"MOTHER'S DAY" -- 2009
In honour of Fidelina Borjas, who died May 6th in Honduras without realizing her dream of finding the remains of her son, and of Lori Brerenson in A Peruvian prison, and in honour of all mothers who have lost loved ones to repression and war ...
BELOW:
- an article in memory of Fidelina Borjas
- an article about Lori Berenson
- an article about “Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870”
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FIDELINA BORJAS, remembered and honored
(From Honduras news service Proceso Digital:
http://www.proceso.hn/2009/05/06/Nacionales/Muere.inclaudicable.luchadora/13
179.html, translated for Rights Action by Rosalind Gill)
Tegucigalpa, Honduras – Fidelina Borjas, Vice-President of the COFADEH (Committee of Families of Disappeared Detainees of Honduras), died today in the Honduran capital without realizing her dream of finding the remains of her son, who was disappeared in 1982, and without ever seeing her son’s murderers punished.
Borjas, who was 82, died after a prolonged illness. She never realized her dream of finding the remains of her son, Samuel Pérez Borjas, who was disappeared on January 24, 1982, a spokesperson for the told said Proceso Digital.
In 1982, Borjas, along with Liduvina Hernández y Gertrudis Lanza, founded the COFADEH, a moral and political resistance organization that opposes the abuses of the State and promotes and defends human rights.
People who knew Fidelina Borjas said that she dedicated her whole life to finding “Mel”, as she affectionately referred to her son, but she never lived to see that day. Pérez Borjas was abducted at the customs station in Guasaule, as he entered the country from Panama, in transit through Nicaragua, along with Julio Cesar Méndez, Maria Ediltrudes Montes and Enrique López Hernández, who also were disappeared.
At the time of the abduction, Samuel Pérez was twenty-one years old and he was as a student leader at the Instituto Central “Vicente Cáceres”, a school in Tegucigalpa. ”They still talk about what a good guy he was. He couldn’t stand injustice or violence”, says a profile of his life published by COFADEH.
Fidelina Borjas supported the process of exhumations of mass graves that COFADEH carried out in different regions of the country. She always held out hope that that the remains they found in the graves were those of her son.
Every day of her life she called out for justice. Her fellow members of COFADEH said that as long as her health permitted, she participated in the organization’s protests that were held on the first Friday of the month on the Plaza La Merced in Tegucigalpa.
“She was an unstoppable defender of human rights”, they said. Fidelina Borjas will be waked this afternoon at the COFADEH office in Tegucigalpa.
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In honour of Lori Berenson, US citizen and human rights activist who has been jailed in Peru, on trumped up charges of “terrorism”, since 1995.
May 6, 2009 -- “Lori Has Baby Boy”
Despite the odds she faced owing to compromised health after 13.5 years of incarceration in harsh Peruvian prison environments, Lori gave birth Wednesday morning May 6th in Lima.
Salvador Anesporí Apari Berenson was delivered via Caesarian-section due to Lori’s precarious back condition that will require delicate spinal surgery to prevent permanent nerve damage. Surgery will be scheduled after she recovers from childbirth.
Salvador’s father, Aníbal Apari Sanchez is a lawyer in Lima. Lori and Aníbal were married in October 2003. Salvador will enjoy dual US and
Peruvian citizenship. Peruvian law permits a child to be raised in a prison by the mother until age three. Lori is eligible for conditional liberty (“parole”) in November 2010, when Salvador will be 18 months old.
Although the prison cell is small and stark, Lori and Salvador have everything they need. Lori would very much welcome your kind thoughts in cards or letters, but asks – PLEASE, NO GIFTS – she simply has no room.
FORMER PERU PRESIDENT FUJIMORI FOUND GUILTY OF CRIMES AGAINST HUMANITY
Last month, former Peruvian President Alberto Fujimori, the man who arrested and used Lori for his own political gains, was convicted of crimes against humanity and given a 25-year sentence.
CALL TO ACTION - Urge President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton to Free Lori
Now that Salvador has arrived, Lori’s next hurdle will be delicate back
surgery. There is extreme concern over the prospects for Lori having
successful spinal surgery in Peru when post-surgical rehabilitation and
physical therapy are so limited in the confines of stark prison facilities.
President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton must be reminded of Lori’s situation. Surely, in the interests of fairness and justice, the Obama administration must urge Peruvian President Alan Garcia to commute Lori’s sentence on humanitarian grounds for medical reasons and return her and her baby to the U.S.A.
The White House “Hot-line” is 202-456-1111 or the White House fax number is 202-456-2461. The brief message should be: “Enough is enough, President Obama should do all he can to bring Lori Berenson and her baby boy Salvador home.”
A similar short note can be sent to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton by mail (address: Department of State, 2201 C Street NW, Washington, DC 20510).
The www.freelori.org website lists other talking points.
Thank you for your help, ... Mark and Rhoda Berenson
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Mother's Day Proclamation of 1870
Mother's Peace Day
http://www.chiff.com/a/mothers-day-origins.htm
The first person to fight for an official Mother's Day celebration in the
United States was Julia Ward Howe. Howe was born in New York City on May 27, 1819. Her family was well respected and wealthy. She was a published poet and abolitionist. She and her husband, Samuel Gridley Howe, co-published the anti-slavery newspaper The Commonwealth. She was active in the peace movement and the women's suffrage movement.
In 1870 she penned the Mother's Day Proclamation. In 1872 the Mothers' Peace Day Observance on the second Sunday in June was held and the meetings continued for several years. Her idea was widely accepted, but she was never able to get the day recognized as an official holiday.
The Mothers' Peace Day was the beginning of the Mothers' Day holiday in the United States now celebrated in May. The modern commercialized celebration of gifts, flowers and candy bears
little resemblance to Howe's original idea.
Here is the Proclamation that explains, in her own powerful words, the goals of the original Mother's Day in the United States ...
Arise then...women of this day!
Arise, all women who have hearts!
Whether your baptism be of water or of tears!
Say firmly:
"We will not have questions answered by irrelevant agencies, Our husbands will not come to us, reeking with carnage,
For caresses and applause.
Our sons shall not be taken from us to unlearn
All that we have been able to teach them of charity, mercy and patience.
We, the women of one country,
Will be too tender of those of another country
To allow our sons to be trained to injure theirs."
From the bosum of a devastated Earth a voice goes up with
Our own. It says: "Disarm! Disarm!
The sword of murder is not the balance of justice."
Blood does not wipe our dishonor,
Nor violence indicate possession.
As men have often forsaken the plough and the anvil at the summons of war,
Let women now leave all that may be left of home
For a great and earnest day of counsel.
Let them meet first, as women, to bewail and commemorate the dead.
Let them solemnly take counsel with each other as to the means Whereby the great human family can live in peace...
Each bearing after his own time the sacred impress, not of Caesar,
But of God - In the name of womanhood and humanity, I earnestly ask
That a general congress of women without limit of nationality,
May be appointed and held at someplace deemed most convenient
And the earliest period consistent with its objects,
To promote the alliance of the different nationalities,
The amicable settlement of international questions,
The great and general interests of peace.
Wouldn't it be wonderful if on some not-too-distant Mother's Day, the wishes of Julia Ward Howe could be fulfilled and the human race could celebrate when, all over the world, no mother would have to mourn the death of her child lost in war or terrorist attacks...
To all of the mothers whose children are fighting in wars - and to mothers whose children are growing up with wars raging around them or with terrorism threatening their safety, ... Wishes of strength, peace and hope for all mothers everywhere...
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