COLOMBIA: No School Today

The Colombian islands of San Andrés and Providencia, two palm-shaded dots in the Caribbean off Nicaragua, are predominantly Protestant, partly through ancient precedent. They were first colonized by English Puritans about the same time other Puritans were landing on Plymouth Rock. Though the original colonists died out and the islands were later resettled with African slaves from the West Indies, the heritage of tongue and religion somehow endured. The 6,000-odd black-skinned, English-speaking islanders who live there now are 80% Baptist, 15% Seventh-Day Adventist, 5% Roman Catholic. Their pride and joy are their schools; literacy is 100%, compared to the Colombian mainland average of 56%. From the islands last week came jolting news that a Spanish priest, named as Inspector of Education for the islands by the Colombian government, had shut down the Protestant schools.

The inspector’s shutdown, newest in a five-year series of official and unofficial anti-Protestant blows in Colombia, stems from an agreement between the government and the Vatican. The agreement makes the islands one of 18 Colombian “mission territories” reserved to Catholics. It was signed three years ago, when Catholic, arch-Conservative Laureano Gómez was President.

President Gustavo Rojas Pinilla is more moderate, but seemingly feels that he must go right down the line with his Conservative Party on its most heartfelt plank, union of church and state. He has increasingly turned the agreement against the Protestants. Such actions inevitably get Colombia a bad press abroad; sensitive Colombians may be astonished to learn that their country is well on the way to earning a reputation for bigotry second, among Western nations, only to Spain.

Protestants contend that the official attitude “contravenes the principles of religious liberty.” Colombians often reply that the mainland Protestant missionaries, notably the bell-ringing Jehovah’s Witnesses, start the trouble by being offensively aggressive in 100% Catholic areas. But that argument hardly applied to the islands, where last week 600 Protestant children had no classrooms to go to except in a few crowded government schools taught by Capuchin friars.