BY PRISCILLA GREEAR

Staff Writer

ATLANTA--A delegation of women Religious traveled to El Salvador in December to learn about economic hardships of farmers and other workers following a 12-year civil war and to advocate for the creation of a rural development strategy to assist them.

The delegation, which included Atlanta Sister Mary Beth Beres, OP, traveled to the predominantly Catholic country from Nov. 29 to Dec. 7. Peace accords to end the war, which killed approximately 70,000 people including many lay church workers, Religious and 18 priests, were signed in 1992. However, the country lacks policies for the development of the agricultural sector and problems of unequal land distribution and poverty remain.

The trip was sponsored by the SHARE Foundation of San Francisco which provides financial, material and technical assistance to El Salvador's poor and promotes human rights.

The delegation visited the rural communities of San Carlos Lempa in Tecoluca and Guarjila in Chalatenango and the urban Holy Mary Mother of the Poor Church in San Salvador. Sister Beres said they learned that farmers owe money to the government for operational supplies for their land granted to them following the war's end.

"They're basically growing crops to pay debt...The government would like to create conditions to make people sell the land," she said following the trip. "It's such hard work to be able to support yourself in El Salvador."

As the countryside was destroyed during the war, Sister Beres said that communities have to rebuild completely through foreign assistance. They lack basic resources such as safe water and face increasing crime.

Despite obstacles, she observed, people were productive, resourceful, committed to education and strong in faith. San Carlos Lempa, she said, is experimenting with organic farming, growing papaya and plantain trees, and Holy Mary Parish runs a pharmacy, a dental clinic and offers ophthalmology services.

"I would not call them poor. I'd call them people in need. The people are able to enjoy themselves," she said. The farming communities are currently "looking ahead to how they are going to process what they grow...They work together well. They do tremendous long-range planning," she said.

The delegation presented their information, particularly regarding agriculture, to U.S. Ambassador Anne Patterson, who indicated she would meet with the national coalition of farmers and respond to any human rights violations.

Participants cited legislation, recently vetoed by President Calderon Sol, which would have forgiven farmers their land debts. They presented a letter signed by U.S. bishops and religious leaders asking the ambassador to advocate debt forgiveness and a rural development strategy.

As part of the pilgrimage they visited a shrine dedicated to the late Archbishop Oscar Romero. Sister Beres said the archbishop's assassination has made him a symbol of human rights. "He's a symbol to people of the right to be respected...You see his picture everywhere," she said.

With other Religious from throughout the U.S., the group attended a memorial service in the countryside on the anniversary of the slaying of four U.S. churchwomen in December 1980. The women, two Maryknoll sisters, an Ursuline sister and a Catholic lay missionary, were killed while serving the poor by members of the country's National Guard, who were graduates of the School of the Americas at Fort Benning, Ga.

The delegates also visited the Jesuit University in San Salvador where they remembered the six Jesuit priests, their housekeeper and her daughter who were murdered there in 1989, and further discussed the country's political, economic and religious conditions.

Scott Wright, coordinator of the Ecumenical Program on Central America who worked in El Salvador during the war, said that while news reports cite improving economic conditions, the majority of the society is in need and the poverty level may actually be increasing.

While the fighting has ended between the government and the rebel group, Sister Beres said that tension and economic instability continue because of the lack of an economic policy and that Salvadoran poor need U.S. support. "Support for human rights is important so that they keep improving instead of turning around and going backwards," Sister Beres said.

SHARE sponsors a program which links U.S. and Salvadoran parishes. Individuals and parishes interested in this program may contact the organization at (202) 319-5540.