wfn.org | CWS Delegation Visit Prompts Quick Aid to Refugees in Sierra

["Church World Service News" <nccc_usa@ncccusa.org>]

CWS DELEGATION VISIT PROMPTS QUICK AID TO REFUGEES IN SIERRA LEONE
Four-Country Tour Ends in Meeting with Liberia's President Charles Taylor

NEW YORK, NY - 7/26/02 - The findings of a just-completed Church World
Service peace delegation to West Africa are already galvanizing emergency
response to the troubled region by the international humanitarian aid agency
and its partners.

Open conflict between rebel and government forces in Liberia has sent tens
of thousands of Liberians fleeing for safety across the border to Sierra
Leone in recent weeks.  Based on the immediate needs the delegation is
reporting from its visit July 2-18, CWS is shipping more than $100,000 in
supplies for Liberian refugees in and around Freetown, Sierra Leone. The
shipment includes CWS blankets, health and baby kits along with additional
supplies donated by CWS partner Lutheran World Relief.

Concurrently, CWS is seeking to raise an additional $100,000 to support the
efforts of CWS partners, including the Council of Churches in Sierra Leone
(CCSL), the United Brethren in Christ and the Baptist Convention of Sierra
Leone, in caring for this new influx of refugees.

Funds raised also will help Sierra Leoneans displaced during that country's
devastating, 11-year civil war get back on their feet.  The war ended in
January 2002.

An estimated 25,000 Liberians have entered Sierra Leone since January. As
many as 500 border crossings an hour have been reported by the United
Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), fleeing the conflict between
Liberian government forces and the rebel Liberians United for Reconciliation
and Democracy (LURD).

Reports by the CWS delegation and other sources say many of the Liberian
refugees and Sierra Leone's own returnees are ill, require medical
attention, and some are in severe need of food.

Led by the Rev. John L. McCullough, CWS Executive Director, the eight
delegation members went to West Africa in response to an invitation from
councils of churches in Guinea, The Gambia, Sierra Leone and Liberia.

On the heels of its peacebuilding delegation, and beyond immediate emergency
response action, CWS is accelerating further support plans for West Africa.
A team of CWS emergency response and immigration specialists is already on
the ground in the troubled region.

Dr. Susanne Riveles, CWS Director of Education and Advocacy for
International Justice and Human Rights; Joe Roberson, Director of CWS
Immigration and Refugee Programs, and Ivan DeKam, CWS Emergency Response
Program, are now visiting councils of churches and partners in Sierra Leone,
Guinea and Ghana.

They are responding to the CWS peace delegation's accounts of the deep
wounds and critical needs that were echoed across much of the West Africa
sub-region.  The program team is focusing on issues of refugees and the
internally displaced, special needs of women and children affected by
conflict, peace and reconciliation, and the long-term needs for trauma care
and counseling.

CWS advocacy staff also are arranging visits for members of the delegation
to debrief government leaders in Washington, D.C., in the coming weeks,
hoping to galvanize more stable financial and political support for the
struggling countries.

Peace Delegation Reports Wide Range of Encounters
CWS' Hsu Meets Liberian President Charles Taylor

In an intensive 16-day tour, the CWS delegates traveled across the
four-country region, meeting with church councils, government leaders, UN
officials and NGO partners, and visiting refugee, IDP and amputee camps and
sites destroyed by war.

In a final press conference July 17 in Monrovia, Liberia's capital city, the
delegation decried the "alarming, continuing destabilization" that the
region is experiencing. "The crisis situations prevailing in this sub-region
and the plight of the people who feel that their basic human rights are
severely compromised have become a matter of deep concern," the delegation
said.

As other delegation members were beginning to make their way back to the
United States, on July 18 Victor Hsu, Senior Advisor to the Executive
Director of Church World Service, met with Liberia's President Charles
Taylor.

It is estimated that one third of Liberia's population is displaced by
fighting between the Liberian military and rebel forces (the LURD).  A
flurry of peace conference efforts may hint at reconciliation, but the
country's condition remains critical, on top of a debilitated economy and
virtually non-existent infrastructure.

Unemployment in Liberia in the formal sector is at 80 percent, U.S.
Ambassador to Liberia Bismarck Myrick told the CWS peace delegation on July
15, and many who are employed are not getting paid.  "Illiteracy is at 80
percent," he said.  "There is no central water or electrical systems that
work, not even in the capital. Health care facilities are inadequate."

Taylor: "The problem of Liberia is the United States"

Taylor asserted that "The problem of Liberia is the United States," Hsu
reported.  "Taylor asked, 'Why does the U.S. hate us Liberians so much? My
people have suffered too much, under both U.S. and UN imposed sanctions.'"

He also charged that the United States has been training Guinean soldiers to
infiltrate Liberia.  "Liberia always regarded the U.S. as a big brother, a
good friend and ally," Taylor told Hsu. "If the U.S. wants to, it can
dramatically change the situation in Liberia immediately."

Taylor told Hsu that he hoped that CWS would convey to the Bush
administration the desire of the Liberian government to receive a high level
delegation from the U.S., to hold talks on ways and means of improving
relations between the two.

Hsu said he replied that the CWS peace delegation would be sharing its
report with the Bush administration, members of Congress, United Nations
Secretary General Kofi Annan and the Secretariat of the Economic Community
of West African States (ECOWAS).

Hsu said Taylor told him he was "pleased to work with President Kabbah of
Sierra Leone" to help bring about peace in Liberia, Sierra Leone and
Guinea - three countries joined in what is called the Mano River Union.
Taylor confirmed that a second meeting of the heads of state of the Mano
River Union would be held early in August.

"Taylor's call for a high level meeting with the U.S. is newsworthy," Hsu
said after the meeting.  "The continuing peace process of the Mano River
Union is also noteworthy.  Without peace or ceasefire there won't be much
effective humanitarian aid outside Monrovia.  And without an urgent
ceasefire, fair, open and inclusive elections scheduled for early in 2003
can't be held."

Delegation Meets with Liberian Churches,
Government Officials, Women's Peace Group

While in Liberia, the delegation also met with the Liberian Council of
Churches' Executive Committee, with Liberia's Foreign Minister Monie Captan,
and with government officials working to organize a "Liberian National
Conference on Peace and Reconciliation."

The Liberian Christian Women's Peace Initiative used the occasion of a
meeting between a broad group of Liberian church leaders and the CWS
delegation to issue its own statement asking for an immediate ceasefire by
both government and LURD forces. Liberia's interreligious council has been
advocating for peace for some time, talking to government and rebel leaders.

Thousands in Liberian IDP Camp Don't Qualify for Food Aid

CWS delegation members also visited the Jartondo Town Internally Displaced
Persons Camp, a few miles outside of Monrovia.  Mr. Kai Jelly from Lutheran
World Federation, the lead agency in the camp, and Ms. Chris Wilson, the
camp manager, said most of the 10,000 people there had fled recent fighting
in Grand Cape Mount and Bomi counties.  Many of them have been displaced
more than five times.

Mr. Jelly described the camp's services: five wells, 28 family latrines, 28
bathhouses, and a monthly food ration brought by the World Food Programme.
Then he called the CWS delegation's attention to the camp's biggest problem:
People can't get food if they aren't registered, and they can't register
unless they have a shelter.

Requiring people to have a shelter -- and thus, an address -- helps prevent
people from making the rounds of several camps, picking up a monthly food
ration at each camp.  The World Food Programme delivers food address by
address.

But at Jartondo Town camp, there are between 6,000 and 7,000 people without
shelter and therefore also without a food ration  Some have just arrived,
but some have been at the camp for more than three months. Many can't come
up with the approximately US $45 to build their shelter. Others, such as the
ill or mothers with babies, simply aren't able to build their own shelter.

"This is embarrassing for the Lutheran World Federation," Mr. Jelly
admitted.  "We can't go around the World Food Programme's rules, but as a
result we have 6,000 to 7,000 hungry people on our hands."

Delegation Finds Poverty, Suffering in Sierra Leone, Gambia, Guinea, Liberia

"The people of this region have suffered too much," McCullough said. Tens of
thousands of refugees from Liberia's ongoing civil war are displaced within
Liberia or are refugees in Sierra Leone, Guinea and The Gambia. Sierra Leone
is itself struggling to recover from war. Guinea and The Gambia have been
spared civil conflict, but their people are desperately impoverished.

The UNHCR withdrew from The Gambia last year, but now that country is
experiencing a new influx of refugees from Liberia and from fighting in
southern Senegal and has asked the UNHCR to come back, Gambian government
officials told the CWS delegation.

In Guinea, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) staff
reports that more than 81,000 Liberians and Sierra Leoneans were in their
care by the end of June 2002, with between 600 and 2,000 more Liberians
arriving every week.

"But halfway through their budget year, UNHCR had only received between $7
and $8 million in cash and pledges against a $27 million budget," reported
the Rev. Canon Benjamin Musoke-Lubega of The Episcopal Church, a CWS board
member. The Christian Council of Guinea is helping with supplementary food,
clothing, soap and other necessities.

In Sierra Leone: "Something Very Evil Happened"

Sierra Leone is struggling to balance the need for justice with the need to
reintegrate its tens of thousands of ex-combatants, especially the rebels
who ravaged the country from north to south, killing, raping, hacking off
people's limbs and looting and burning property.

CWS Executive Director McCullough told church leaders there, "Something very
evil happened in this country. I'm not using that word lightly," he
emphasized. "And your sons did it. You have got to figure out why they did
what they did," he urged. "What are the root causes of the frustration, the
anger, the disenfranchisement, that caused them to act in such an evil way
in respect to their neighbors?"

McCullough said, "People all across [Sierra Leone] have been traumatized by
what happened. And psychologically and socially and emotionally and
spiritually they need help; and this is probably the most urgent and
pressing issue before this country," McCullough observed, offering Church
World Service's expertise in trauma recovery to assist in the healing
process.

The war devastated Sierra Leone's economy.  "I lack the words to express how
bad things are," U.S. Ambassador to Sierra Leone Peter Chaveas told the
delegation, arguing for sustained U.S. and international attention and
input.  "It's going to be a long, hard process to rebuild."

"What's critical," McCullough said," is to avoid any naivet about what it
will take for Sierra Leone to consolidate peace.  The country needs, and
deserves, economic development, skills and leadership training, and trauma
counseling.  The United Nations peacekeeping force should stay until the
Sierra Leone government can say confidently that it can ensure security
nationwide."

Signs of hope and recovery

But there are signs of recovery and hope in the region, say CWS peace
delegation members. In their meetings with the four country's church leaders
and other groups, the delegation saw signs of healing and progress.

In Liberia's Siegbeh Town IDP Camp, the Concerned Christian Community, a
partner of CWS and the United Church of Christ, is helping new arrivals
bridge the system to qualify for food, by building big transit tents that
qualify as fixed-location first shelters.

The CCC also has a program for women at the Jartondo IDP Camp, offering rape
counseling and training for income generation.  Women in the program are
qualifying for food aid, whether they have permanent shelters or not, said
Mrs. Mariama Brown, CCC's National Director.

In Sierra Leone, Ambassador Chaveas said "the new Kabbah administration "is
a government with much more credibility," given its mandate in June
elections that were basically "free and fair and almost devoid of violence.
This government," Chaveas said, "has five years ahead of it and the prospect
to do something."

Guinea continues to welcome streams of refugees, though at a strain its own
security. And the six-month-old Christian Council of Guinea, reports the CWS
delegation, has a presence and plays a role in society that is already
respected by the Guinean government.

In The Gambia, church and government officials are openly working together
to prevent the HIV/AIDS pandemic from spreading in that country.

Summing up the impact of their visit, CWS delegate Father Philip Reed,
Society of Missionaries of Africa, said, "In one refugee camp, the question
'Who is my neighbor?' came to mind.  I looked at the refugees there and
thought, 'These are my brothers.'"

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