Last Updated:Friday - 09/24/2010

WCR Letters to the Editor

Mayan community needs support

Carlisle Johnson represents a point of view held by a minority of Guatemalans (WCR Letters, May 21).

I was at Bill Glen's interview with Mario Tema and Dawn Paley, a Vancouver-based independent journalist recently back from a two-month reporting trip to Guatemala, and at their Edmonton presentation ("Guatemalans fight gold mine's ravages," WCR, May 7).

For over two years, I have been studying Canadian mines in Central America. I have used a large number and variety of sources, including many in Spanish from Central America.

A large part of my study focused on the Sipakapa mine from Mario Tema's community in the department of San Marcos.

The Mayan community of Sipakapa has been supported in their struggle against the Canadian mining community by many governmental and non-governmental organizations in Guatemala, as well as the Catholic Church with the strong support of Archbishop Ramazzini of San Carlos, and Honduran Cardinal Oscar Rodriguez, both of whom appealed to the Canadian government, the Canadian mining companies, and the Canadian public.

In Canada, many organizations have become involved including Development and Peace - which used the Glamis (now Goldcorp) mine in San Marcos as one of three mines studied in the 2006 Fall Campaign - Kairos, Change for Children, Guatemala Canada Solidarity Committee, Guatemalan Canadian Association, Mining Watch Canada, Rights Action, Peace Brigades International, Social Justice Committee, Canadian Conference of Catholic Bishops, Congregation of Notre Dame.

Carlisle Johnson claims that the WCR report is "a welter of inaccuracies." I disagree.

Johnson has brought up the same old arguments before and they have been adequately refuted. It would serve no purpose to do so again.

Cecily Mills
Edmonton

Time to make poverty history

Re: "Church groups remain stuck in the mode of charity" - comment by Kathy Vandergrift (WCR, May 14).

Dom Helder Camara was the archbishop of Olinda and Recife in northeast Brazil, the country's poorest region. Most women and children were underprivileged.

In 1960, he preached, "When shall we have the courage to outgrow the charity mentality and see that at the bottom of all relations between rich and poor, there is a problem of justice.

Bravo Kathy!

Women and children have become casualties and are being made into objects to be smuggled across borders.

Father Shay Cullen in Edmonton (WCR, May 21) says, "Sexual exploitation of children has its roots in crushing poverty."

The urban poor live in slums in major towns and cities of the world. Children become the merchandise of the child sex industry sustained by foreign tourists, pedophiles and overseas military personnel.

Perhaps the world's greatest scandal is that there are whole nations suffering from dire poverty.

"In shocking contrast," say the Scarboro Missions, the nations of the world "collectively spend more than one trillion dollars each year in engagements in war."

So make poverty history. We demand justice for children's rights. There are millions of street children in the world.

Hank Zyp
Spruce Grove

Believe or not believe

Lori Dexter's letter (WCR, May 7), "Heaven, not hell, celebrates the positive of our faith," reminded me of something a young priest in New Brunswick said in a newspaper interview.

He was asked by the reporter if belief in hell was decreasing. Father said, "Well, you don't have to believe in hell to go there."

Patricia LeBlanc
Edmonton

Letters to the Editor

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