wfn.org | Inter-Faith Groups Seek Constructive Dialogue with Governments

["Frank Imhoff" <frank_imhoff@elca.org>]

Inter-Faith Groups Seek Constructive Dialogue with Governments
Religious Leaders Deplore Use of Children in Conflicts

HO, Ghana/GENEVA, 28 June 2004 (LWI) - West Africa's religious
leaders assembled in Ghana for a sub-regional summit have
resolved to send inter-faith delegations on all peace missions to
conflict-affected countries and areas, to express solidarity and
help promote peace and reconciliation. 

The representatives of diverse faith communities attending the
West African Inter-Faith Peace Summit, also called on governments
in the region to engage in constructive dialogue with religious
leaders toward the common goal of achieving lasting peace.

They urged the Economic Community of West African States
(ECOWAS) to encourage its member governments to cultivate a
culture of freedom of speech and political tolerance.

The sub-regional gathering was a follow up to the October 2002
continental inter-faith summit on the theme, "Embracing the Gift
of Peace." The declaration, coming at the end of the Ho meeting,
acknowledged the role of Ghana's President John Agyekum Kufuor,
currently ECOWAS chairperson, in regional peacemaking as well as
the continued hospitality of the Ghanaian people in fostering
African solidarity.

The resolutions were addressed to the region's religious
leaders, sub-regional bodies, governments and civil society. But
the delegates requested the ECOWAS chairperson to communicate
these commitments to the Heads of States and Governments in West
Africa.

The inter-faith leaders deplored the use of children in
conflicts. "We urge all governments and other relevant actors
in the region to stop the use of children in conflicts, and to
bring an end to all abduction and trafficking of children,"
they said. 

They urged governments in the sub-region to continue with the
empowerment and creation of equal opportunities for women. Much
more ought to be done in improving the socio-economic lives of
the citizens, they stressed.

Nearly 100 representatives of inter-religious networks from
Benin, Cameroon, Gambia, Ghana, Guinea, Liberia, Mauritania,
Niger, Nigeria, Senegal, Sierra Leone and Togo attended the
sub-regional summit organized by the Inter-Faith Action for Peace
in Africa (IFAPA). Under the theme "Co-existence: The Key to
Peace and Development in Africa," they examined related issues
from the perspectives of, among others, African Traditional
Religion, Christianity and Islam. Presentations included country
reports and an appraisal of inter-religious peace initiatives in
Liberia and Sierra Leone.

Through their respective networks, they undertook to strengthen
the agreed objectives in the first continent-wide summit in South
Africa. "We will build consensus on the need to free religion
from being exploited by opportunists for their own parochial
economic, political and other ends in Africa," they said.

"We commit ourselves as inter-faith organizations to improve our
networking at national, regional and continental levels and to
implement regular activities," they declared. The agenda for
activities, they said, would be initially generated at the
national level by inter-religious councils, and subsequently
implemented as a sub-regional and continental plan within the
next two years. (472 words)

(By Kenyan-based correspondent Noel Okoth, reporting on the West
African summit on behalf of LWI.)

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
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ecumenical and inter-faith relations, theology, humanitarian
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