Collections : [Burke Library at Union Theological Seminary]

The M.I.A.U. news service began in 1970 as a Roman Catholic effort to promote the spread of uncensored information on events in Latin America, founded by attendees of the seventh annual Catholic Inter-American Cooperation Program (CICOP). Its acronym stands for the Movimiento de Información y Acció́n Urgente, and deliberately evokes the sound a cat makes when its tail is being stepped on. In 1971, the group's name was changed to LAB Services, and it became affiliated with the National Catholic Welfare Council's Latin American Bureau. This collection contains articles, essays, reports, and minutes collected by the organization and covering topics including a Roman Catholic bishops conference in Puerto Rico in 1970, early lectures on liberation theology, articles on the church's struggle against compulsory military service in Puerto Rico, and snapshots of torture cases in Colombia, Brazil, and El Salvador. The majority of the documents are in Spanish.