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2000-091

Carey challenges Sudanese government to make peace a 
reality

by Kathryn McCormick

     (ACNS) Declaring that his recent brief visit to Sudan 
had left him filled with "the sense of a war-weary country 
desperately looking for peace," Archbishop of Canterbury 
George Carey challenged Sudanese leaders to demonstrate 
their commitment to restoring peace and religious freedom 
there. He also issued a clear call to both Muslims and 
Christians there to "discover common ground" and work for 
peace.

     Carey, who had journeyed to Africa for the April 30 
enthronement of the new Anglican archbishop and primate of 
Sudan, Joseph Marona, also spoke with government leaders 
and visited a refugee camp.

     "I have been talking to a number of very significant 
leaders," he told a reporter as he traveled home to England 
after the two-day visit. "I came away feeling a sense of a 
war-weary country desperately looking for peace--and a 
feeling that the government is also beginning to soften its 
attitude to some degree. They are very sensitive now to the 
image that Sudan has in the rest of the world, an image of 
a country where abductions are taking place, and where 
there is no freedom of religion, and they're very anxious 
to say that that is not the case. My challenge to them is 
that we need to have proof of that."

All deserve peace

     In his sermon during the enthronement in the southern 
Sudanese city of Juba, Carey called for misconceptions and 
misunderstandings to be put aside in the interests of peace 
and reconciliation.

     "Some people in the West paint the conflict in Sudan 
as one between Christianity and Islam," he said. "Some in 
this country claim that Islam is the indigenous faith of 
Sudan and Christianity is a western import. Neither view is 
true.

     "I do not believe there is any reason either here in 
Sudan or anywhere else in the world for Christians and 
Muslims to commit violence against one another. There is 
every reason to hold one another's faith in the deepest 
respect. And even more reason to discover common ground 
upon which together you can contribute to the peace process 
here. The suffering, the poverty, the effects of war do not 
differentiate between religions. All the people of this 
beautiful country are suffering and all deserve peace."

     Carey was guest of honor at the enthronement. He 
described it as the opening of a new chapter in the history 
of the Church in the Sudan.

     The seat had been vacant for two years--largely as a 
consequence of the devastating civil war, which is 
estimated to have cost more than a million lives and left 
several million people homeless and destitute. Much of the 
area surrounding  Juba is held by forces opposed to the 
pro-Islamic government, and access to the city has been 
difficult.

     Carey, making his first visit to Sudan for five years, 
rejected discrimination against the country's Christian 
minority and appealed to churches to keep working together 
for an end to bloodshed and violence.

Call for Christian unity

     "The united witness of Christians in this country is 
of prime importance in the search for peace. I know how 
difficult life has been in many parts of the North--schools 
and churches destroyed, land confiscated and so on. I am 
glad to know that Christians of different traditions have 
turned out to support one another in their protests when 
these wrongs have been committed."

     Carey said there were reasons for hope:

     "I know that for long periods of your recent history, 
you have felt abandoned, alone, unloved by the rest of the 
world. I do not think that has ever been the case. But I do 
understand how, when many have lived your daily lives in 
fear of violence, oppression and arrest, the love and 
prayers of others can seem a great distance away.

     "However, there has been a distinct growth of concern 
in the international community about the persistence of war 
in Sudan, and the lack of energy amongst those who are 
fighting, seriously, to search for peace. There are now 
many around the world who are determined to support the 
peace process."

     Carey flew to Juba from the Sudanese capital, 
Khartoum, where he had had talks the day before with 
government leaders, and preached at an ecumenical service 
in the Roman Catholic cathedral.

     He also toured a refugee camp near Khartoum for 
thousands of displaced families and visited a school and a 
local church.

     "The level of despair was almost palpable," he said 
after the trip.

     Despite the government's new attempts to repair its 
image, he noted, "There's a feeling on the part of so many 
people that the situation is getting worse and worse. I 
spoke to some camp elders as well as some very depressed 
teachers who told me not only about feeling displaced, but 
all the tribes feeling that they are 'rootless trees.' They 
are appealing to the wider world to assist them, to pray 
for them and send aid, but most of all to bring this 
terrible war to an end."

--Kathryn McCormick is associate director of the Office of 
News and Information of the Episcopal Church. This article 
was drawn from postings by the Anglican Communion News 
Service.