Newspaper Page Text
PAGE 17 — The Georgia Bulletin, March 1, 1990
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Lithuania Vote
Church Had Role
Brings Elation
WASHINGTON (CNS) — Lithuanian church leaders in
the United States expressed their happiness that
Lithuania’s pro-independence movement. Sajudis, won the
majority of seats in parliamentary elections.
“We are very pleased the Sajudis won overwhelmingly,”
said Bishop Paul A. Baltakis, spiritual head of Lithuanians
outside Lithuania. He said the results were a "very good in
dication that changes will take place.”
“I’m gratified by the results,” said Father Casimir
Pugevicius, executive director of Lithuanian Catholic
Religious Aid, adding that “we haven’t gotten to heaven
yet.”
Both men spoke in telephone interviews from Brooklyn,
N.Y., Feb. 26, two days after Lithuanian parliamentary
elections, the first multiparty elections in more than 70
years.
About 80 percent of Lithuania’s 3.3 million population is
Catholic.
The Lithuanian Communist Party won 29 of 90 contested
seats in parliament: Sajudis claimed 72. Some of the can
didates supported by Sajudis belonged to the Lithuanian
Communist Party, creating the discrepancy in numbers.
In Lithuania, Algimantas Cekuolis, a leading Sajudis ac
tivist. predicted his movement would emerge with 95-100
seats in the 141- seat parliament after additional elections
in early March.
However, Sajudis leader Vytautis Landsbergis cautioned
that new powers sought by Soviet President Mikhail Gor
bachev could become an obstacle to Lithuanian in
dependence. Gorbachev is seeking a law to give him more
power to implement his programs and stop ethnic strife
threatening his reforms.
“By all accounts, the elections were fair and free,” said
Victor Nakas, Washington manager of the Brooklyn-based
Lithuanian Information Center.
Nakas said he was “not terribly surprised with what hap
pened."
Sajudis is “genuinely committed to the course of in
dependence,” he said. Although the Lithuanian Communist
Party has broken with Moscow, he said, it always will be
“associated with the atrocities of the Stalinist era.”
Nakas and Bishop Baltakis said they expected Lithuania
to declare independence shortly. If the Soviet Union does
not continue its commitment to peaceful negotiations,
Nakas added, the Lithuanian parliament probably would
seek international support.
The United States has never recognized Lithuania’s
merger into the Soviet Union in 1940.
Father Pugevicius called Lithuania a “test case” for
emerging democracies in Eastern Europe and Latin
America, saying it would be a “tortuous road” to
democracy.
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WASHINGTON (CNS) — Former Salvadoran President
Jose Napoleon Duarte, who had struggled to end the civil
war that continues in his country, lost his struggle with
stomach and liver cancer Feb. 23, dying at his San Salvador
home at age 64.
Duarte, a 1948 graduate of the University of Notre Dame,
was president of El Salvador from 1984 until 1988. He was
the country’s first democratically elected chief executive in
50 years.
Duarte’s administration operated against a background
of a civil war that took on an international scope because of
U.S. support of the Salvadoran government and Soviet-bloc
support of leftist rebels, known as the Farabundo Marti Na
tional Liberation Front.
His presidency was a balancing act of trying to quell the
leftist insurgency and right-wing death squad activity that
left more than 70,000 dead in the decade-long war
Duarte’s stomach and liver cancer, first diagnosed in
May 1988, had spread throughout his abdominal cavity.
After surgery to remove three-fourths of his stomach that
June, Duarte was given six months to live.
Duarte is survived by his wife, Ines Duran de Duarte, six
children and several grandchildren.
One of Duarte’s daughters, Maria Elena, said her
father’s illness had deepened his religious faith.
“He’s very Catholic, and he receives Communion and
prays with his priest every day,” she told United Press In
ternational in January.
Duarte’s ties with the church have been many.
In 1985, the church mediated the release of his daughter,
Ines Guadalupe Duarte Duran, who was held by rebel
forces for 44 days.
In October 1987, Duarte met with Pope John Paul II to
discuss steps being taken to bring peace to his country.
Throughout his presidency, the church played a vital role
in peace efforts. It mediated unsuccessful peace talks be
tween the government and the guerrillas in 1984 and 1985
and frequently had been the go-between in negotiations for
temporary cease-fires.
Duarte, who in June became the first Salvadoran leader
to turn over the presidency to another democratically
elected leader, Alfredo Cristiani, was constantly challeng
ed on whether he could govern in a country where the
military has been a dominant political force.
In November 1987 he publicly linked former Army Maj.
Roberto D’Aubuisson, a founder of the right-wing National
Republican Alliance, to the 1980 assassination of Arch
bishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador. Church and
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human rights groups have accused D’Aubuisson of having
links to the right-wing death squads.
Duarte, the son of a tailor and a housekeeper, began his
political career in 1960 after spending nearly 20 years as a
civil engineer. He helped build many of the buildings that
rise above the palm trees in downtown San Salvador.
His interest in politics was sparked when he was invited
to a meeting of people concerned that the only alternative to
rule by the armed forces in El Salvador was communism.
Shortly after, he became a founder and first general
secretary of the Christian Democratic Party of El
Salvador.
In 1964, he ran for mayor of San Salvador. After serving
three terms as mayor, he ran for president in 1972.
By the end of the election day, it seemed clear that he had
won. But when it also became clear that the army was in
the process of padding the vote for its candidate, protests
began in San Salvador. Duarte was taken into custody, tor
tured and sentenced to death.
Holy Cross Father Theodore M. Hesburgh. then Notre
Dame's president and a longtime friend, interceded on his
behalf, gathering support from Pope Paul VI and then-U.S.
President Richard M. Nixon.
Instead of death, Duarte was sentenced to exile, spending
nearly eight years in Venezuela
Duarte returned to El Salvador after a 1979 military coup
led by younger officers and in 1980 was appointed to the
army-led ruling junta. He eventually was named junta
president, although the army continued to dominate.
Duarte won democratic elections in 1984 with 54 percent
of the vote.
“He was a good man ...a great Christian” who believed
that only “total forgiveness” by both sides in the civil war
would finally save his country, Father Hesburgh told
Catholic News Service an hour after Duarte’s death was an
nounced. He said he had learned of Duarte’s death in a
telephone call from Duarte’s brother, Orlando.
The Notre Dame president recalled that Duarte was in
the first class he taught at the university in 1945.
The Salvadoran was able to attend Notre Dame only
“because his father won a lottery,” Father Hesburgh said.
He “didn’t die with a lot of money” either, he said.
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