CEPAD came into being on the 27th December 1972, following the earthquake that destroyed the city of Managua. As an organization of churches and pastors, its main aim was to attend to the immediate needs of the victims. Its volunteers comforted the affected families and served 35,000 breakfasts daily through community feeding centers.
During the thirty-three years of its history, CEPAD has experienced working under the Somoza government, the Sandinista revolutionaries, and the neo liberal governments, receiving varied epithets and diverse opinions on the ministry as it has developed. However, the prophetic voice apparent at each point in time has demonstrated that the Lord has been guiding this institution.
(By Rev. Dr. Gustavo Parajón, Founding President of CEPAD.)
To read a special note about Dr. Parajón, please click here.
CEPAD was founded just after the earthquake of December 23, 1972. When the Baptist Convention, where I was the Promoter of the Commission of Social Assistance, realized the great needs there were in Managua, we felt it was necessary to help the people, with housing, food, everything. But we realized the problem was so big we needed to call on everyone who was interested in helping. I knew the American missionaries, because many of them were my patients, so I called them and told them we needed to have a meeting on December 27th.
After talking really very little, because the need was obvious, we decided to form the Evangelical Council for Aid to the Victims [in Spanish, el Consejo Evangélico Pro-Ayuda a los Damnificados, CEPAD]. That same day, Dr. Klaus Klaviter, the representative of Church World Service, arrived from New York to see the situation. This was a very important development in the history of CEPAD, because CWS decided not to open an office in Nicaragua, but instead to support our initiative.
We talked about being around for three months, and then in April, going back to our jobs. The experience of working together was so positive, however, that by March, there were twenty denominations in CEPAD. We were interested in working in the rural zones, where PROVADENIC [a medical NGO which Dr. Parajón also founded] already was. We realized that foreign aid was not reaching the countryside, but was staying in the cities because of corruption. So, in April 1973, we decided to work in this way, and the name changed from D for Damnificados (victims) to D for Desarrollo (development) in CEPAD.
Relations with the government were, shall we say, tense, but courteous and civil. Somoza called together the non-governmental organizations working in Nicaragua, including us, to join a new committee, which was meeting almost every day. It met at one of Somoza's residences, which is now the Ministry of Culture. We used what little good-will the government had towards us to ask for recognition as a non-governmental organization (NGO), and for permission to import things. We were able to sign a convention with Somoza's government.
This was at the beginning of 1973, and Somoza's government began to fall in 1978, ending with the Triumph in July of 1979. CEPAD's vision had always been to empower the people to make changes in their communities. We discovered that if there was a literacy program, if there was a health program, if there was a housing program, if the people worked together, they discovered this process of making changes. We were most interested in how the people could unite. It's the same thing we've discovered in the Peace Comissions - today, the war has ended, but the Peace Commissions continue.
From '73 to '79, nearly all of our work was in the rural zones. In our first three months, we built almost 1,000 houses. As we did so, we learned how the Guardia Nacional [the National Guard, which acted as a private army for Somoza] was taking land away from the people, which caused conflicts. The cruelty of the Guardia Nacional made the insurrection against Somoza a movement that included almost all Nicaraguans. Towards the end of his regime, he bombed the cities of Matagalpa, Estelí, Leon, Masaya, and the people couldn't leave. They needed food, clothes, and other kinds of help. We worked with the local committees, which were now in various communities, to help.
The Revolution Begins
After the war ended, we were a place that people could come to for refuge, and a number of the Guardia Nacional came to us to turn in their weapons.
Our work was largely pastoral in this time, because it was terrible when Somoza bombed the people. Gilberto [Aguirre, known as "el Profe," the teacher] and I were in the Maestro Gabriel building that afternoon in July when the planes came flying over, and we had to hit the deck.
After Somoza fell, people came looking for CEPAD's help, and we didn't know what to do, either. So we called a meeting of the pastors and the General Assembly, and we decided the best thing to do was to talk with the revolutionary government to see what it intended to do. Also, a number of pastors came from Socialist countries to talk to us about how life was there. There were pastors from Cuba, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, Yugoslavia, and the Soviet Union. This gave us a lot to go on as we thought about how to react. The decision we reached was that while the mission of the churches is to proclaim the Lordship of Jesus, we would support the programs of health, literacy, education, housing, roads, and economy. We did not specifically back the Sandinista government, but we did support many of its programs.
After the Revolution, the Sandinista government was supposedly going to fulfill all the needs of the people, but it was not able to. In August of 1979, I went to the Ministry of Health to protest. In Guapotal, north of Matagalpa, Sandinista officials came to the clinic and confiscated our kerosene-powered refrigerator (there was no electricity) where we stored our vaccines. They also burned all our files, because we were "with the CIA." Relations with the Sandinista government were tense, but there was a good climate for discussion, and that was helpful. They began to learn about the work of CEPAD - and PROVADENIC, which they knew better, because it was older.
We were able to talk with the Sandinista government, and to discuss our disagreements, and our agreements, too. This led to my being named to the National Reconciliation Commission in 1987. Meanwhile, the Peace Commissions had already started up in 1985 in Nueva Guinea.
Xabier Gorostiaga is right when he says the 21st century began in 1989, when the Berlin Wall fell. The world is no longer East and West, but North and South. One of the characteristics of the 21st century is the non-governability, or shall we say, un-governability, of many places. CEPAD and PROVADENIC have seen this. For example, where PROVADENIC works, there is no other health agency of any kind. If there is, we leave, because our budget is so tight. But in these communities, there are no judges, no police, no soldiers, no teachers, no nurses. So we work there, responding to an intense need.
The Revolution Ends
In 1990, the government changed again, but CEPAD did not. Our understanding of what we needed to do for the people has remained the same. Immediately after the earthquake, it was the need to provide food and building materials to the people. In the 1970s, it was the need for development, but a development where the people could build their own projects and use the knowledge we shared with them.
With the government of Violeta de Chamorro, we had a pretty good relationship but there were some difficult times with this government. At first, they didn't want to allow donations to come in freely. Overall, though, we had a good dialogue with them.
But there were financial troubles, because of the structural changes we went through, and the shrinking support from Europe and the United States. From 1990 to today, the people of Nicaragua have only gotten poorer, and this leads to conflicts in the churches. It gives the impression that there are pastors who will only work in a church if it gives them food, clothes, and money. There's no thought of working for the people. But through all CEPAD's changes, the idea of serving the people's needs remains the same, under any government.
Alemán
With Alemán's election in 1996, things became much more difficult, terribly difficult. He changed the tax laws, and at times even talked about taxing the offering at evangelical churches. The people had a strong reaction to this.
There was no place in the thinking of the Alemán government for NGOs in the development of the Nicaraguan people.
Hurricane Mitch, in 1998, was a terrible disaster. I think it was worse than the earthquake in 1972 - not in deaths, but in terms of the economic cost, because it affected almost the entire nation. Help, largely from the US churches, was very important at that time. The work brigades that came to build were also very important.
The Bolaños Era Begins
We have had preliminary communication with the new government of Enrique Bolaños. The government called CEPAD and other NGOs to a meeting with Bolaños himself. The other contact we've had has been to argue the case of the ex-Contras, and the government has agreed to meet with them, and has listened to them. It is currently measuring out the land.
Today, the world doesn't talk much about Nicaragua. Even when Mitch happened, most of the attention was on Honduras. President Alemán told the world that "Our sheets got wet [from the floodwaters], but sheets can be hung up to dry." And so the help went to Honduras, because our own President covered up what was happening.
History is very important. Nicaragua is a clear and classic case of what big, powerful countries have done to poor people. In this sense, it has a contribution to make to the understanding of how good, and how bad, international relations can be.
Special Note:
Dr. Gustavo Parajón was chosen by the Human Rights Award Committee of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) to be the recipient of the quinquennial Human Rights Award in 2006. The first recipient of the award was ex-President Jimmy Carter, and more recently Lauran Bethall. Now, the BWA is seeking to affirm Baptists who have struggled for freedom and justice. Dr. Parajón was selected to celebrate his work for peace and reconciliation in Nicaragua during the armed conflict in the 1980s, when he helped establish and work with Peace Commissions in Nueva Guinea (south-eastern part of the country). Dr. Parajón received the award in the BWA Annual Gathering in Mexico City in July, 2006. In July, 2005 Dr. Parajón was chosen to be one of the BWA's sixteen vice-presidents. Dr. Parajón not only founded CEPAD in 1972, but also founded PROVADENIC (Nicaraguan Community Vaccination and Development Program), a community-based health program.
