On December 20 2001, Reformed churches in Argentina joined with other churches and ecumenical organizations in an open letter to their fellow Christians in the north. What was happening - it was the day of the Argentinazo - highlighted the injustice in their country, and the corruption, irresponsibility and indifference of the ruling elite, they said; but it was also an opportunity to draw attention to the 500-year history of "painful and unjust international relations" between the northern and southern hemispheres.

"In this history, full of sin, a huge transfer of natural resources, all kinds of products, and labour from the south to the north, resulted in a huge accumulation of wealth in the north," they said.

soup kitchen This transfer of wealth started with the conquest of the Americas, continued through the centuries of colonial power, and was still continuing, with the repatriation of huge profits by transnational enterprises and the interest payments on "a debt that is a heavy burden to our people".

The Christian church is a universal body with a unique understanding of equality before God and community among people, they said. This understanding of communion (koinonia) offers both the possibility and the duty of building "a solidarity that embraces the whole earth".

They challenged northern churches, agencies and Christian institutions to do more to build up just and equitable trade and economic relationships and to help alleviate the burden of debt, "which is producing misery, and killing millions of people". They asked for concrete signs of solidarity.

They expressed their gratitude to all those in the north engaged in the struggle for just international relations. "We encourage you to continue working to transform the current situation in which those "above" enjoy life while the others "below' suffer into a bridge on which all may embrace," they said.

"God created the north and the south (Ps 89.12). Once and for all, the domination of one by the other must stop!"

Eight months later, during a visit in August 2002 by the then US treasury secretary, Paul O'Neill, Argentina's National Christian Evangelical Council addressed an open letter to the US government.

child with bowl Hunger, which was killing on average 100 children every day and affecting in indescribable ways the poor and the destitute, was an insult to God in an Argentina that was formerly "the granary of the world", the council said. It was just one manifestation of the hunger and marginalization that afflict more than 200 million people throughout Latin America.

The council, which includes all the Alliance's member churches in Argentina, laid the responsibility at the door of "a tragic complicity" between the country's corrupt and egocentric ruling elite, multinational companies and the international financial organizations.

"The form in which public enterprises were privatized, the spurious origin of a great part of the foreign debt and the collection of excessive interest in the service of this debt are the most eloquent example of the perverse circle of corruption," it said.

Like many other countries, Argentina was suffering not just the consequences of its own errors, but also the economic and political oppression exerted by the United States for the sake of "an imperial domination without parallel in human history".

The proposal by the council of foreign relations to swop the foreign debt for land or the IMF's sinister game of constantly changing demands were clear evidence of what Joseph Stiglitz called "a curious mixture of ideology and bad economics designed to protect created interests", the council said.

It recognized that a great part of the solution of Argentina's problems lay in the hands of its people, but it had its own demands to make of the US.

It asked the US government

to abandon its protectionist practices and open up its economy. "It is hypocritical to speak of free trade, while giving 180 trillion dollars in subsidies to agribusinesses, enabling the massive dumping of their products. In these circumstances, commercial treaties such as the Free Trade Area of the Americas cannot work."
to halt its escalating warmongering in Latin America. "We reject the project of installing US military bases in Argentina, like those associated with Plan Colombia or Plan Puebla-Panama."

"As Christians, we cannot fail to express our perplexity about the military budget recently approved in your country," the council said. "In the midst of a worldwide economic crisis, where thousands of millions of people are dying of hunger or do not have access to treatment for HIV/Aids, to allocate 330 trillion dollars to the industry of death is one of the most horrendous criminal acts in the history of humanity."