When the Sun Comes up in the West: A Missionary’S New Song of Justice and Peace

Copyright © 2011 Rev. Robert C. Cook

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New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989, Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved.

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ISBN: 978-1-4497-3138-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3139-7 (hc)

ISBN: 978-1-4497-3137-3 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2011961164

Printed in the United States of America

WestBow Press rev. date: 12/27/2011

Contents

Foreword

Preface

Introduction

Chapter 1

The Sun Rose In The West

Chapter 2

Sixteen Days of Heartbreak

Chapter 3

A Return Visit

Chapter 4

No One Is an Island

Chapter 5

Out Of The Shadows

Chapter 6

Rooting the Mustard Seed

Chapter 7

Blood Soaked Soil

Chapter 8

Dark Night of My Soul

Chapter 9

Woman in the Blue Dress

Chapter 10

Get Out of Jail Free Card

Chapter 11

Claudia Nadina’s Miracle

Chapter 12

The Beginning of Our Sister Parish Mission

Chapter 13

The Seed Grows

First Projects and Growth in Mission

Chapter 14

The Celebrations and Tears

of Micro-business

Chapter 15

My Family Grows

(Unofficially)

Chapter 15

Postscript

Undocumented Immigrants

Acknowledgements

Editor’s Note

This book is dedicated to my grandchildren, those who are among us today, and those who are yet to be, who are the greatest loves of my life.

Our father has been a source of inspiration since we were young children. We have been blessed by having such a stellar example in life. He preaches doing the right thing, treating others with respect, and helping anyone in need, and he then goes above and beyond his words. This makes being his sons and raising his grandchildren an honor. We have uttered the following words many times over the years: ‘When I grow up, I hope to be half the man my father is.’ This still holds true in our hearts.

—Steven and Jason Cook, Bob’s Sons

Thoughts

"Bob’s deep faith and political awareness makes reading When the Sun Comes Up in the West a necessity for anyone wanting to understand the past decade of El Salvador’s history.

—Rev. Don Elly, Pastor

Bob Cook’s name is synonymous with social justice—with faith in action. He has walked the walk in Iowa, and did so in El Salvador. The reader will be forever changed.

—Charlotte B. Nelson, former Executive Director,

Iowa Commission on the Status of Women

Robert Cook is a man driven by a heart that desires nothing more than to be employed in the work of the Kingdom of God.

—Rev. Duane Doc Skidmore

Foreword

Before Bob Cook decided to go to El Salvador to live, he told me that his awareness of a sense of call to do so dated back to a time when he heard me speak on Latin America, some years before. Though I didn’t remember, from the many times and places when or where it might have been, I felt a nudge of responsibility for what he might encounter on his venture. Having experienced the beginning of the Dirty Little War in Argentina, with its military coup and dictatorship, which resulted in the disappearance, torture and murder of thousands of Argentine citizens; I still remember vividly, that more frightening still were the times I spent in El Salvador in 1987 and 1994. Given the reality there, one never knew whether the next corner turned might be one’s last! So, whatever my words sparked in the readiness of Bob’s mind to hear, opening it to that decision in his life’s direction, the least I could answer to his request to write a forward for his book was, Yes. Now, having read the full manuscript in one sitting, I can truly say that it is an amazing and compelling story!

Those of us who were present at his retirement/going away party probably harbored some skepticism about his venture’s advisability. Without knowing Spanish, having been in a Latin American culture only for temporary visits, and without the training and the support of a mainline denominational mission board (he would likely be considered too old to begin, and no Presbyterian Churches even existing in that country to receive him), the project looked a little like Don Quixote charging out to tilt at windmills. Given the well-known dangers of El Salvador, where a gringo stands out as a target, for deeply felt resentment toward the Yankee support of the oppressive ruling oligarchy, Bob’s choice looked a little suicidal. His attitude was and is too humble to give him the pretension of being a Lone Ranger savior for the poor and oppressed of El Salvador and, even though his skin color marked him, he lacked the visible means of structured support most North American’s would take with them, and most certainly he was not mounted on a white horse. To the credit of the Des Moines Presbytery, however, he did go with their blessing and their willingness to receive and disperse funds given on behalf of his work.

However, to think that Bob went without preparation would be a mistake. Those who had known him over the years knew of his work at Cross Ministries with poor and disenfranchised persons in Des Moines. Many throughout the State had known, and been supportive of, his ministry at Hansen House, which he brought to fruition to address the needs of ex-offenders attempting to reenter life on the outside. His repeated trips with organizations to El Salvador, and his return to interpret the reality there with persons in churches here, while also serving very effectively in interim pastorates, attested to his patient skill, and faithful commitment.

All of these non-profit ministries, through which he and others sought to meet the needs of the most disadvantaged among us, cause one to go beyond mere charitable response, to question the causes, which give rise to the need in the first place. More often than not, whatever personal responsibility the one who receives may bear, the roots are embedded in systemic injustice in which we are all involved in one way or another. The magnitude of this involvement is multiplied many fold when it comes to our nation’s historic involvement with Latin America in general, and Bob, in beginning this trek, was no stranger to that history.

Nevertheless, time and again, he is confronted by his own naïveté and the sense that he too is an ugly American, in spite of himself. What is meant by this phrase, ugly American, is that part of the culture shock of living and working with the poor and oppressed of Third World countries, is the recurring awareness that we, as the privileged of the First World USA, assume a monolithic mindset. We are usually unaware of it, until those who have disproportionally born the burden of our privilege confront us. We just automatically assume that our worldview is reality, and that we have the answers to the dilemmas, which the disadvantaged need to learn if they will only listen. Furthermore, we have the technology and ingenuity to make things happen and that, with patience, they can be where we are with our help. Our foreign aid to poor, underdeveloped countries, which we presume has been far above any benefit we might have received in return, should have more than balanced the scales of justice and fairness.

In no way was Bob that unaware of the unfairness of free trade and the institutions that perpetuate and deepen the unfairness. Nor was he unaware of the chain mailed fist of enforcement through our overseas military bases and installations, such as our Fourth Fleet, previously located in the Panama Canal Zone, along with the School of the Americas. He was well aware that Latin American military high command and officer core have long been trained in assassination and enhanced interrogation, more commonly known as torture which is still being carried out at Ft. Benning, Georgia and elsewhere under another name. Their responsibility for the torture and death of teachers, labor leaders, community activists, priests, nuns, and Archbishop Romero of El Salvador itself, are well known worldwide, but not considered credible by the mindset, which still prevails in our own country.

That however is not what Bob meant when he speaks of his own naïveté, and tendency to Ugly American moments. His ability to bring others along in acknowledging our national naïveté and historical amnesia, regarding our blind spots of selective ignorance and the suffering they have caused, is testified to by his success in interpreting in these pages what he learned first hand in Latin America. His honesty and humility enables him to see himself as part of the problem, and to speak of systemic injustice as a we, ours, and us problem from which we have great difficulty escaping. It is our almost automatic, monolithic mindset that causes us to continue to speak before listening to, and experiencing, what the dispossessed have lived; and to think we have the answers if they will only listen to us and do as we say.

Bob would say that, by the grace of God, his very weaknesses turned out to be the source of his greatest strength. Not knowing neither the language nor the culture, he could only sit under the shade of a tree day after day, looking, listening and feeling what was going on around him, in a remote, rural village, in guerrilla occupied territory. His total dependence on the poor inhabitants of that cantón to sustain, protect, and ultimately save his life, enabled him to absorb something of the helplessness and hopelessness of their own circumstances. In those days of mute interaction and deepening introspection, a growing sense of mutual trust finally enabled him to discover, in his own buried unconscious self, a hurt at the heart of his own sensitivity. He had found his own freedom in sensing and siding with them in their helplessness and hurt, until the mutual sharing of hurt would give rise to hope for all! Even in the absorbing of more pain and suffering together in community there is the will to survive and overcome the entrenched powers of greed and arrogance.

Not surprisingly, all the way through the recounting of these anecdotal experiences the reader is encouraged to understand them in the context of ancient Jewish and Christian texts from the Bible, which these monotheistic faiths, along with Islam, share in common. And interspersed throughout are passages that echo, in our time and place, the same call to faith in practice now.

In addition we are urged to read between the lines that link the stories together, the facts and their ultimate historical meaning of which Bob shares with us through his own interpretation. If WikiLeaks has published to the world the hidden conversations and plans of the powerful for world domination, then these stories and many others like them, picture the spirit of the powerless who indeed have no choice but to resist that domination. And united they cannot ultimately be defeated, for the Realm of God, and the common good, will only be realized when the last, least and lost are put first, and the first, the finest, and the founded are put last!

Read at your own risk, for it may change forever your own way of life!

Then pass it on!

Gil Dawes

July, 2011

Gil Dawes is an activist pastor and long-time, valued associate of Bob Cook. For his entire career he has centered his ministry on the fight for justice, whether it be on behalf of the poor, minorities, workers or others subjugated by United States imperialism. Now retired, he, along with his wife Inez, continue to focus their faith around issues of justice, peace and civil rights.

Preface

El Salvador: The Country and Its People

Nestled between Guatemala and Honduras, El Salvador, which in Spanish translates The Savior, is the tiniest of all the Central American counties. Anyone who is able to move his or her attention beyond the heartbreak of poverty that racks the country will be taken by the beauty of a mountainous terrain that is covered with a lush green during the six-month rainy season from May to November. That beautiful green is turned to a dust laden brownish-green landscape during the dry season of the other six months of the year. Through the center of the country runs a mountain range and Central Plateau consisting of a series of volcanoes. It is a country no larger than one-sixth the size of the state of Iowa, so it is no wonder that within an hour of any location in El Salvador, one can be relaxing on one of the many beautiful beaches along the Pacific coast. Within the mountainous terrain there are eight active volcanoes with an eruption of one, the Santa Ana Volcano, as recently as 2006, causing two deaths and hundreds of homeless from the villages. The more devastating of natural disasters are earthquakes. There are many tiny tremors that go seemingly unnoticed during each week. The last destructive earthquake took place in 2001, killing over one thousand people and leaving many thousands homeless.

The many dirt floor huts that serve as homes for the poor are evidence the high level of poverty in El Salvador. It is not uncommon for them to be constructed of scavenged materials, such as sheet metal, cardboard, or plywood, though many are built of cement block or adobe. Innumerable families exist with no electricity or potable water. Every morning, people awaken to the job of walking for hours to carry the water necessary for life to their homes, a task that generally falls upon the women of the community. Hundreds of shacks dot the mountainsides and entire communities of shacks, known as cantónes¹, are common in the surrounding areas of pueblos throughout the country.

Oppression and War

In 1984, the tiny Central American country of El Salvador became a puppet democracy of the United States. For decades, prior to that year, El Salvador had been a puppet dictatorship, with the United States propping up the oppressive regimes that always treated the poor among them with distain and oppression. For centuries, fourteen extended families owned and controlled the land and resources of the country, which, in turn, controlled an oligarchy consisting of government, military, and church rule. Death squads became the feared instruments of control in the mid-twentieth century. United States foreign policy supported the violent practices of the government by providing training for death squads at School of the Americas, originally located in Panama, then later moved to Fort Benning, Georgia. The school has become quite controversial in recent years, but continues to be defended by the State Department as a necessary support to budding democracies like El Salvador, casting them under the guise of being defenders of such democracies. Death squads would strike anyone who publicly raised a voice for basic human rights, education, health care, or employment. By limiting these human dignities, the poor continued to be uneducated and lacked any avenue by which to better their lives. Thus, they were always abundant and readily available as cheap labor to the small, wealthy, and politically powerful class of El Salvador. To this day, the poor are oppressed by coffee and sugar cane plantation owners, who use their guaranteed cheap labor to maximize their own profits. The country’s inadequate three dollars per day legislated minimum wage does not apply to the agricultural sector, which means those who labor in coffee and sugar cane harvests are lucky to receive two dollars per day.

The extreme conditions of poverty, the injustices born on a daily basis, and the daily death squad hits, especially in the rural areas, made a civil war inevitable. Organizing against the human rights violations by the government began to take shape after the bishops at the Council of Medéllin in 1968 declared God’s preferential treatment of the poor, which gave rise to the grassroots movement that came to be identified as Liberation Theology. The bishops, in their declaration of faith, stated that the poor have a right to have basic human needs provided through a just and compassionate order. The oligarchy of church/government/military rejected that premise and even went as far as to say poverty was God’s will and their suffering in poverty in mortal life would be rewarded in the afterlife in heaven. Since their poverty was God’s will, to protest and try to change their poverty conditions would be considered a protest against God. The new liberation theology focus established at the council brought a new awareness to the poor and that God, in fact, calls for justice and the establishing of a basic set of values that recognized the needs of the poor as human beings in this life.

As the poor became more aware, they began to organize to resist the long-established denial of their essential rights in life. In response, the Salvadoran government increased its oppression of the poor by initiating a campaign of terror against the poor, with expanded use of the U.S.-trained death squads to terrorize the poor and those who spoke up on behalf of the poor. Yet, it did not deter the campaign led by the poor and their sympathizers to organize resistance to government oppression. By the early 1970s, five political opponent groups existed throughout the country to oppose the sanctioned violence. By the late 1970s, those five groups had united as the FMLN (Farabundo Marti National Liberation Front), later to become known throughout the world as the revolutionary movement that launched a twelve-year civil war in El Salvador. It was Farabundo Marti who in 1932 had planted the seeds of resistance in the ongoing struggle of the poor. He was the leader of an uprising known as the Coffee Rebellion of 1932 that resulted in the massacre of as many as thirty thousand indigenous El Salvadorans, who refused to pick coffee at the very low wages offered. Thus Marti was and is a folk hero in the long and historic struggle for Salvadoran human rights.

With the martyrdom of Monsignor Oscar Romero on March 24, 1980, the beginning of El Salvador’s civil war was indelibly stamped on its history. With American public opinion beginning to turn against involvement in El Salvador, United States foreign policy, in keeping with its practice of propping up Third World oppressive and petty dictatorships, joined forces with the oligarchy’s political party ARENA, then in power. In their fight to rid the country of the rebels, their propaganda labeled them as no more than drug-running delinquents, under the disguise of a democratic freedom movement who called themselves FMLN. To insure victory, the United States sent one to two million dollars per day to pay for El Salvador’s government-sanctioned war against the poor.

With nothing to lose and essential human rights as the prize, the FMLN gained in numbers and military strength. All the while, the Salvadoran government persisted in describing the battles taking place in the rural areas as no more than arresting drug running delinquents; and it was just a matter of time until the FMLN would be eliminated. In November, 1989, the FMLN brought the war into the capital city of San Salvador, and the strength and military might of the revolutionaries was exposed to the world. That same month, the murders of six Jesuit professors at the University of Central America, along with their housekeeper and her daughter, attributed to government- sanctioned death squad activity, which, in turn, brought about an international outcry for the Salvadoran government to cease its atrocities of torture and death. That left the U.S. no option but to insist with the ruling government (which in 1984 became a democracy) to enter into peace negotiations with the FMLN.

In 1992, peace accords were signed between the Salvadoran government and the FMLN. Those accords recognized the FMLN as an official political party. Also, there was land reform, which provided an avenue for the poor to own land. But the reality of poverty remained a constant, and some say it is worse today than it was at the beginning of the war in 1980. Few significant social changes seem to have taken hold thus far in this impoverished nation. But it is significant that eighteen years after the signing of the peace accords, the FMLN is the ruling party in the legislative assembly and an FMLN presidential candidate was elected to power in 2008. Still, even with a political party that is sympathetic to the poor being in power, the reality of the world’s economic conditions makes challenging poverty’s hold extremely difficult. On a positive note, the government in 2010 initiated a program to provide uniforms, notebooks, and other basic education needs to parents whose children attend national schools.

An interesting factor in economic difficulties of the poor is tied directly to the land reform provision in the peace accords. Historically, there were fourteen families who owned or controlled land of El Salvador. With control of land now less certain, six of the fourteen families controlling most of the country’s wealth have moved their economic interests from land to other sectors of the economy. Their investments became goods and services, including pharmaceuticals, fertilizer, and communications. With that controlling advantage, they have now succeeded in privatizing those interests, which allows them to drive their prices and profits higher, thus making the cost of living even more out of reach for the poor. With the cost of living rapidly increasing month to month, more and more families were left with the decision of who would be the one they send to make their way north to the U.S. to find work, and to send money home to El Salvador for survival.

Poverty and Immigration

The average cost of living for a middle class family of four in El Salvador is $12,000 annually. Sixty percent of the population is poor, and their meager income barely covers the cost of the canasta (basic foods of beans, corn, and rice). That alone is the motivating factor that causes an increasing number of people to find their way to the United States, in a desperate search for economic survival. It is estimated that currently two and a half million Salvadorans have made the dangerous and expensive trip to the United States to find work since the end of hostilities in the country. The money they send home to family and friends, referred to by the Salvadoran government and economic community as remenses, amounted to over 3.4 billion dollars in 2007 alone. It is becoming an increasingly important line item in the Salvadoran economy.

The controversy of the