wfn.org | Jody Williams Is Focus of Lutheran Peace Prize Forum

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ELCA NEWS SERVICE

February 25, 1999

JODY WILLIAMS IS FOCUS OF LUTHERAN PEACE PRIZE FORUM
99-07-41-MR

     MINNEAPOLIS (ELCA) -- Ordinary people working together can
accomplish extraordinary things, according to Jody Williams, Putney,
Vt., a 1997 recipient of the Nobel Peace Prize.  With one effort, 1,380
countries working in a coordinated effort brought about an international
treaty to ban land mines, which will take effect March 1, she said.
     Williams spoke to more than 700 Lutheran students at Augsburg
College's Peace Prize Forum here Feb. 19-20.  Augsburg is a college of
the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA).
     This year's Peace Prize Forum theme, "Striving for Peace: The
Morality and Machinery of Modern Conflict," focused on the contemporary
and traditional modes of warfare as well as new and traditional avenues
of conflict resolution.
     Williams is founding coordinator of the International Campaign to
Ban Landmines.  The campaign, which was launched formally by six
nongovernmental organizations in October 1992, shares the Nobel Peace
Prize with Williams.
     Provoked by the campaign, 133 nations agreed to ban the
manufacture, stockpiling and use of land mines in a pact known as the
Ottawa Convention in December 1997.  The pact also requires nations to
dismantle land mines already under ground.  The United States has not
signed the treaty.
     "Millions of land mines in the ground, which do not recognize
peace, take a victim every 22 minutes somewhere in the world," Williams
said.  "Tens of millions of these weapons contaminate approximately 70
countries."
     Activist groups and what Williams called "middle powers"  -- as
opposed to super-powers -- have worked together to create an
international criminal court, halted the use of children as soldiers and
tried to slow the spread of firearms used in wars, ethnic feuds and
street crimes.
     "A lot of governments are very uncomfortable with this model,"
Williams said.  "They don't want civil society to have an ongoing voice
-- especially when it comes to security issues.  As a Canadian friend of
mine says, the men in suits do not want their process undercut."
Williams spoke at a news conference during the Forum.
     Williams told students, "The campaign was a breakthrough because
governments took the risk of allowing [civil society] in the room during
negotiations.  Because we both took risks, we changed the world on this
one tiny issue.  And, we've given the world the prospect of having real
peace in counties like Egypt, Cambodia, Mozambique, Bosnia, Croatia,
Angola, Somalia, Nicaragua and others."
     "The treaty is a success without the United States, and it will
continue to be a success without the United States," said Steve Goose, a
representative of the land mine campaign.  Goose was a keynote presenter
at the Forum.
     If the United States were to sign and throw its full diplomatic
weight behind the treaty, it would be much stronger, he said.
      Goose said the United States could conceivably bring other
reluctant nations on board, including its allies like Israel and Egypt,
who have not yet signed the treaty; and "difficult countries, like
perhaps Russia, might be reluctant to come on board until the United
States does."
     The United States also has a reputation of being one of the most
vigorous nations in making sure that, once it has signed a treaty, other
nations which have signed it implement it effectively and live by its
provisions, Goose said.
     "The United States is good at monitoring compliance with
international agreements and using its diplomatic muscle to make sure
that others don't cheat.  That would be an important contribution to
this treaty," said Goose.
     Larry Rasmussen, professor of social ethics at Union Theological
Seminary in New York, shared with students his thoughts on "peace
thinking in Christian ethics." He said, "The new global feudalism means
that peacemaking at the end of this most deadly of centuries happens
amidst the heightened atomization of societies beset by shifting
configurations of unsure sovereignty.
     "As Christian peacemaking leans into this world, it does so with
broader scope and wider search for appropriate practices.  The
traditional paradigms of Christian pacifism and 'just war' theory no
longer control the thinking.
     "God is never glorified by our violence and our humanity is never
honored through it," said Rasmussen, a member of the ELCA.
     The forum included 30 seminars on a variety of topics from
restorative justice to crime on television news.
     Dr. John J. Hamre, deputy secretary for the U.S. Department of
Defense, told students, "There are times when democracies have to band
together and use their military forces to contain threats that could
evolve into great violence in the world.  It's sad that we have to say
that, but it is our responsibility.
     "In this kind of a world, the only appropriate course for people
is to be politically active.  You cannot affect the way this government
carries out its foreign or security policies if you're just on the
sidelines, because you're simply defaulting to others to decide what
we're going to do with the country," Hamre said.
     "I personally believe that virtually all forms of nonviolent
political expression are appropriate and honorable and essential if
we're going to shape the way this country has to carry out its
responsibilities in the world.  Sometimes, I'm sorry to say, it does
require the use of violence, but I think you want a democracy to control
that.  And that, frankly, is my job," he said.
     Hamre is a member of Luther Place, a congregation of the ELCA in
Washington, D.C.  In 1972 Hamre earned a bachelor of arts degree at
Augustana College, a college of the ELCA in Sioux Falls, S.D.  He
received a doctorate from the School of Advanced International Studies
at Johns Hopkins University in 1978.
     Other speakers included Jan Egeland, special advisor to the
Norwegian Red Cross and International Peace Research Institute of Oslo.
     The Rev. Rebecca Larson, secretary for research and development
education in the Department for World Service of the Lutheran World
Federation, preached at the worship service.  Larson challenged students
to be "peacemakers and a de-mining of hearts and systems."  Larson is a
pastor of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada.
     The Peace Prize Forum rotates annually among five midwestern
colleges of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America of Norwegian
heritage: Augsburg College; Augustana College, Sioux Falls, S.D.;
Concordia College, Moorhead, Minn.; Luther College, Decorah, Iowa; and
St. Olaf College, Northfield, Minn.
     Held in cooperation with the Norwegian Nobel Institute in Oslo,
this series of forums was created to offer an opportunity for Nobel
Peace Prize laureates, diplomats, scholars and the general public to
share in a dialogue on the underlying causes of conflict in modern
society and on the dynamics of peacemaking.
     The 12th annual Peace Prize Forum will be held at St. Olaf
College, in 2000.

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