courage - L`Hora

SPEECH DELIVERED BY JUAN CARRERO UPON
RECEIVING "THE COURAGE OF CONSCIENCE"
AWARD
Juan Carrero Saralegui received the "Courage of Conscience" award.
He is the first Spaniard granted with this award. On tuesday the 2nd
of February 1999, at 11 AM received Juan Carrero Saralegui,
President of the Foundation S'Olivar in Estellencs (Mallorca, Spain)
in Sherborn (Massachusetts) the "Courage of Conscience" award,
granted by The Peace Abbey. The founder and director Lewis Randa
and the retired colonel of the U.S. army William J. Cavanaugh,
member of the organization Veterans for Peace, handed over a
sculpture representing the dove of peace beginning its flight from a
pair of open hands.
Juan Carrero Saralegui is the first Spaniard awarded with this
award. Previously awarded a.o.: Ernesto Cardenal, Mother Teresa,
The Dalai Lama, Thich Nhat Hanh, Daniel Berrigan, Paul Winter
Consort, Helen Caldicott, Brian Willson, Rosa Parks, Ramsey Clark,
Maya Angelou, Muhammad AlÌ, Rigoberta Menchu, Harry Wu,
Mikkail Gorbachev, Patch Adams, Hugh Tompson, Sting, Jimy
Carter, Joan Baez, Greenpeace.
Also awarded posthumously: Anwar Sadat, Alva Myrdal, Mahatma
Gandhi, Peace Pilgrim, Ben Linder, Abbie Hoffman, John Ono
Lennon, Oscar Romero, Dorothy Day, Robert Francis Kennedy,
Martin Luther King, Woody Gutrie and Glenn Andreotta. These
awards were collected at The Peace Abbey by the closes family
member of the awardwinner: the grandson of Gandhi, the son of
John Lennon, the son of Martin L. King, etc.
At the ceremony Juan Carrero Saralegui said:
Ladies and gentlemen,
When the Argentinean military triad composed by generals Videla,
Masera and Agosti, made their coup and began their tortures,
crimes, kidnappings and disappearances, I was living with my wife,
Susana, exactly at the foothills of the Argentinean Andes, at the
border between Chile and Argentina. At an altitude of almost 12.000
feet we were the teachers at a small school attended by more than
50 quechuas indigenous children. Together with our dear
Argentinean friend, Nobel Peace Prize winner Adolfo PÈrez Esquivel
and many other less well known companions, my wife and I claim to
be part of the third generation of the non violent movement that
Mahatma Gandhi created.
I met my wife 25 years ago at L'Arch Community, founded by Lanza
del Vasto, the European disciple of Mahatma Gandhi whom he
named Shantidas, Servant of the Peace, whom he commissioned to
spread the non violence movement in the West. My wife lived close
to Lanza del Vasto for more than a year. At that time I was the third
conscientious objector in Spain apart from the Jehova's Witness.
The first two had been condemned to 8 years in prison. I tried to
force the legal acceptance of a Social Service position instead of the
mandatory military service by working and living with the quechuas.
Because I was a conscientious objector I was a fugitive from the
Spanish military Justice. My goal was to return to Spain after
several years, supported by the delegation of Missions in my
diocese. Because of our work Adolfo, my wife and I were about to
loose our lives. Our school was only a few miles from Mina Aguilar,
a huge mine from which an American corporation extracted tons of
various and valuable gems daily.
A few weeks ago, Madeleine Albright, admitted that the American
government made a big mistake by supporting the Latin America
dictatorships. The same day that the Secretary of State made these
declarations I accompanied Adolfo in Spain. Him and Mr Almada,
president of the American Jurist Association in Paraguay, had just
the day before provided the Spanish judge Baltazar Garzon with
abundant documentation about the support that Madeleine Albrigth
referred to, the Condor Plan. So I was there when Adolfo was
questioned about the words pronounced by the Secretary of State
and he answered: "I don't know about any error of the US
government. I know that they made a detailed plan and it was
carried out without any error". Perhaps the greatest crimes
committed by these dictatorships were excesses and out of the
control of the US government. But still, their responsability is
serious.
Twenty five years later history repeats itself. During the last five
years the Foundation S'Olivar of which I am the president, has felt
moved to act in favor of the defenseless civilians in Rwanda,
Burundi and now also in the D.R. of Congo. We know well what is
happening in this region. In the last five years we have gathered
enough stories about the terrible massacres and other acts of
extreme cruelty. We have walked more than 2.000 km for peace.
We reached our limit when we fasted for 42 days. We have received
the support of 19 Nobel Prize winners and of practically all of the
European Parliament headed by its Spanish president Mr. JosÈ
MarÌa Gil Robles. We have supported the European Commisary for
the Humanitarian Aid, Ms. Emma Bonino, who met with the
Rwandan Hutu refugees in Zaire in February of 97 accompanied by
the TV cameras, while the sophisticated North American satellites
did not want to see this reality and they denied their existence. She
found 300.000 people only in Tingui Tingui! When she arrived to
Brussels she declared: "We have returned from hell". Thanks to all
these actions we believe that for now we have saved thousands of
lives. However, the majority were massacred by the armed
extremist tutsis by firearms, hunger, illnesses and wounds in their
feet.
The massacres performed by the Hutu extremist in 94 cannot be
used ever again as alibi that justifies the massacres that are now
being conducted by the extremist Tutsi lobbies that are in control of
the region. You can believe me when I tell you that since 1990 only
the armed extremist tutsi's (and specially the Rwandan Patriotic
Front that today tyrannize the Rwandan people) have killed many
more human beings than those extremists Hutus whom they accuse
of genocide. When the propaganda that the FPR has spread makes
believe that the Tutsi ethnic group is the great and only victim in
this conflict, in reality they use their own etnic group as a shield. I
cannot talk more clearly for security reasons. Shortly after I left
Burundi the last time, the three people from Burundi who we had
left as representatives of an NGOs connected to our Foundation in
different provinces, were assassinated (the Governor of a province,
the Major of a town, the nurse in charge of a health care center).
Also two years ago, in the middle of our 42 days fast in front of the
European Parliament in Brussels and in front of the American
Embassy in Spain, three Spanish collaborators were killed in
Rwanda by the FPR pretending to be Hutu rebels. The live of the
fourth collaborator was spared because he was an American citizen.
I could go on and on. Soon we will be horrified when all these
cruelties come to light of what the Tutsi extremists have been doing
for years, but once more it will be to late. More likely this genocide
will not only be much worse than those produced by the Latin
American dictatorships, it may even surpass the genocide of Pol Pot.
In the same way that the so called genocide of 1994 cannot be used
as the alibi to eliminate in a selective and massive way the Hutus
ethnicity, nor can the grave responsabilities of some European
governments in the past in this region excuse the responsability of
the US now. For this reason I denounce here today the Government
of the US for giving military training to these armies guilty of
genocide. I denounce the participation of the North American
Administration in the planning of the projects on invasion of Rwanda
in 1990 and Zaire in 1996 and I denounce that they supported the
execution of these invasions. I also dare to beg to each one of you
here in the name of truth and of the most holy and sacred in this
life, in the name of your ancestors that made this big and wonderful
country that today honors me with this award, in the name of the
heroes that I admire so much who throughout the history of this
nation fought for justice and for solidarity; some of whom received
before me this same award that I receive today; in the name of the
enormous suffering of millions of African brothers ans sisters;
finally, in the name of God whom I love and try to serve in spite of
my limitations and weaknesses; in the name of all of them I beg
you to help me and my companions in our ambitious effort to make
the government of this country to change its policy in the Great
Lakes African region. I beg you to help us in our intend that your
government will not support for one more day allies that are
responsible of huge crimes against humanity, even responsible for a
genocide. I beg you to help us so that our small voice reaches the
North American society through the media.
The sooner the debate opens up here about the implications and
responsabilities of the American administration in regard to this
genocide, the sooner we will be able to stop it. In Belgium and
France a similar debate has already begun. There are many of us,
not only here but also in Europe, that would like to see that the
moral prestige of this nation will not be squandered. The great
causes of peace and justice need the great strenght of the US. On
the contrary as a Mahatma Gandhi used to say, all that is built upon
injustice and falsehood, even the greatest empires, is destroyed.
As earlier Bishop Romero in El Salvador, also the Jesuit bishop
Munzihirwa 3 days before his assassination in 1996 in the Kivu
region of Zaire, protested: "We ask the Tutsi lobbies leading
Rwanda and Burundi to stop organizing the misinformation given to
deceive the international opinion". Today his beloved Kivu suffers a
cruel invasion inflicted by the extremist dictatorships of Rwanda,
Uganda and Burundi. The situation in this region caused by the
lobbies lead by Museveni, Kagame, Buyoya or Bagaza is morally
and politically untenable. With such excluding extremists it will be
impossible to achieve the necessary stability to be able to have the
commercial interchange with this African region that the American
administration, the World Bank and some big corporations seek to
have. To achieve the necessary and fare stability that the suffering
civilians of these countries deserve, more than anything, is a
process, similar to the one in South Africa, to start again without
delay in this region. The ethnic apartheid is even more cruel than
the racial one and the international community cannot accept it.
The great Hutu majority of this region should not be excluded. I
wish we finally would be able to work together to find ways of a just
and stable peace.
As a step further towards this noble goal I accept today this award
even though I do not see myself as worthy as the previous awarded
but, I will accept in the name of the victims whose voice I
represent. Thank you very much to everyone for listening to me.
Thank you to The Peace Abbey for they extremely valuable support
for such a right, urgent and important cause.
Juan Carrero
Sherborn (Massachusetts)
02.02.99