<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 13, 2003 By: Willy E. Gutman

Veteran journalist Willy E. Gutman writes: One way of erring on the side of justice is to side unerringly with the victims of injustice -- the vanquished, the dispersed, the humiliated, the persecuted, the forgotten. Behind barbed wire. In camps and gulags. In mass graves and hurriedly dug sepulchers. Wherever voices of dissent and cries for freedom have been hushed. Amid the anonymous bones scattered about the steaming earth.

War. Genocide. Ethnic cleansing ... they've all become a blur in an unceasing tempest of human agony.

In-your-face prime-time images of man's inhumanity to man don't lie. Our world, the evening news reminds us, is a sewer in which we wade, knee-deep, in the blood of martyrs. Gathered at the dinner table, we watch them die or fade away like ghosts.

"Past in prelude," we declare with scholarly condescension. We owe it to our fragile, overtaxed psyches to forget an endless stream of atrocities -- the Crusades, the "Holy" Inquisition, Shoah, the massacre of native Americans, the wholesale slaughter of Armenians, Biafra, the killing fields of Cambodia, the inter-tribal carnage between Hutus and Tutsis.

Distance, racial differences, cultural incongruities help intellectualize other peoples' suffering. We endure it by perfunctorily purging our souls after each infamy. "You can't change human nature," we philosophize, as we partake of dessert. In a pinch, a mind-numbing sitcom will put our minds at ease. We survive the truth by looking the other way.

New convulsions overshadow old ones. In one remote corner of the world, the Kurds, a people of about 30 million, wander between Iraq, Turkey, Iran and Syria in search of nationhood. Eventually, cameramen will have to aim their lenses at them. Simmering in the shadows, eclipsed if not trivialized by the current conflict, their struggle is real, their claim for sovereignty legitimate. Failure to address their grievances is another path to apocalypse. When the smoke lifts from the bloodied sands of Iraq, will the world press rush in droves to the aid of Kurdistan?

Habitual victims of Turkish and Iraqi brutality, Kurds live in the worst of all possible worlds: They are hated by their enemies, unloved by everyone else. Constantly at each other's throats, unable or unwilling to adhere to the most basic international protocols, they've never managed to elicit much sympathy. All instinct, they have no couth. Yet, their cause remains unchampioned, willfully ignored by the world, damned by official proclamations and lofty pledges.

Signed by the Turks and the Allies in 1920, and signaling the dismemberment of the Ottoman Empire, the Treaty of Sèvres explicitly provides for "local autonomy in regions where Kurds predominate."

Because it is sensible ... and just ... that the Kurds have a nation to call their own, it is essential that this 83-year-old covenant be honored.

Will the United States heed the challenge, turn its back or mongrelize its policies to suit the shifting winds of global geopolitics? Eventually, the US must tell the world what matters most: erring on the side of justice or keeping its alliances intact and opening new markets for America's bulimic corporate juggernaut?

Willy E. Gutman WEGUTMAN@cs.com

• Willy E. Gutman is a veteran journalist. He lives in southern California.

The War in Iraq, effects and consequences discuss the role of the United Nations towards an equitable solution for the Iraqi people

Venezuelan Foreign Policy discuss the relative merits of Venezuela's foreign policy and its effects

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 13, 2003 By: The Very Reverend Roger Dawson

The English translations of the gospels make a dreadful mistake, in my opinion, with the Greek word paradidomi. This mistake is the result of church teaching over many centuries and might be considered the root cause of much anti-Semitism and the deaths of thousands and possibly millions of people. In misusing this word, we might be guilty of sustaining the charge that Jesus was betrayed ... which is what the church teaches.

However, if we read the account in the gospels in a careful manner, and forget what the church has taught we find a very different story. The word paradidomi is used no less than fifty-nine times in relation to the death of Jesus, and each and every time this word is translated as "hand over." The word is also used another thirty-two times about the relationship between Jesus and a man who has been given the name Judas. Although the word paradidomi is used in the same context as in the other fifty-nine times the translation for the Judas uses is "betray."

Why did the translators use betray and not hand over?

The answer is because the translators have been led to believe that Judas betrayed Jesus, not from the evidence of the gospels but because of church teaching. The gospels have been made to fit church teaching by the English translators of the gospels.

It is a distortion, and a dangerous distortion at that. There are perfectly good words in Greek for betray, but none of them are used in relation to Judas. The word used is paradidomi and it means "hand over" ... and in a search through hundreds of contemporary manuscripts in which paradidomi has been used, no application of it can be found in which it means to betray.

Judas did not betray Jesus, and the church is wrong in teaching that he did, because there is no evidence to support such a claim.

Why then did such a claim arise?

The answer is that, as the Jesus-faith church developed and grew, it became increasingly difficult for the various groups who worshipped the God YHWH to hold together. Their views were too far apart for them to share a single theological view and the new Jesus-faith was bringing in many gentiles ... which was resented by those who wanted to keep the Judah faith exclusive to families who had originated in the land of Judah.

• Similarly, though Roman Catholics and Southern Baptists will both claim to be Christian they do not seek each other out in order to worship together.

Although the emerging Jews and Jesus-faith Christians both had their origins in Eretz Israel, they were becoming increasingly alienated because of their beliefs. The result was that the Christians left the synagogue and founded their own church buildings, and they blamed the people from whom they had parted for what happened to their leader. In other words they were resentful of the other Jewish group and they didn't mind taking it out on them by shifting the blame of Jesus death from the Romans ... with whom they were developing a new relationship ... to the new Jews who were evicting Christians from their synagogues.

What they did not realize was that it would have a profound effect upon history.

The stories of Judas' suicide are concocted and faintly ridiculous. To start with, the various accounts do not agree and they have Judas' guts spilling out on the floor in one version, and him hanging himself in another. Maybe I will talk about this another time, but in the meantime, I would encourage you to read the story of the handing over of Joseph to the traders who took Joseph to Egypt and also the "value of a man" story in Zechariah 11: 12-13.

Who was Judas? The answer is we don't know. He could have been any one of a number of people or even an imaginary person created for the occasion. His name: Judas is Yehudah in its original form and means a person from Judah. It was a popular name at the time of Jesus and for some considerable while afterwards.

What we now understand, from the Dead Sea Scrolls, is that anyone leaving the Essene community was totally rejected and considered to be dead by them. They opened the door, pushed him out and forgot him.

If there was a disciple or close follower of Jesus who left the group, they would, more than likely, have treated him in a similar way as the Essenes treated their deserters. Or was it that there wasn't a single deserter, but that Judah as a nation was represented by Judas as being the ones to leave the faith of Jesus, and so, for the Christians, they were as good as dead for they had handed him over to his fate when they might have saved him if they had believed him and his message of good news?

Also, if paradidomi does or can mean "betray" we are presented with another problem.

It would mean that the death of Jesus would not have been a sacrifice but something beyond Jesus' control ... as others would have betrayed him.

If Judas betrayed him, then the crucifixion was a hideous accident and not a deliberate act on behalf of Jesus, and it places Christian theology on very shaky grounds.

It is an issue that the Christian Church has not properly dealt with, and every time we blame Judas, we blame a people for a crime they could not have committed.

So anxious was the early Christian Church to turn attention away from the Romans over the death of Jesus, that it offered their main rivals, the Jewish people, as a sacrifice in the person of Judas.

Christology became defined in Jesus as the Messiah who, they said, the whole world wanted and waited for, and who would have lived had it not been for a nation who killed him.

So the guilt came to rest on them and Judas who was their agent and one of their number, who left him and betrayed him. Yet this story goes against every part of Jesus' message of love and caring and forgiving one's neighbor and enemies.

Confining the blame to that generation of people in Judah is no good either, because any one who does a study of that period of history, soon discovers that the people were not waiting for or expecting an anointed one, a messiah, to come and save them and even less to redeem them and be their savior.

If they had been. they would have responded better to Jesus and his forerunner John the Baptist. No, the saving and redeeming was a Christian hope that became so important to them that they made the assumption it must have been everyone else's hope as well.

Why should I tell you about Judas?

For a number of reasons ... we should not blame others for our own predicament, nor should we presume that what are our goals and hopes, must be the aims and aspirations of others, no matter how closely we are or were once related.

Finally, we should not retell our history in such a way as to distort the truth so that we look better and others look worse. Christians, in their anxiety to make themselves appear badly treated, have brought about the deaths of countless Jews.

It is time we owned up to the deception.

We are not as lovely perhaps, as we thought we were ... we are a people in need of redemption.

St. Mary's Cathedral "News from the pews" -- Parish Notes The Very Reverend Roger Dawson, Dean of St. Mary's Cathedral (Caracas) -- telephone: +58 / (212) 991.4727, telefax: +58 / (212) 993.8170

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 13, 2003 By: Letters to the Editor

Reader Kayla Markert writes: On Thursday night (April 10, 2003), my friend's dad was politically assassinated. His name was Gustavo Arismendi ... who worked for the government and was in opposition to the Chavez unit.

As he entered his driveway, he was approached by 2 vehicles, 3 people in each one. He was then kidnapped and driven 20 miles from his home. He managed to shoot the three people who were in the car with him, killing two, and wounding the third. The SUV carrying Gustavo, then opened fire on him, shooting him nine times.

Gustavo recognized he was being taken to a place where those who oppose President Chavez are murdered, so he fought back.

Gustavo worked for the Governor of Miranda State and was vocal in his opposition to President Chavez. In fact, the Governor he worked for is the choice of the people, to assume the position of President, once Chavez is removed from office. That Governor himself was shot exactly one year ago, but thankfully survived. Gustavo, unfortunately, was not that lucky. The Governor has vowed to everything in his power to find out who is responsible for the death of  Gustavo.

Gustavo Adolfo Arismendi, his son, has now assumed responsibility for his 2 younger brothers and mourning mother ... he is scheduled to return to the Houston, Texas on April 27.

A Trust Fund will be set up this Monday by Mike John McGhan who has sponsored Gustavo as a foreign exchange student. Houston Christian High School will be notified if anything changes. I hope each person will contribute to this unfortunate loss.

I have had to deal with losing a father just one year ago and the pain is still there.

Gustavo and I share the same meaning is losing someone who has been to dear to us ... the only thing that is different is how they both passed on to the same place, but in very different ways.

You don't really know what it feels like until is happens to you. In my mind, Gustavo Adolfo will tilt his head high and carry on his father's name with pride.

Please continue to keep his family in your prayers.

Thank you, Kayla L. Markert Celine0626@hotmail.com Houston, Texas

Human Rights issues in Venezuela discussion on human rights as they affect Venezuela and Venezuelans

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 13, 2003 By: Letters to the Editor

Oliver L Campbell writes: I am no Hebrew or Greek scholar, but those who are, say the translation from Hebrew to Greek clearly distinguished between murder and killing, and that an error was made in the subsequent translation to English.

Although the King James’s Bible says Thou shalt not kill, newer translations state "You shall not commit murder" (New English Bible), "Do not commit murder" (Good News Bible) and yet others as "You shall not murder" and "Thou shalt do no murder."

In Spanish, I have only seen "No matarás" but then I have only one bible in that language.

To kill in self-defense is not a crime in most countries ... and this is true as long as you thought your life was in danger e.g. even if an imitation gun rather than a real one was pointed at your head.

Self-preservation is an instinct ingrained in us since man first roamed the earth and, when your life is threatened in that way, it is also no crime to shoot first. It is then only a small extension to say a preemptive strike is justifiable to save the lives of a country’s citizens.

That is why I don’t see the Iraq war in the same black and white terms that Kira Marquez Perez does.

There are circumstances where killing ... but not murder ... is justified; and this is the case when at war whether on one side or the other.

The fact innocent civilians are killed is distressing, but often unavoidable. The question is whether starting a war is ever justified and ... as in the case of the Iraq war ... this is an issue on which strong views are held.

Outside the USA, there is little support for the war but, thankfully, it is all but over.

What is certain is that many against the war will change their minds if weapons of mass destruction are found, but will condemn it vehemently if they are not.

We can only wait and see.

Oliver L Campbell oliver@lbcampbell.com London, 12.April.2003

The War in Iraq, effects and consequences discuss the role of the United Nations towards an equitable solution for the Iraqi people

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, April 13, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

US State Department spokesman Richard Boucher says the USA has informed Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez Frias of its concern about recent armed incidents in the border badlands. 

Although Boucher did not specify, there is little doubt that he was referring to an alleged strafing of a Colombian border village by Venezuelan helicopters and allegations from Venezuelan Executive Vice President Jose Vicente Rangel of close collaboration between the Colombian army and paramilitaries in border areas.

Boucher claims that the incidents underline the need of both governments to confront terrorism and engage in regional cooperation.

Meanwhile, another Washington spokesman, Charles Barclay has been laying on the pressure, regarding negotiations between the government and the opposition, fearing that President Chavez Frias will renege on the recall referendum. 

• Barclay says the USA believes the solution of the crisis passes through current negotiations and elections. 

Venezuelan Ambassador to Washington, Bernardo Alvarez says he has told Washington that the National Executive celebrates April 11 as a victory for democracy and constitutionalism because of the widespread support that returned the President Hugo Chavez Frias to power. 

The latest news coming from the corridors of power in Washington is that Chavez Frias and Fidel Castro are attempting to use the war on Iraq as a smokescreen to repress and persecute domestic opposition. 

Meanwhile, Venezuelan Ambassador to the Organization of American States (OAS) Jorge Valero maintains that relations between the USA and Venezuela are "generally speaking, normal and positive."

The War in Iraq, effects and consequences discuss the role of the United Nations towards an equitable solution for the Iraqi people

Venezuelan Foreign Policy discuss the relative merits of Venezuela's foreign policy and its effects