Father Francisco Ortega, Catholic Church
(Webmaster's Preface: The following item was originally posted on
the DEVMEDIA mailing list. It's an interview with a priest who
was involved with the Guatemalan clandestine station, La Voz
Popular. The interview switches between radio, politics, and
religion, so readers interested in only part of that will still
want to look through the entire interview.
Father Francisco says that the station was located on a volcano
in the ORPA front area. ORPA was one of the smaller Guatemalan
guerilla organizations within the URNG. It was based on the
volcano immediately behind the town of Santiago Atitlan. I've
read elsewhere of how they had the volcano highly fortified with
mines, so although he doesn't say so, I'm sure that's the volcano
he was talking about. Literary fans might be interested to know
that the head of ORPA was the son of Miguel Angel Asturias, the
Guatemalan author who won the Nobel Prize for literature in the
1960s. Asturias (the father) started out highly prejudiced
against Guatemalan Indians (which he labeled a "disease" in some
of his early writings) but later became very interested in their
culture and changed his views. His novels, for which he won the
Nobel, were based on his in-depth knowledge of the Indian
cultures.)
The interview is placed here with permission of the author.
Father Ortega, a Spanish Catholic priest that has lived a
great deal of his life in Guatemala, has dedicated his life to
working alongside disenfranchised peoples. He brings a
fascinating mixture of religion, politics, and communication. We
talked about his life history and work, his ideas, and the
choices he made in life, as well as the challenges that await
Guatemala in the post-war period and the transforming of war into
peace, guerrilla groups into political parties. Father Francisco
Ortega was the head of the guerrilla's radio station for the URNG
(the umbrella organization of the Guatemalan guerrilla during the
war). They broadcast during nine years amidst bombings and
attacks, being cooped up on an inaccessible volcano mountain side
in Guatemala. As I waited in a Latino cafe' in Washington to
interview him, I saw a man dressed in plain clothes walk in, to
whom the waiter said, "Good morning" "Y yo tengo cara de gringo
ahora? Buenos dias!" " (And now do I look like an American?) he
joked with the waiter. "That must be Ortega," I guessed.
VB) Could you start with a small introduction about yourself?
I went to Guatemala in 1978 as a priest for the Catholic
Church. There I joined a group of priests that worked with
peasants in San Marcos (a province in Guatemala near the Mexican
border). Together with other priests we became directly involved
in a guerrilla organization called ORPA (People in Arms
Organization). Well, I stayed about five years in the parish and
simultaneously working for the guerrilla organization. Because I
understood very well how the situation was in Guatemala in 1978,
and it was already very difficult. It was military governments,
where the people had no rights, the people lived in extreme
poverty, totally exploited, any peasant leader, worker/union
leader, was persecuted, students, politicians, they killed them,
simply murdered them, or they would kidnap them, torture them and
then they would turn up dead.
Therefore, I, as a Christian, had to ask myself: "Which side?
Which side will I be on?" On the side of those who are suffering
or on the side of the very few wealthy and the military who are
making life impossible for the people? So, naturally, one has to
side with those that are oppressed, that are suffering, and that
are struggling to get out of this situation. This is the reason
why I joined a clandestine organization and had been a member
until very recently.
In '83-'84 I left the parish because ORPA sent me to another
country to do radio production training. Because my background
in the seminary had been philosophy, I had studied Humanities,
but I needed specific training for radio, because the plan was
that the URNG was going to launch a clandestine radio station in
the mountains.
So I got ready, and with a few others, we formed the radio
group to which I belonged from the start and we produced
programs, with tape recorders, writing, etc and we would
broadcast them. The radio transmitter was in one zone, and we in
another, and we in May 22 of 1987 started our first broadcast.
And the station was transmitting until the very end of the war,
in 1996. So I was the head of the broadcast team, everything
that was written/produced, and I worked there doing broadcasts
for seven years until 1994. In 1994, the URNG sent me to
Washington to open up an office to do diplomatic work in the name
of the URNG, representing them before the Department of State,
the Congress, the Senate, the OAS (Organization of American
States), before the solidarity groups, the various church groups,
etc, etc. I lived in Washington from '94-'97.
In the beginning of '97 I returned to Guatemala. Now the new
URNG has another perspective, that is, at this very moment it's
converting itself into a political party. So, first of all, I am
a foreigner, I'm Spanish, I can't belong to a local political
party. During the war, yes, I could belong to a guerrilla group,
because that was an international struggle, but to a political
party of Guatemala I can't belong to, and, second of all, I'm not
interested either. Since I came from a Christian platform as a
priest, well then, that is what I have returned to. So I have
returned to the Capital and right now I'm working in a poor
neighborhood, where people live in horrible conditions, very
poor, with great difficulty. I have returned working with another
priest, with whom I had worked with before, although he didn't
join the struggle. So right now I don't have much to do with the
URNG, the work I do now is of a priest in a Church parish.
VB) Where did the idea to become a priest come from?
I joined the seminary because I met a young man in elementary
school that was in the seminary. He would come talk to us, he
would play soccer with us, and I got a good impression of him, I
said to myself, "I want to be like him." So I went to study for
several years in the seminary and then I did 3 years of
philosophy, at the time I was 18-19 years old and I had to ask
myself again, "What am I going to do with my life, what does it
mean to be a priest?"
Since we were small we had always been taught us at the
seminary that to be a priest is a vocation, it is to work for
others, never to think of going after your own comfort, or a mere
job to earn a living with. No. The priest is at the service of
others, specially to those that are most in need.
So I asked myself at 19, "What am I doing? If that's what it
means to be a priest, how do I want to be a priest?" So I
decided to transfer from the seminary where I started, in
Cordoba, to another seminary in the North of Spain, where they
had from each Spanish province other seminarists and that's where
they formed the missionary priests to go work in the third world.
For me it seemed more coherent, more logical, to dedicate my life
working in the third world where there was more need, than to
stay in Europe, for example.
So I was ordained when I was 25 and my first directive was
that I was told to go to Madrid to get the necessary credentials
to teach philosophy. So I spent two more years studying
philosophy and together with the other three years that I had
already spent, I began to teach philosophy. But in two years
there were changes in the seminary, the young men were now going
to the civil universities for their studies and so there was no
need for us to teach them philosophy or anything, and so, we, the
professors, were discharged of this responsibility and I asked to
go to Zambia.
With a group of four, we joined another group of priests that
was working in Zambia and there I remained for another five
years. But the way they were working didn't impress me, because
it was a work done with the Church very enclosed in itself, not
open to the outside world. So I thought this doesn't seem to be
very worth while. This was a form of Christianity that had no
commitment with life. Zambia had just obtained its Independence
(From England) when I arrived, a political independence that was
bestowed, not fought for, and they were all so happy with the
Independence, but all the exploitative structures and all
remained exactly the same as before, but no one was preoccupied
in fighting against injustice, etc etc. I realized that this was
not the place for me, because I was not going to waste my life
doing little internal Church things, and giving people a rosary
here, a rosary there, like the other priests. I said, "I'm
leaving."
I returned to Spain where I went to work with the peasants
and there I had the chance to meet priests who were returning
from Guatemala, because we had an assembly where we met every
five years. So they explained to me the dire situation in
Guatemala and I said to myself, "This is worth it."
VB) And approximately what year was this?
This was '77-'78. So when I arrived in Guatemala, I already
knew more or less what the situation was. This is my personal
history.
VB) Can you talk a little about how was your work with the
clandestine radio station during the war?
This work with the radio station ("The Popular Voice" ) was
interesting because the station fulfilled many functions. First
of all, it was to inform the Guatemalan people of many things
that the other official media would censor. And the station also
informed the combatants the results of the various battles in
different places, at each front.
From all fronts we would get updates every day, it would come
by other radios. We would then gather all of this information,
and we would put it together and explain to all other fronts so
that everyone could know what had happened in various parts of
the territory.
VB) How many people worked in this "station?"
Just a few, our team had a total of five.
VB) All men or were there women too?
No, there were 3 women. One Mam (an ethnic group), one
announcer, and another. Our sources of information were: the
commanders of the different guerrilla groups, we also had to read
the various newspapers, even though we could only do it in a
delayed fashion, we had to monitor every day the other radio
stations, to record broadcasts, get news, etc in order to be well
informed. We also had a small television and a small laptop
computer to write in. So we would gather all the information on
the various union, student, peasant struggles, etc, we also had
newspapers and we also received letters, even though sometimes
with great delay.
VB) Were there many radios or just this one?
Only ours, which was located in one of the ORPA fronts,
because each guerrilla organization has its own territory, but
all under the URNG. And I was in charge of the radio production
team. I had to converse with all the commanders to receive their
orientation, etc.
So the radio station fulfilled this important work, because
most of the peasants are illiterate, but they do listen to the
radio, little ones, they go to work and listen to their radios.
VB) And evidently you were in great danger doing this kind of
work, risking your lives?
Yes, but the Army never got us. The Army knew where we
were. (He took a napkin and drew a volcano and pointed to the top
and the base of the mountain.) The Army had units here and here
and here, shooting at us all night long with canons. We were
here (about one third down from the top of the volcano), a very
difficult area to reach. When the Army tried to reach us by
sending soldiers on foot, they never made it, because we had put
mines in the whole area of the mountain side. Last March when the
peace accords were signed, the helicopters of MINUGUA took out
more than 370 mines. But we had put many more. They couldn't
advance because they would try and they would get blown up with
the mines and that would scare them off. When a mine explodes,
the guys in the Army all back up.
And also, because we did our broadcast at 5 and 8 p.m.,
Tuesdays and Fridays. And here (he points to the region of the
volcano where they had been) there is always a very dense fog in
the afternoon and so the military helicopters couldn't do
anything. So from there we broadcast for nine years.
But we ran into lots of problems. We launched our station
with 2 kilowatts of power, short wave, and that's a lot. We were
broadcasting all over Guatemala and Central America. But soon
our equipment began to deteriorate because of the humidity and we
had to decrease to 400 Watts of power, that was a great loss,
because we couldn't reach all the territory anymore and that was
a problem.
Another problem was that the Army, when they realized that
they were not going to be able to climb and shoot us dead, they
began to broadcast a noise signal to cause interference at the
same time we went to do our broadcast. We had to tell our
listeners to keep changing slightly the frequency, it was like
cat and mouse.
VB) Going back to religion, are you a Jesuit priest or from
such an order?
No, I am a secular clergy, diocesan clergy. That's why in
Spain there was only one seminary, because the Jesuits, the
Dominicans, the Franciscans, the Salesians, these orders are
different, they have the three vows: poverty, chastity, and
obedience. We do not have a poverty nor a obedience vow, that
is, we have more freedom, we depend solely on the bishop where
you work and a small hierarchy in Madrid that sends you to
different places.
VB) What or who is God for you?
I have never asked myself that question like that. I believe
that the world has a beginning, God is basically the supreme
being, above us, our father, that sent us his son because he
loves us, and that he has to accept us. And what I am doing is
to work in his kingdom, here on earth, building his kingdom that
is a kingdom of peace, of justice, of love, honesty, all of this
is the kingdom of Christ, so that when we die we can join the
father. I don't know who it will be, or how, or where, it
doesn't worry me, but yes, life has a meaning beyond here. So I
have never asked myself who is God (smile). Because as one
progresses in life, you leave behind many things you once
believed in, and you remain with a few fundamental ones. And I
have great faith and hope in the human being.
VB) What do you think will happen to the Catholic Church in
the future, what do you think about the fact that the number of
men choosing priesthood as a vocation has diminished greatly?
You don't need to worry because the Catholic Church will
manage to survive...
VB) (laughter)
The Church is huge, and now, curiously enough, we are seeing
a small growth in the number of vocations for priesthood. It is
unfortunate though, that those that are beginning now are not
thinking along the same lines as I did, it's a more traditional
line, more religious, more mystical, as I say, from the doors of
the church inward. The Catholic Church has the great advantage
of having millions and millions of single women and men willing
to work, let's say that they are single (smile), willing to work
where they are needed. And this is a great internal labor force
for the Catholic Church that makes it grow altogether. I think
the Catholic Church will be around until the end of time...
(laughter) but there will always be different currents within the
Church. I continue to think of myself as being inside the
Catholic Church, of course.
VB) And what do you think of the idea of women clergy?
I don't see any problem at all with it. For me, this is not
an essential question, when we talk about being a priest, the
question of which gender, because a man or a woman can do it just
as well. It's simply a custom for the Church. Now in our
parish, for example, women do everything that men do. Women give
communion in mass, of course they read the texts, they take the
communion in little boxes and visit the sick and give communion
to them in the poor neighborhoods. They direct the groups, they
have many responsibilities, just like the men.
And in the Revolution, the leadership would assign
responsibilities to those who were up to it, man or woman, it
didn't matter. I had women who were my commanders in the
beginning. But the number of women combatants unfortunately was
much less, like 10%.
VB) The Pope has said that clergy should not mix religious
and political work. At the same time, very recently as we all
know, he visited Cuba and he talked in great length about
politics. How do you explain your stand of doing this political
work with the guerrillas to people who say one shouldn't mix
these two things?
For me, it depends on what you mean by politics. The only
thing I have done is to act coherently with my way of thinking
and my understanding of the message of Christ and of the gospel.
The Church itself understands it that way, the official Church,
the Church of the Pope, the Church of Vatican II, that ended in
'65, which proclaimed that the Church should belong to all and
that one has to make a preferential option for the poor, this was
in Medellin, when the bishops met in '68. This is what I have
done. You are not going to work alone, you are not going to fight
alone, you have to join those who are fighting to make structural
changes, and not just practice charity.
So this takes you to a situation where you as a Christian
have to work in other arenas that are also human and are also
Christian, the only difference is that they are called
"political." They can call it whatever they want (laughter),
because I am also convinced that the Pope gets into politics.
When I was studying in Spain, the bishops were doing
politics, but it was right wing politics. Franco, the dictator,
would *name* the bishops. This is right wing politics! They
criticize our political work because it's left-wing, not because
it's political.
So I think you have to be honest. Now when I returned to
Guatemala, I had to talk to the Guatemalan archbishop so that he
would grant me permission to work there in the parish again. He
knows where I'm coming from, because he was my bishop before. He
is a good man, older, in his seventies. He had not agreed that I
leave the parish before, but now when I returned, he called me
his "prodigal son," (smile) he did not agree that I had left, but
he has accepted me and he understands. Now the phase of the war
is over, for me it was 19 years, and I told him, I have returned
because I want to be coherent with what I have always believed,
and I believe I should work with the people of Guatemala, now
without the URNG and without war. But I will strive to continue
to develop the human and Christian potential of the Guatemalan
people, not doing work for them, but walking together with them,
because when we walk together we all grow, no? So he accepted me
and told me that was good.
VB) In thinking about multiple histories of various countries
in Latin America, and that there has only been "democracy" when
right wing groups were in power, if left wing politicians were
elected legally and by popular support, the right wing coups and
dictatorships and the wars would begin, do you truly think that
there is a real possibility for democracy, for a political
process in Guatemala?
I do not lose hope. I have hope, and if I didn't, I wouldn't
be working in Guatemala. I believe you need to infuse people with
hope for change, because many people have lost hope, have lost
faith, they don't believe there's a chance. Of course it's
possible! But the new URNG is going to have to get some batteries
in it so that it can work. And this will cost us because there
are also many divisions within the Left.
VB) What are the main challenges that you see for the URNG to
transform itself from a guerrilla group to a political party?
First of all, I think that the URNG, which was an umbrella of
4 organizations, made a mistake to leave out one of them, ORPA,
my organization, in this phase of the process. Why? Because the
commander of ORPA, Gaspar Ilom, unfortunately kidnapped Mrs. De
Novello and so had to remain out of the country until September
(of 1997). This is a sour note because the URNG is no longer
the 4 organizations of always, they're three, and people from
these three have now occupied the new positions in the party, and
in the organization called the Foundation Guillermo Torrillero,
which is an organization to aid the transition of former
combatants into civil society. So the URNG has left people out,
whether on purpose or not. We, from ORPA, are neither better nor
worse than the others, we are comrades who have fought at least
like the others.
An example, I have a friend who is a doctor, who worked with
me in our radio station, now he works as a doctor, he doesn't
want to have anything to do with the URNG. Because they excluded
him as well. The former combatants are still in recluse, they
have nothing to do, just waiting, waiting, and this Foundation
needed to have produced results. A whole year has passed and the
URNG has said almost nothing in opposition to the government,
they have acknowledged in one of their documents that they've had
limitations to deal with, but there has been silence, and a bit
of dispersion. The URNG has to be very careful, and I say this
with empathy and pain, because I continue to support the URNG
project, which is broader than a political party. The national
project which is to form a new nation, multi-cultural, multi-
ethnic, multi-lingual, with social justice; a national project
that encompasses all the democratic movements in Guatemala, this
is the project we have to support and I do support it. But the
political party of the URNG is something else, and if they don't
do things right, they'll end up with few supporters, and you
can't abandon people like that, specially those who fought
together with you for so many years. Because, in this way,
they'll lose a crucial force.
I am ready to support the URNG project to radically change
structures for a new Guatemala, but the party has to be a tool,
it's not an end in itself, it's a tool to achieve a new Guatemala
with democracy, with justice, with peace, with people doing well,
with development for all. And now people are faring worse than
before in poverty and duress.
Many of these URNG leaders are living in middle class
neighborhoods. Go live with the people, go live in the poor
neighborhoods, like I did, and they will see how needy people are.They say they know how needy people are theoretically, but whenthey have to chose a place to live, where do they go? They don'tchoose to live with the poor people in the slums, at least I am honestand I go to live with the poor.
But I must also stress that in spite of all these problems,
only one year has gone by, and this is really a very short time
and this transition to a political party is indeed very
difficult. They will need more time.
VB) You mentioned development for Guatemala, what's your idea
of development?
For me, and you have to always stress this, development is
integral, it's the development of the whole person. A person is
an individual, she or he is a member of a family, and a member
of a society. That is, a person cannot see themselves as totally
separate, in the Church or outside the Church. Christ didn't
come to save one person or their soul, a person is saved as a
whole, body and soul, and this person is a social being, and this
is Christian and it's philosophy, it's human. A person has to
count on others because you grow and enrich yourself when you
open yourself up to others and you become impoverished when you
shut others out, in selfishness, there you become poorer. So for
me, development is the integral development of the person and the
community where you live and the nation.
We can't have some people very ahead and some others way
behind. That's not development, that's privilege. Because a
society, when it is structured so that only a small groups
develops, this isn't development, development should be for all,
no?
VB) What people or authors have influenced your way of
thinking?
If you mean someone that I read, there wasn't any particular
person. It was very good for me that I studied philosophy, which
was classical philosophy, although it was a more modern
philosophy, and it helped me in the metaphysical sense that I
just explained, to see the concrete human being, flesh and bone,
a person who is open to others, a person that has to transform
the world, for the benefit of all. I think it was the whole of
our experience, to be alert to life and to reflect and see
things. In the seminary, I thought a lot about the questioning
of St. Ignacio de Loyola, he has spiritual exercises that touch
upon fundamental things. I have always been very concerned with
the meaning of life. Why do we live? Where are we going? What are
we doing? What do you have to do in your life?
Because you realize, and I'll be 56 this year, you realize
that life has to be for something meaningful, right? I think you
discover this along the way, for me life has meaning as long as
and while I guide my life to support a bit the happiness and the
welfare and development of other human beings. Why does one
work? To acquire machines and gadgets, to have material comfort?
I don't think that's all that important, it's necessary, but I
continue to think that the most important thing in this world are
people.
VB) And when you lived here in the U.S, how did you relate
the U.S. to all this?
For me, this society, with the speed and path that they've
taken, they're greatly mistaken, and this will collapse someday,
because the most important thing, which are the human values of
people, that's being ignored and they are revering above all
finance, money, globalization, technology, and for me, that's a
mistake, that's not what the world is about. So I was not swept
away by this society's values of consumerism, of materialism, of
power, prestige, fame, all that's rubbish, it doesn't cut the
grade. That's how I see this society and the unfortunate thing
is that this society is determining the world order, the
directives for others, because now there are no opposition.
Globalization can be good because it transposes borders, you
communicate with all the world, but if all of this is only used
for financial accumulation, there may not be borders, but people
aren't thinking (critically). I went to the shopping mall to see
how were things and when you have a shirt that has a "Made in
Guatemala" label, that costs $20-$25, no one stops to think that
the youngster who sewed that shirt earned $2 *a day*, sewing
hundreds of shirts. This they do not want to think about,
because it doesn't concern them. People are not important in
this system, it's only finances and money, and I think a system
like it's losing its main base.
With each passing day we have a more global system,
worldwide, that rules the world and unfortunately for this system
the people don't count. As someone said, before at least the
very wealthy, the industrialists, depended on the poor to exploit
them. Now not even to be exploited, they are totally excluded
from the system. This is the harshest, the gravest of it all.
VB) If you could turn back time and could change something
you did in your life, would you change something?
In my life? I would go back and do as I did, that is, to
guide my life as I have been doing. And if there were another
revolution in Guatemala, or somewhere else, I would offer myself
to help change things that continue to be wrong, because I defend
and I seek the structural changes that will allow people to live
as human beings, not as beggars. I would offer myself once again
to fight for these rights, for this radical change for all
peoples of the world. Because for me, life only has meaning
like this. And I believe I was fortunate to have discovered it.
Copyright Vera M. Britto
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New interview:
Talking about Development projectBy Vera Britto
Association of North American Radio Clubs
DXer of the Year for 1995.