International PEACE Projects

Dear Friends of IPP::

Our drill at Malimba School was delayed due to road hazards. Thank you to our kind donors! Following is a message from our partner organization in Zambia: the Butterfly Tree. Where is the Justice when people who have such a light footprint on this planet are experiencing suffering that is beyond comprehension. We will do all the good we can in the ways that we can and send thanks to Jane Kaye Bailey who wrote the letter below:

Hi Leslie and Jody,
It's good to hear from you and sorry I have not been in touch recently, I
took a couple of weeks break to visit one of my sons.
The drillers will shortly be going back to Nyawa after drilling two
boreholes in Mukuni Chiefdom this week. They went to to drill a borehole at
Bunsanga Health Post, which we are currently building and then they were to
go to Malimba School but half way there they said the road was too bad.
However, the community has since repaired the road so as soon as they have
completed the current sites they will go back to Nyawa. We just hope they
will not fail to find water as their first attempt at the health post was
dry. The water table levels are so low due to the lack of rain, and streams
and rivers are dry.

There are no rains expected until the end of the year! The rainy season is
December to April, but it was extremely poor this year. The situation is
absolutely dire and on the verge of famine in some areas. We have
distributed over 5,000 bags of roller meal, but it's only a drop in the
ocean to what is needed until next year when hopefully crops have been
grown. There are horrifying stories emerging, old people walking for miles
in search of food to feed their grandchildren, girls being sold into early
marriages and hundreds of miles of forests being cut for charcoal burning so
farmers can get raise money. We have funded a successful malaria prevention
programme in Moomba Chiefdom, which is 300km from Livingstone, I was told
last week that the school borehole has run dry as it's so old. However, it
would cost a fortune to find a drilling company that we go there as over
200km are off road. I drove there myself in 2017 and the tracks are deep
sand!

One of the big NGO's has finally raised an alert so we are awaiting further
news, we have asked if we can work with them and will distribute throughout
the Kazungula District. In the meantime I have applied for an emergency
relief grant and just pray that it will be approved. No one in Zambia has
ever experienced such a bad drought and if something isn't done soon sadly
people will die of hunger.

I hope that I will shortly have some good news for you - thank you for your
patience, as you can imagine it's not easy!

Best wishes,
Jane

Such grief for the people of Nicaragua-many of whom, escaping harm, are in the caravans approaching our border w Mexico.

Cathedral protests highlight Ortega's broken alliance with Nicaraguan church
Catholic church has provided sanctuary since the earliest days of the uprising in the country, in which hundreds have been killed
Toby Stirling Hill in Managua
Thu 8 Nov 2018 11.02 EST First published on Thu 8 Nov 2018 03.00 EST

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A man holds a national flag after a mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral in Managua, Nicaragua, to demand the release of demonstrators detained during protests against the government.

As mass concluded in Managua’s Metropolitan Cathedral, chants of “Liberty!” and “Justice!” broke out among the congregation. Outside, protesters unfurled a giant Nicaraguan flag – a prohibited symbol of the country’s recent uprising – from the building’s roof.

Blue and white balloons rose into the sky as demonstrators in the church grounds planted wooden crosses – each inscribed with the name of someone killed in the past six months of rebellion and repression.

Nicaragua used 'weapons of war' to kill protesters, says Amnesty International
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Protest is outlawed in Nicaragua, as President Daniel Ortega seeks to stamp out any trace of the civil revolt that threatened to bring down his government earlier this year.

Street demonstrations are brutally quashed. More than 550 protesters languish in jail. Human rights groups have documented widespread use of torture.

Facing such repression, protesters have retreated to the one place where police and paramilitary forces won’t pursue them.

“The church has become the last space where citizens can freely express themselves, and demand their rights,” said lawyer Martha Molina.

Crosses are placed at a memorial for victims killed in recent protests against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government.
Crosses are placed at a memorial for victims killed in recent protests against Nicaraguan President Daniel Ortega’s government. Photograph: Jorge Cabrera/Reuters
The Catholic church has provided sanctuary since the earliest days of the crisis, in which hundreds have been killed.

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Protests began in April, triggered by welfare cuts but rooted in deeper anger over Ortega’s growing authoritarianism.

On 21 April, with the death toll already climbing, bishops rescued students besieged by police and militants in the Metropolitan Cathedral. “I want to thank you in the name of the church, because you are our country’s moral reserve,” the auxiliary bishop of Managua, Silvio Báez, told them.

As the uprising spread, Nicaragua’s Episcopal Conference persuaded Ortega to let it mediate talks. But negotiations repeatedly collapsed. In July – after a church harbouring students was riddled with gunfire – bishops accused state representatives of “distorting” the process.

Days later, on the 39th anniversary of the Sandinista revolution, Ortega turned on the church. “The bishops are committed to the coup-mongers,” the former guerrilla leader told supporters, accusing clerics of stockpiling weapons.

This rhetorical assault marked the end of Ortega’s efforts to maintain ties with the church, an alliance that was key to his return to power in 2007.

In 2006, as elections approached, the one-time revolutionary rebranded himself a reverent Catholic. Weeks before the vote, legislation imposing a total ban on abortion passed the national assembly – thanks to the unanimous support of Ortega’s FSLN delegates.

Now, however, Ortega has turned on his former allies. “The bishops have been extraordinary in defence of human rights, and the government wants to silence that voice,” said Ana Margarita Vigil, a prominent feminist and opposition activist.

The most virulent abuse has been directed at Báez, who studied scripture in Rome for 30 years before returning to Nicaragua in 2009. His arrival reoriented the church towards a more critical stance, culminating in a prescient letter, published in 2014, warning that the erosion of democracy endangered Nicaragua’s future “in a very alarming way”.

“Báez is an intellectual, the most qualified bishop in Nicaragua,” said Israel González, the Nicaragua correspondent for Catholic news service Religión Digital. “His return was a measure taken to strengthen the church, at a time when an authoritarian government was appropriating the symbolic force of Catholic piety for its own ends.”

People hold candles during mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral to demand release of detained demonstrators.
People hold candles during mass at the Metropolitan Cathedral to demand release of detained demonstrators. Photograph: Jorge Cabrera/Reuters
At the end of October, state media targeted Báez with fresh accusations. Secret recordings purported to catch him plotting against the government. Reports described him as a “terrorist” and “fascist”, insisting he should “leave Nicaragua”.

Báez – already granted protective measures by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights – dismissed the recordings as “manipulated”. (Independent analysis supports this.) But the smear campaign was followed by a barrage of death threats.

The threats carried particular resonance, coming just days after the canonisation of the Salvadoran archbishop Óscar Romero, gunned down while celebrating mass in a hospital chapel in 1980 for speaking out against the country’s dictatorship.

Nicaragua: Ortega blames 'satanic sect' for uprising against his rule
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The assault on the church has had an effect. Báez has lowered his profile, giving his homilies in a secluded seminary on the outskirts of Managua – though he continues to condemn the “disgrace” of authoritarian power, and told the Guardian he would stay in Nicaragua.

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In the Metropolitan Cathedral, too, priests have sought to pull back from the frontline of the crisis. During a recent Sunday mass, the church’s rector, Luis Herrera, told worshippers: “temples are for praying, not protesting”.

But protesters – many of whom have seen friends and relatives killed or jailed by Ortega’s forces – are reluctant to comply.

“We have to raise our voices for justice for those killed and freedom for the hundreds in prison,” said Karla Villalta, 49, standing among the wooden crosses. “The revolution was something beautiful, but Ortega and his wife have buried it.”