Visit to Peru

by Global Ministries | published on Oct 10, 2014

Report of visit to Peru from William J. Nottingham, President Emeritus of the Division of Overseas Ministries

Greetings in the name of Christ, as my e-mails from Congo always say. It is good to remember the source and energy of our community and caring. I write after Felix Ortiz, Global Ministries Area Executive for Latin America and the Caribbean; retired longtime missionary and former political prisoner in Paraguay, Frisco Gilchrist; and I visited the prisoners and ALAS in Peru August 17-21. The purpose of ALAS is to help prisoners maintain their self-respect, help one another make a difficult adjustment, have an income in the face of vast unemployment, and be able to dialogue with others about their convictions and the need for justice in Peruvian society.

Since the life sentences of the Fujimori regime were annulled, new hearings and trials have taken place for the political prisoners. Some heavy sentences have been applied and are being appealed, but a process of release has started for others of the political prisoners. In the last two years, approximately forty men and women have been released, in part thanks to the lawyers who take the risk of cooperating with ALAS with Global Ministries support. A large number of prisoners continue to be held, some under inhumane conditions, condemned by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights of the OAS and the US Department of State. ALAS and the Association of Prisoners’ Families continue the visits, the encouragement, and the legal assistance

We visited seven women in the women’s prison of Los Chorrillos, about twenty men in Canto Grande, and Lori Berenson in Cajamarca. They have remarkably high morale and they appreciate the solidarity Global Ministries has shown. Only one out of sixty-two human rights organizations in Peru will defend them because their situation has been politicized in the extreme, and that one (ALAS) has had to appeal to us for funds. These organizations are afraid of the law against “apología” which makes freedom of speech very dangerous. They also all have their own political connections and agendas. Pastor Ortiz makes clear the concern of our churches for justice in obedience to God’s will and love for the world, and they witness to us a commitment on behalf of the poor and the struggle for a better world for all. We get our arms stamped and initialed twice on each visit; we are finger-printed and leave our passports in the guardroom. Little kids wait outside the prisons with a swab of cotton damp with alcohol to rub off the evidence of our visit.

The three of us also visited places where ALAS has underwritten projects for ex-prisoners to permit entry into society with dignity and a common vision. One is a restaurant in a neighborhood where the public has reacted positively. Another is a wood and leather crafts shop. A place for a depressed community to learn to use computers and communicate by e-mail and the Internet has been installed by young workers. Some women have a clothing market.

Meeting with mothers and fathers who continue to stand with their sons and daughters is very humbling. They have seen some good results, but the struggle has gone on for over fifteen years; yet they do not give up their demand for the well-being and civil rights of their loved ones. They also point to the increase of poverty despite changes of government. The presence of Frisco, who was jailed in Asuncion for his work with the poor, was greeted with a sense of solidarity and mutual respect. Someone there said that our relationship with them is one of the ways God enters into their reality.

We went to Cajamarca the first morning and arrived at Lori’s prison a little before noon with vegetables and fruit we had picked up at the market. We stayed until 5:00 p.m. when the visiting day was over. The penitentiary is a kind of barren fortress about an hour outside of town along an impossible dirt and rocky road that resembles more a river bed than a street. We rode out in a taxi and back in a jam-packed van/bus. Lori was happy to see us; we stood and talked in the bakery while she finished some work. She prepared a good lunch for us and was completely uninhibited to have us sit in her cell while we talked all afternoon. Her cell was described by an earlier visitor in June: “The barred door was blocked with a strip of sheet metal and a board ‘to keep the rats out’ she explained. All concrete, 6′ by 10′, her bed is a concrete bench against the wall with a foam pad, and on the other side her toilet area: two shelves above a hole in the floor, a faucet at the top dripping water into a bucket.” A pile of bags has all her possessions at the foot of her “bed,” and she sat on an up-turned bucket as we talked under a bare light bulb, jerry-rigged by another prisoner, because her sentence is to be “sin luz” (without light). She is in her 11th year, her morale is good, she does not consider her imprisonment meaningless. She knows that her chances are slim for any change, and she radiates an optimism about her life. When she gets out, she thinks she would like to study nursing. She only sees her husband every other month or so, because it is a 14-hour bus ride through the Andes, relatively expensive for him. He will finish law school this year. ALAS was an idea born in Lori’s cell when a friend and I visited her in March 2003.

Sincerely,
William J. Nottingham
President Emeritus
Division of Overseas Ministries