To Break Every Yoke

The following open letter is a response from Latin American evangelical Christians to the sufferings of their sisters and brothers in El Salvador. The letter is from some of the board members of CELEP (Latin American Evangelical Center for Pastoral Studies), a strong voice of the evangelical movement in Latin America, based in Costa Rica. The letter, which joins the pleas of many Roman Catholics in the region, makes a direct appeal to evangelical Christians in the United States to oppose our government's policy of intervention in El Salvador.--The Editors

July, 1981

Beloved Brothers and Sisters in Christ,

It is a fact well known to all of us that the present situation in Central America is at the flash point. It is so critical that it can explode at any moment with unforeseeable consequences. One could diagnose this situation from a number of different perspectives in order to ascertain its real causes. However, the following are indisputable facts having to do, in particular, with what is happening in our sister Republic of El Salvador:

• Violence has reached the point where it is now almost impossible to control;

• The official military forces have become an instrument of repression and death, running rough-shod over many innocent people;

• Pastors and other evangelical leaders have met their deaths, their only offense being to offer bread and medicines to those that suffer, or to ask that the lives and elemental rights of those that have been taken prisoner, or have simply "disappeared," be respected; and

• Several pastors have been forced to leave the country because their lives have been threatened.

The list of specific atrocities that our Salvadorean brothers and sisters are suffering today is endless.

And what are the reasons behind all of this?

There is only one fundamental reason: the situation of misery and death in which a handful of wealthy families have kept the majority of the population for generations. The military forces have protected the privileged, who have grouped themselves into paramilitary forces. The government junta has not only been incapable of detaining the escalating violence, but has allied itself with the forces of repression. It has not taken action against the outrages and acts of violence of both the military and the police.

Because of the above well-known facts, the undersigned, members of the Latin American Evangelical Center for Pastoral Studies (CELEP), committed as we are to our fellow evangelical churches in this part of the world, have observed with consternation that your government has decided to place itself on the side of the forces of repression and of injustice and to give them its support. The massive military aid that is being sent to tiny El Salvador will contribute to making the slaughter more extensive and more intensive. And it will not offer any valid solution to the human--as well as Christian--problem of our Salvadorean brothers and sisters.

Christians cannot help but be on the side of those that struggle for justice, because the voice of those who suffer reaches the ears of Yahweh.

We are deeply saddened when we hear of evangelical churches in your country that become euphoric because their present government is supporting regimes such as the one in El Salvador. Think for a moment, our brothers and sisters! If you were living under a cruel dictatorship (God forbid!), would you like it if another powerful nation, calling herself your friend, were giving enormous military aid to those same people who are your oppressors? We are confident that your answer to this question is an unqualified no. But this is exactly what is happening in Central America.

By the mercies of God, do everything in your power to stop your government from continuing its policy of support to dictatorships such as the one in El Salvador!

If you do this, you will be doing a work of love. And Latin America will be grateful to you.

"Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen: to loose the chains of injustice and untie the cords of the yoke, to set the oppressed free and break every yoke" (Isaiah 68:6).

Signed:

Plutarco Bonilla A

Blanqui Otano Rivera

Antonio Videa

Edesio Sanchez S.

Federico Tinley

Guillermo Cook

Edesio Sanchez C.

Cira Ivette de Sanchez

Ana L. de Garcia

Alvaro Vega

Rodolfo Saborio