WASHINGTON — Edgar Palacios, co-founder of the Lutheran University of El Salvador and former coordinator and executive director of the Permanent Committee of the National Debate for Peace in El Salvador (CPDN), is the 2012 recipient of the Baptist World Alliance (BWA) Denton and Janice Lotz Human Rights Award.
Palacios is being recognized for his role in helping to negotiate peace in El Salvador during the civil war of 1980–1992.
He played key roles in the CPDN, part of the social movement in the Central American country, leading the organization through one of the most turbulent periods in El Salvador’s modern history. In the period 1989–1992, Palacios testified at various times as a representative of the churches and the CPDN before the U.S. Congress and the United Nations on the situation in El Salvador. In 1990, he was co-president of a peace conference relating to El Salvador in the Netherlands.
Ordained to the Christian ministry in 1985, Palacios served several Baptist congregations in El Salvador, did stints with two congregations in Mexico City and currently serves as an associate pastor at Calvary Baptist Church in Washington, D.C.
Palacios is a co-founder and a former executive secretary of the National Council of Churches of El Salvador and was a representative of the Historical Protestant Churches of El Salvador. He taught at several universities, colleges and seminaries in El Salvador, Mexico and the United States. He helped to found the Lutheran University of El Salvador in 1988. He is the recipient of several other awards.
The 2012 BWA Human Rights Award will be presented during the BWA general council meeting in Santiago, Chile, in July.
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