wfn.org | Serbian Priest Accuses Nato of Killing More Albanians than Serbs Did

[PCUSA NEWS <pcusa.news@ecunet.org>]

27-August-1999 
99284 
 
    Serbian Priest Accuses Nato 
    of Killing More Albanians than Serbs Did 
 
    by Jerry L. Van Marter 
    Ecumenical News Service 
 
GENEVA - A Serbian Orthodox member of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) 
central committee has claimed that "there were more Albanian victims of 
Nato than of Serbia." 
 
    He also criticized WCC leaders for their statements on the Kosovo 
crisis. 
 
    Speaking at a discussion today of the Kosovo crisis, Dr. Vladan Perisic 
questioned a statement made on 26 August by the central committee's 
moderator, Catholicos Aram I, who said that the Nato bombing stopped the 
bloodshed in Kosovo. Dr. Perisic asked if this "is reflective of the WCC's 
position on the situation." He claimed, instead, that "Nato bombing was the 
start of the killing." (Ironically, statements by the WCC about the Balkans 
conflict over the past seven years have often been criticized in Western 
Europe as being too sympathetic to the Serbian Orthodox Church.) 
 
    None of the 100-plus participants at the discussion mentioned Nato's 
declarations that its  intervention was intended to stop ethnic cleansing 
by Serb troops.  Most of the discussion focused on the relief and 
reconciliation efforts of WCC member churches and related ecumenical 
bodies. Keith Clements, general secretary of the Conference of European 
Churches (CEC), said that "the first role of ecumenical bodies is to 
accompany their churches." He added that CEC, the WCC and the World 
Alliance of Reformed Churches "were on the ground in the region within 
three weeks" of the start of the crisis. 
 
    The main issue facing relief agencies now, Clements said, was the safe 
return of refugees to their homes and "the preservation of Kosovo as a 
multi-cultural homeland." 
 
    "It is almost impossible now to talk of mediation and reconciliation in 
Kosovo because the people are so tired and bitter," he added.  Because the 
rebuilding of society would be "such a long process," he said, "it is 
extremely important that the church, with its persistent faith, be 
involved." 
 
    Participants agreed that the Kosovo crisis was not a "religious war," 
but the complex webs of interreligious relations in the Balkans had made 
church responses very complex. Archbishop Anastasios, head of the Orthodox 
Autocephalous Church of Albania,  a minority church in an overwhelmingly 
Muslim country, said the crisis was "very difficult for Orthodox Albanians" 
because the victims in Kosovo were Muslims attacked by Orthodox Serbs. 
 
    "We were tempted to stay on the sideline," Archbishop Anastasios said, 
"but our faith would not allow it.  The oil of religion must not be used to 
fuel violence, but to heal wounds." 
 
    The Albanian Orthodox church had decided, he said, to help refugees 
from all religious communities.  "And we were determined," he added, "to 
help without saying anything, without judging or criticizing." 
 
    The crisis produced strong debates in other churches. Ineke Bakker, of 
the Council of Churches in The Netherlands, said that Dutch churches had 
leveled the strongest criticism at the WCC "for not criticizing the ethnic 
cleansing in Kosovo."  Human rights concerns were "at the top of the agenda 
of our churches," she said, so concerns over ethnic cleansing dominated 
during early stages of the crisis.  As the Dutch churches continued to 
explore their responses, "we came to the complicated and difficult 
conclusion to criticize both the ethnic cleansing and the bombing." 
 
    Echoing a slogan heard often during the discussion about the 
complexities of the church's response to the Kosovo crisis - "Never again 
Auschwitz, never again war" - a participant from Finland said the best way 
for the church to prevent crises such as Kosovo was to commit resources to 
building stronger civil societies, to human rights education, to mediation 
and dialogue and to youth work, which might break the generations-long 
cycle of violence in troubled regions. 

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