Isabel Macdonald
Coordinator
Around 1983, before coming to live Costa Rica, I briefly knew The Friends
Peace Center (CAP) as a passerby in San José. I worked in Managua
with the Evangelical Committee for Social Help (CEPAD), where I served
as a translator and guide for groups of believers from the US who wished
to know first hand the scope of the Sandinista revolution. The majority
opposed the United State’s policy of helping the contra revolution
and threat of invasion into Nicaragua. In the Friends Peace Center,
during a reunion one night, I got to know people with similar worries
to mine.
Eighteen years later, I came back to CAP, again being in a period of
new aggression: the threat of the U.S. invasion into Iraq. The Center
was a space where people who opposed this mistaken military venture
could get together and demonstrate before the Costa Rican people, their
repudiation and indignation.
Twenty years later, after my first encounter with CAP, I come back
yet again, this time with the challenge of collaborating in the development
of programs, and in this process, I have the opportunity to get to know
many worried and dedicated people (just like the founders of the Center),
to promote a culture of peace, and to contribute in the search for greater
respect and solidarity between people.
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