wfn.org | Episcopalians: Four-country tour by CWS peace delegation prompts aid to West African refugee

[dmack@episcopalchurch.org]

July 29, 2002

2002-185

Episcopalians: Four-country tour by CWS peace delegation 
prompts aid to West African refugees

by Carol Fouke-Mpoyo

(CWS) 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.

The Rev. Benjamin Musoke-Lubega, partnership officer for 
Africa of the Episcopal Church and a CWS board member, and 
Kirsten Laursen, CWS deputy director for programs, were part of 
the eight-member delegation that went to Guinea, the Gambia, 
Sierra Leone and Liberia July 2-18 in response to an invitation 
from church councils in the four neighboring countries.

Led by the Rev. John L. McCullough, CWS executive director, 
the delegation immersed itself in the people's struggles and 
hopes in a region battered by poverty and civil wars that have 
spilled refugees across one another's borders.

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 reported 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.

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 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.

Wide range of encounters

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.

Musoke-Lubega said he was especially moved by visits to 
Liberian refugees who have sought safety in camps in Kenema 
District in Sierra Leone's northeast and to a war amputees camp 
in Freetown, Sierra Leone's capital city.

"The refugees have nothing, the host communities have 
nothing, the Sierra Leoneans returning have nothing. You have 
everybody desperate, with nothing," he said, emphasizing the 
need for peace in Liberia and for peacebuilding and development 
in Sierra Leone.

At the amputees camp in Freetown, Musoke-Lubega was deeply 
moved by the little boy, now 4, whose right leg had been chopped 
off below the knee by rebels when he was only 2 months old. "I 
have a son that child's age," he said. "The visit to the amputee 
camp was a very good experience for me although it was very 
troubling. It brought out that the amputees aren't getting as 
much attention as others."

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 making 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 (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."

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 camp don't qualify for aid

CWS delegation members also visited the Jartondo Town Internally 
Displaced Persons Camp, a few miles outside of Monrovia. Kai 
Jelly from Lutheran World Federation, the lead agency in the 
camp, and 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.

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," 
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."

Poverty, suffering in four countries

"The people of this region have suffered too much," McCullough 
said on return from the region. 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 United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (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 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 CWS's Laursen. The Christian 
Council of Guinea is helping with supplementary food, clothing, 
soap and other necessities.

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.

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?"

Laursen 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," Laursen 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," Musoke-Lubega said, "is to avoid any 
naiveti 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

Yet 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 Mariama Brown, 
CCC's national director.

In Sierra Leone, the Council of Churches in Sierra Leone has 
a strong, diverse program that includes development and 
environmental health, reintegration of ex-combatants, 
peacebuilding, advocacy for good governance and national 
reconciliation with justice, youth development, women's 
empowerment, communications, HIV/AIDS prevention, children's 
rights, trauma counseling, church relations, theology, research 
and much more.

"Church World Service is interested in supporting the best 
quality of programs, and CCSL has demonstrated that," Laursen 
said. She added, "I hope we can be more than funders, but focus 
on doing something together in an organic relationship between 
CWS and CCSL. That will be so much more."

Ambassador Chaveas said that 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.

"That a newly organized council has that much clout in a 
predominantly Muslim country impressed me," Musoke-Lubega said. 
"We need to support the council and help it increase its 
capacity to be the voice of the voiceless."

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 the Rev. 
Philip Reed of the 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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--Carol Fouke-Mpoyo is communications director for the National 
Council of Churches and was a CWS delegate and media liaison for 
the peace delegation.