CIA CHURCH GROUP IN HONDURAS

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180121-5
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: July 19, 2010
• Sequence Number: 121
• Publication Date: August 26, 1981
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

STAT Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180121-5
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GUARDIAN (US)
26 August 1981
By FRANK VI VIANO
Pacific News Service
Lempira province, LIonduras?-
While the. Salvadoran civil war rages on
just miles away, a different, but related
battle has been joined in this remote
Honduran countryside.
Here in the hot, overcrowded camps of
Lernpira housing th-6usands of El Salvador
refugees, deeply conservativeU.S. Christian
fundamentalism has come. head up against
the-theology of liberation espoused by many
grzssroots priest:; and nuns. At the'centerof
the controversy are CARITAS, a Swiss
based Catholic humanitarian agency;-and
.World Vision, a fundamentalist, anticommu-
nist Christian relief organization -based in..
Monrovia, Calif.
Catholic and mainstream Protestant relief
o'Ficials here and in the United States- say
that the government effort to-stifle dissent-
with a mixture of fundamentalist Christian-.:
ity, conservative American ideology and-an
open assault on the theology of liberation, is
well suited to the philosophy of, the
fundamentalists, in particular the group
World Vision.'
- ?
"World Vision - has - helped sensitize
Americans to the fact that there are terrible
problems in other' countries," said Hugh
Wire, director of the West Coast office of the
U.S. Protestant Church World Service,
another relief agency.."But they biro; in a
strictly American version - of what the-
-problems am--and what to do about them.
It's a terribly imperialistic approich,.devoid
of any understanding-of local conditions.`
On': June, 30, . spokesmen claiming . to
represent more than ;100,000 'Salvadoran
refugees in Honduras and Guatemala issued
a :statement .alleging that World Vision
collaborated w M the uiilitaiy,of all' three
countries in a political counter-insurgency
campaign direct-t-4 at the-refugees: Spokes=
roan Father Fausto.-Miller, pastor- of the
border-area pa-fish. of Corquiu.said that the
organizatinr sI tf members ."landed heli-
: copters .in 1`: a xs where-:there were large
-concentrations .3' refugees,-and told them
communism is -your- enemy-. and it has
ruine(everythin, as Honduras.'.,'.
7.` Sister. Irma, a Franciscan nun_ in Sa ita
- Rosa de Copan responsible-for -coordinating
.CARITAS__programs''along the ', border,
insisted that World Vision.also.recruits staff
o
e
rk
d for the Hondur-
.. members who have w
an 'Departrrienf 'of -investigative Police.
Perhaps ' the most severe.-charge' against
:'World. Vision-and. ones-which' -is raised
constantly by relief worker's here:-is that the
group -allows hoops from-the Salvadoran
armed forces and the- paramilitaryorganiza-
tion Oiden to enter' its 'camps-in search of
suspected guerrillas : Similar reports have
'reached. the- Catholic-affiliated[- Washington'
office on. Latin ` America- and other U.S.-
based religious humanitarian"organizations.
-CDI CONNECTmNS -
This is not the first time that such charges
have been levelled against World Vision.
During the Vietnam War, it was criticized for
allegedly passing intelligence information cm
to U.S., military. personnel; `who were not
.allowed to .eater refugee -camps: In Cam-
'bodia, :according'.. to- ?a .1979. article in
--' Christian -Century, at 'least `_`75- percent -of'!
[World.Vision's] operation was -funded-by
the U.S. -AID. [Agency' for International Do-
velopment].`Ameticar military trucks and
helicopters were always available or d
Vision - programs, .-an - the Z used information obtained from the group's field
"wo_rkers as, part of -its --normal intelligence
functio- ' .., _
-"''? ince the organization's founding in 1950,..,
~`.it has expanded to- mount operations.in 85
countries, most notably those where refugee
populations have -grown in the' wake of
World Vision categorically denies that the
organization has acted in collaboration with'
the military; stating that "these arc old, of:-
repeated charges dating back to the 1960s." f
The controversy can not be. so easily
dismissed, however. -Essentializing the
differences between the' two religious
perspectives, Sister Irma says: "Our conflict
is not religious, it is political. It is a question
of the theology of liberation against he
throlcgy of repression."
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Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/07/19: CIA-RDP90-00806R000201180121-5