To: Fr. Peter F. Vasko, OFM, President Franciscan Foundation for the Holy Land
Ask Franciscan Foundation To Cancel Oliver North as Keynote Speaker!
We are dismayed by your choice of Oliver North for keynote speaker at your September 13th dinner to raise money for persecuted Christians in the Middle East. North was responsible for the deaths of many civilians in Nicaragua in the 1980s through his illegal assistance to the contras for which he was convicted by a US court. He is not an appropriate speaker for a gathering sponsored by a religious group to promote peace and support suffering peoples. Please cancel the invitation to Oliver North! Thank you!
Why is this important?
I am a professor of Spanish and Latin American Studies at a Jesuit university in the US and have been traveling to Nicaragua with other professors and students since 1990. We are constantly reminded of the sorrows of the Mothers of the Heroes and Martyrs of the over 50,000 Nicaraguan sons and daughters killed by the illegal war. This war was not consistent with either U.S. or Christian values, and this invitation to North seems inconsistent with the regard with which the Franciscans have been held in Latin America.