Missionaries see no reason for expulsion from Venezuela (fwd)

[phil cash cash]

Posted on Wed, Apr. 26, 2006
Missionaries see no reason for expulsion from Venezuela
BY STEVEN DUDLEY Knight Ridder Newspapers
http://www.grandforks.com/mld/grandforks/news/world/14431793.htm
CARACAS, Venezuela - If there was ever anything sinister about Florida-based
Christian missionaries working with indigenous tribes in southern Venezuela, it
remains unknown to them.
Venezuela's government ordered the expulsion of close to 50 missionaries from
the region earlier this year after accusing members of the New Tribes Mission,
headquartered in Sanford, Fla., of spying and seeking to exploit its natural
resources.
Opponents of President Hugo Chavez speculate that it's the government that
wants uninhibited access to natural resources in the area, notably uranium it
might want to sell to Iran.
More likely, it appears the missionaries may have been in the wrong place at
the wrong time - Americans working in a remote jungle in a country ruled by
Chavez, a fierce critic of the U.S. government who has repeatedly accused
Washington of plotting to oust and even assassinate him.
"I wasn't angry," said Steve Sanford, a New Tribes missionary who has worked
for 12 years with the Joti tribe in the tiny settlement of Cano Iguana in the
southern state of Amazonas. "I just felt like someone had given false
information to the government."
"It hurt in the sense that none of it was true," the Pennsylvania native added
during a telephone interview from the city of Puerto Ordaz where he was
awaiting a legal appeal to the expulsion order. "We'd been living there for
many years. The Joti people, if anyone had asked them, they would get plenty of
evidence to suggest that none of what they were saying about us was true," he
added. Sanford and his family have since returned to the United States to visit
relatives.
New Tribes missionaries have been in the Amazonas region for nearly 60 years
helping to build homes, supplying medicines, teaching reading and writing, and
translating the Bible into the local language, Sanford said.
Three other missionary groups, including an offshoot of New Tribes, have also
worked in the region. Some remain, hoping to avoid the order expelling their
missionary neighbors.
Chavez, a leftist-populist elected in 1998, has long been suspicious of the
United States and anything related to it. He has accused Washington of
fomenting insurrection against him and participating in a coup in 2002 that
briefly ousted him. Chavez got further fodder for his cause in August last year
when televangelist Pat Robertson suggested that the U.S. government should
assassinate him.
The Bush administration has accused Chavez of undermining democratic
institutions at home and clandestinely supporting leftists abroad. Further
worries surround Chavez's support of Iran, suspected of seeking to build
nuclear weapons. Some Venezuelans claim uranium can be found in southern
Venezuela, but there's been no evidence to support that claim.
New Tribes missionaries are not the only ones who have found themselves in the
middle of this political maelstrom. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints pulled its 220 American missionaries out last year because they were
having trouble getting visas, and other groups are contemplating similar moves.
But New Tribes seems to be bearing the brunt of the government's attacks.
Chavez called New Tribes an "organization of imperialist penetration," while
Venezuelan Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel went a step further.
"If there was suspicion here about exploiting uranium, one would have to think
about the New Tribes, who were led by the North Americans," Rangel said
recently. "It seems that there was uranium trafficking, and no one ever
mentioned it."
Sanford says Venezuelan military personnel last year inspected the area where
he, his wife and three boys lived. They were "cordial, very professional" and
gathered information on literacy rates and medical needs of the community.
Sanford heard only later about the accusations of spying - via the rudimentary
Internet service he gets using shortwave radio signals.
"My personal reaction was that I wish that somebody would actually find out
what we're doing and take an honest look at what we've done there and our
presence with the people and if it was positive," he said.
What they were doing, according to Sanford, was combining social projects with
Bible study. He added that contrary to accusations of cultural imperialism, New
Tribes did not force indigenous people to accept the Bible or its teachings.
"They don't view us as foreigners or some outside presence that try to control
their lives," he said, referring to the Joti. "They view us as friends. They
have a tremendous respect for us because we gave them the opportunity to hear
this message, and that is what they embrace."
A local Joti leader told the Associated Press earlier this year that his people
saw the missionaries as "neighbors," and there were media reports of marches in
the region to protest the missionaries' expulsion.
But in November, after the Venezuelan military visited the indigenous tribes,
it concluded that New Tribes was trying to create a "new culture in the
region."
"It's as if there was a state inside a state," said a military report,
published on a section of an armed forces website dealing with the New Tribes
missionaries.
The government has since said it will start its own social programs for the
indigenous people, replacing the missionary groups.
New Tribes missionaries, meanwhile, have filed an appeal against the expulsion
order and are awaiting a verdict from the Supreme Court, widely regarded as
controlled by Chavez supporters.
"I still have hope," Sanford said. "But I'm not optimistic."

© 2006 KRT Wire and wire service sources. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.grandforks.com
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