in Congo
Watch this site, and this Oct. 2 debate, on
UN, bailout, MDGs
and this October 17 debate, on
Security Council and Obama and the UN.
* * *
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here
for a Reuters
AlertNet piece by this correspondent
about Uganda's Lord's Resistance Army. Click
here
for an earlier Reuters AlertNet piece about the Somali
National
Reconciliation Congress, and the UN's $200,000 contribution from an
undefined trust fund. Video
Analysis here
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