Date: Mon, 3 Nov 1997 15:55:10 -0600

U.S. embassy throws out Catholics demanding truth about Carney

By Paul Jeffrey

Special to the National Catholic Reporter

Tegucigalpa, Honduras - Jean Brenner remembers when her cousin James Carney disappeared 14 years ago. It was then that she and her family wokeup to what was happening in the Third World.

"We were ignorant about what was happening in Central America, and Jim would come home from Honduras and talk about the effects of capitalism in the Third World. It went in one ear and out the other," she told NCR in an interview. "Only when he was killed did we wake up and realize what was happening."

Brenner, 59, a Sister of St. Agnes, said her extended family started learning more about Carney's work with the poor and landless in the region,and about the repressive forces--and their U.S. patrons--who she believes were responsible for the Jesuit priest's disappearance in 1983.

One of the ways Brenner learned about Carney's life was by reading his book, To Be a Revolutionary. "I read how the Gospel wasn't cracked open for Jim until he went to share it with the poor," Brenner said. "I thought tomyself: My God, this guy is a Jesuit. How many years of theology has he had and he still needs the Gospel explained to him by the poor? I decided then that I, too, wanted to learn about the Gospel from the poor."

The pilgrimage that cousin James set her on eventually led Brenner to Central America. She works today doing popular education with the poor in a sprawling barrio on the edge of Managua, Nicaragua.

There's still a part of her cousin's life about which she knows little: his death. She and other relatives have been searching for years to find out exactly what happened in the jungles of Honduras. Brenner's most recent quest for the truth ended when she was carried out of the U.S. embassy here on October 30. Six burly U.S. Marines--one a woman--picked Brenner up and deposited her gently on the sidewalk in front of the embassy.

Brenner had entered the embassy on October 29 to ask Ambassador James Creagan to help her family obtain uncensored versions of secret U.S.government documents relating to Carney's disappearance. In the last two years the U.S. government has declassified hundreds of pages of documents about the case. Yet all have been heavily censored. Magic Markers must come cheap at the CIA and Pentagon, because some pages have all the text obliterated.

"I came here moved by the spirit, as part of the journey of our family toward the truth about what happened to my cousin Jim," Brenner said beforeshe went into the embassy. "It's because we're U.S. citizens that we can speak to our government and perhaps have an impact in a situation where the Hondurans can't do anything more."

In the meeting with Creagan, Brenner was accompanied by three other Catholics from the U.S.: Patrick Carney, the 71-year old brother of the disappeared priest, himself a former Jesuit; Thomas Gumbleton, the auxiliary bishop of Detroit and a well-known gadfly for peace; and Joseph Mulligan, a Jesuit from Detroit who has spent years investigating the Carney case.

The meeting was "friendly," according to Gumbleton. "The ambassador made it clear that he believed the CIA and other agencies had made a thoroughsearch, and that all that had been blacked out were irrelevancies, and so we have as much as the government could possibly give us," Gumbleton said. "I really am flabbergasted that he could so point blank say to us that nothing was blacked out except irrelevancies."

Creagan assured the four that he would transmit their concerns to Washington. "At that point Joe Mulligan told him we'd wait right thereuntil we got the answer from Washington. The ambassador was disturbed by that. Hedidn't blow up or get irrational, but you could tell he was pretty tense about it," Gumbleton recounted. "He finally told us he had work to do so we couldn'tsit in his office, and so we moved into an outer office where the secretaries were."

Shortly afterward, Gumbleton left the embassy complex to speak with reporters outside and announce that the four would fast until they got the response they wanted.

"I've come here to push the U.S. government to tell the truth about what has gone on in Central America," Gumbleton said. "I've worked elsewhere with family members trying to uncover the truth about their loved ones, and I've experienced the lies of U.S. government officials. They tell us they'vegiven us everything they know, then later you find out there's more and they knew itall the time. It's time for the U.S. government to be held accountable for the atrocities it committed here through our military, through the CIA, or through the people who worked as so-called assets, doing the killing and torturing for us."

While Gumbleton held a permanent news conference for the horde of reporters outside, the other three remained inside.

Late that evening, Creagan proposed that if the three protesters left the embassy willingly, they would be free to return the following day. The trio accepted.

The next morning, however, they were not permitted past a reception area. Embassy security officials refused to let them speak with Ambassador Creagan. So they just sat there, giving interviews to reporters through an open door, prepared to spend the night if necessary. Shortly after dark, at a moment when no journalists were present, the Marines carried Brenner and Mulligan outside. Patrick Carney chose to walk out of the building on his own.

Apparently because he left voluntarily, Carney was allowed in on October 31. He said embassy officials promised him they'd do their best and would "keep in touch with me if anything comes up."

While Carney was inside, Brenner and Mulligan, along with Bishop Gumbleton and Matthew Eisen, a young Catholic activist from Cincinnati,remained fasting on the sidewalk in front of the embassy. They held up huge facsimiles of the censored declassified documents. One had written above it: "What is the U.S. government hiding?"

By November 3, Gumbleton, Carney, and Brenner had all flown home, though each said they would continue to fast. Mulligan and Eisen remained on the embassy sidewalk, determined to keep the pressure on. Mulligan said new tactics were being discussed should the U.S. government contnue to stonewall on the group's demands.

The group is demanding that uncensored originals of the documents be reviewed by President Bill Clinton, Secretary of State Madeliene Albright, several members of Congress, and by Leo Valladares, the Honduran government commissioner for human rights--the official who requested the documents from the Clinton administration.

Carney served as a priest in Honduras for 18 years before being deported in 1979 after his support for landless farmers caught the attention of the military government.

Popularly known here as "Padre Guadelupe," Carney returned to Honduras in September 1983 as chaplain to a small and hapless band of leftistguerrillas. The guerrilla column was captured by the Honduran army, but what happened to Carney remains unclear. Although officials presented the priest's chalice and stole to Carney's relatives, they never explained the circumstances of his death, suggesting only that he may have starved to death in the mountains. In 1987 a former officer of the Honduran army testified that he had heard from other soldiers that Carney had been thrown to his death from a military helicopter. Whatever happened, Carney's body has never been found.

On behalf of the Jesuits, Mulligan has spent several years pursuing leads all over the hemisphere about what happened to Carney. He said the U.S. government has been "stalling and using obstructionist tactics. The response from the CIA and the Department of Defense has been totally inadequate, afarce, an insult to the family and people who knew and loved Jim. It's also been an insult to the Honduran government, which is trying to find the truth of what happened to 184 people who disappeared in the eighties, of whom Father Carney is one."

Mulligan doesn't buy the official explanation of the censors, that the massive deletions serve to protect intelligence sources. He suspects his government has something more to hide.

"If James Carney was captured by Honduran troops, before killing him I think the Honduran officials would have looked for a wink or a nod of approval from someone in the U.S. government or from the CIA," Mulligan said. "So they may be covering up a significant U.S. involvement in this case, or at least hiding the fact that the U.S. government knew that Father Carney was being held and didn't express any interest in saving his life. Now that's conjecture, but when you see the amount of material that they've blacked out on the pages concerning Father Carney, what else is there to conclude?"

It's not just the U.S. government that wants to leave the past alone. When Gumbleton met with Honduran President Carlos Roberto Reina in March,1996, he urged him to help let the truth be told about Carney. Reina reportedly promised to do everything he could, "but without provoking a military coup."

The Honduran military, despite recent challenges to its impunity, continues to hide behind what Ramn Custodio, president of the Honduran Committee for the Defense of Human Rights, calls a "wall of silence." Custodio is one of those working arduously to uncover the truth about all the disappeared of Honduras.

Ricardo Falla, a Jesuit anthropologist in Honduras, said his order hopes the case of "Padre Guadelupe" will serve "as a battering ram to break down the wall and make it easier to find out what happened with the others."

The relatives of other people who disappeared here came to the embassy to lend their moral support to the U.S. Catholics. "Just as we've struggled and continue struggling to find out what happened to our loved ones, they also have a right to find out what happened to Father Guadelupe," declared Liduvina Hernandez, president of the Honduran Committee of the Relatives of the Disappeared.

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