September 30, 2004

SANTIAGO, Chile - Representatives from Lutheran Churches from the Latin American southern cone, meeting in Viqa del Mar, Chile from September 21 to 24 proposed taxing international weapons trafficking and speculative capital in order to create a fund to combat hunger around the world.

The meeting was attended by representatives from the Evangelical Lutheran Churches of Chile (IELCH); the United Evangelical Lutheran Church (IELU) of Argentina, Evangelical River Plate (IERP, with a presence in Argentina, Paraguay and Uruguay); Lutheran Church of Chile (ILCH), Evangelical Lutheran Confession of Brazil (IECLB), all affiliated to the Lutheran World Federation (LWF).

The final declaration points to the use of the foreign debt as an instrument to impose the neoliberal model that increases poverty, inequality and dependency on a daily basis.

For this reason, they added, they decided to step up their actions in the framework of the "Lobbying Program on the Illegitimate Foreign Debt in Latin America and the Caribbean." This means a process of reflection and training within Churches and actions in national and international media to achieve the effective recognition of the illegitimacy of the foreign debt.

They specified that, considering the suffering of the people and the need to open routes to transformation, there is an urgent need to efficiently confront the problem of hunger in the world.

"For this," said the document, "we support the constitution of a fund to combat it and in this sense, while we cannot validate the flow of speculative capital and international arms trafficking, we support the suggestion that these activities be taxed and these resources be destined to combating hunger."

It added that they agree with statements from Latin American presidents before the United Nations Assembly, in the sense that the UN should be respected as the only body that legitimizes efforts to maintain peace and world security, as well as to combat hunger and economic inequality.

"We believe that in order to more efficiently reach these objectives, it is indispensable to broaden mechanisms of representation in the United Nations, even in its Security Council," emphasized Lutheran Churches from the Southern Cone.

They said that the globalization process has been accompanied by a profound worsening of inequality in the world, leading millions of people to suffer endemic hunger, which is incongruent given the increase of technical, scientific resources and production in today's world.

They noted that Brazilian President Luiz Inacio Lula Da Silva, in his speech before the UN emphasized that "in 1820 the difference between the per capital income between the richest country and the poorest country on the planet was less than five times," while today that "difference is 80 times."

Finally, the declaration recalls that as Churches, they are committed to actively participating in the World Social Forum, which willtake place in Porto Alegre, Brazil in January 2005 under the slogan "Another world is possible."

They said "we share the conviction that it is possible and necessary to seek alternatives to the excluding globalization and to unite our prayers, voices and actions with those of all people and movements for good will that work for a more just, solidarity world."

ALC News Service