Open Letter from Argentine Methodist Bishop Emeritus Federico J. Pagura to Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton
On May 17 of last year (2008) I was moved to write you an Open Letter, as brothers and sisters in Christ, in the midst of the hard political campaign in which you were you involved as opponents, within the same party. I had before, written to President Bush in September, 2004, and fortunately brought to an end is one of the most shameful administrations remembered in the history of your country. In that letter we said to him:
On May 17 of last year (2008) I was moved to write you an Open Letter, as brothers and sisters in Christ, in the midst of the hard political campaign in which you were you involved as opponents, within the same party. I had before, written to President Bush in September, 2004, and fortunately brought to an end is one of the most shameful administrations remembered in the history of your country. In that letter we said to him:
“Today your empire has been merciless with one of the richest regions in petroleum and in history, on the earth: the Middle East. But your shadow hangs over the rest of the suffering and unbelieving humanity, after so much cruelty and so much lying, manifested in the Nazism, in the Stalinism, or in the imperial capitalism that you represent, in its most shameless and cynical form.”
With regard to the letter addressed to you both, I honestly confessed to you that we prayed “for the hour in which your contemporary Babel walls would finally fall, for the good of your people, and the relief of a humanity that, from the times of Bolivar and Martí, has experienced what Prof. Chomsky, with great lucidity and courage has denounced: your government as the “First terrorist state of the earth.” To that we add that you arrive at a time favorable for shaking off the chains of the “Ideology of the National Security” that has brought so much death and destruction to our peoples of the continent, fomented by one of your own leaders; an ideology that has you captive for a long time now, be you aware of it or not. It is a favorable time also to begin, along with your people, to glimpse that “other possible world” that from Porto Alegre, Brazil, we are proclaiming to the whole world as the great challenge and the great hope for our generation. The example of Lincoln and Martin Luther King, the gigantic live symbol of Nelson Mandela, and above all the demands of the prophets and of the Gospel, constitute the greatest inspiration and incentive to carry forward that dream and that hope.
It is evident that you have been elected by your people, to bring about the deep changes that we are need in our America and in the whole world. To enumerate them would be to repeat what workers, students, professionals, NGOs, cultural and religious organizations, indigenous peoples and other sectors of our generation are clamoring for with a growing passion and impatience. For that reason we earnestly recommend to you the reading of the Open Letter from Dr. Chandrá Muzaffar, President of the International Movement for A Fair World (JUST), of Malaysia, as well as the letter from the non-government and religious organizations of your country to the President Elect, on: “A fair policy of the United States of America toward Latin America.”
We are sure that to humbly listen to these voices that come directly from our peoples, and to honestly and firmly respond to their demands, will make your government go into history as being genuinely democratic, wise and sensitive to the great priorities that can still save us, as a human family, from a real and definitive universal catastrophe. The word with which the Prophet Isaiah describes the Servant of God, called to bring about a true transformation of our society, declares:
“I have bestowed my spirit upon him, and he will make justice shine on the nations … never faltering, never breaking down, he will plant justice on earth” (Isaiah 42:1-4), can be the engine that moves you and that moves all of us, as a human family, toward “that other possible world” which each day becomes more urgent and which cannot be delayed.
From these Latin American and Caribbean lands, that free and united by the great dream of Bolivar, San Martín, and other great eminent persons that have arisen in our continent, want in the liberating spirit of Jesus Christ, the “Prince of Peace,” to share their offering of freedom, justice and peace with all humanity, I greet you with a live hope and a fraternal hug,
FEDERICO J. PAGURA
Bishop of the Argentine Evangelical Methodist Church
Former member of the Presidium of the World Council of Churches (Geneva, Switzerland)
Former President and Founder of CLAI (Latin American Council of Churches) (Quito, Ecuador)
Former President and Founder of MEDH (Ecumenical Movement for Human Rights) (Bs. Aires)