Fernando/Resistance, 20. Resistance, Peoples’ Rights and the Role of the Churches in Latin America

Colombia has been maintained as a highly militarized state by the US since the end of the WW II as an effort to contain the influence of the USSR in Latin America. This chapter exposes the ways in which the US integrated Colombia into a strategic military agenda in the region. The anti-communist ideology of the Roman Catholic church served the US imperial agenda in Latin America leading to an unholy alliance between the church and the state that justified oppression of those who resisted. However, the dramatic changes that took place in the Roman Catholic church with the Second Vatican Council had a transformative effect on the Latin American churches to the extent that it gave rise to a new form of martyrdom amongst bishops, priests, nuns, and lay men and women who stood by the exploited and oppressed masses to the point of death.