About the Brussels visit of Cardinal Maradiaga, François Houtart The Catholic Institute of Paris honors Cardinal Maradiaga who supported the coup in Honduras and Michel Camdessus, former IMF. Serving the powerful and not their victims!
by Houtart
(October 27, 2009)
The Catholic Institute of Paris has decided to award an honorary doctorate to Cardinal Rodriguez Maradiaga of Tegucigalpa, Honduras, and Mr. Michel Camdessus, former Director General of the International Monetary Fund.
In the first case, it is awarding this distinction to a clergyman who supported the coup in Honduras, even though it was unanimously condemned by the General Assembly United Nations. Personally, I was able to attend this meeting and hear from all countries on this issue. By Respect for democracy in the world, no one could accept a coup accompanied by the expulsion of the legal president, only a few months of the elections.
Moreover, this illegal action, organized by local economic powers, including some families that monopolize the Honduran economy, and the army, meant much the takeover of political power by the traditional oligarchy, today increasingly linked to international capital and supported by the police. It was slow social transformation underway and the country's alliance with other nations that joined the Alba, the initiative for Latin American integration based not on competition but on complementarity and solidarity. In response, social movements, representing victims of the economic system and the poorest of Honduran society, have formed an organized resistance. These movements of workers, peasants, indigenous, Afro-descendants, women. This opposition movement
clear what was at stake: to oppose the perpetuation of privileges and support a project, probably still modest and imperfect social transformation.
The Episcopal Conference, at the initiative of Cardinal Maradiaga, supported the coup. Only a bishop objected, taking advantage of the socially excluded. It is therefore an expression of an ecclesiastical power, allied with conservative political forces and economic exploitation. While one would have expected the Church a sign of solidarity with the poor, just the opposite happened. Should we see the head of the Catholic Institute of Paris alignment on the same kind of thinking or a lack of information, hardly acceptable for an academic institution?
The second person in the spotlight is Michel Camdessus, former Director-General of the International Monetary Fund. In economic crisis, one factor was the economic direction given by the institutions of "Bretton Woods" on the world, it is one of the main architects of this policy that the Catholic Institute gives a doctorate honoris causa . Knowing the social devastation produced by IMF policies, the dramatic consequences of the financial and currency crisis in terms of employment, and economic collapse, including some companies in the South, one can only question the analytical models used and the decisions taken. If there were an international criminal court for economic crimes, Mr. Camdessus would be on the dock for crimes against humanity. Instead, it now represents
Pontifical Commission for Justice and Peace in international forums, he chairs the Social Weeks of France and will receive a doctorate honoris causa from the Catholic Institute of Paris.
Such contradictions can be explained only by a reading of the situation in the world with the eyes of the powerful, those whose logic produced social disaster and not with the eyes of victims, such as fidelity to the teachings and practice of Jesus Christ would have required.
is why it is in this case a perfect witness-cons.
Houtart
