wfn.org | WMD approves evacuation policy for missionaries in dangerous places

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Note #6199 from PCUSA NEWS to PRESBYNEWS:

23-September-2000
00337

WMD approves evacuation policy for missionaries in dangerous places

Policy prompted by growing hostage-taking

by Alexa Smith

MONTREAT, N.C. -- As it announced the development of two new partnerships
with churches in India and Brazil, the Worldwide Ministries Division (WMD)
introduced to the General Assembly Council Sept. 23 the Presbyterian Church
(U.S.A.)'s first security policy to evacuate missionaries during
international emergencies.

	"This grew out of the fact that we have missionaries in situations where
there is almost a growing practice of hostage-taking," the Rev. Marian
McClure, WMD's director, told the Presbyterian News Service during the GAC's
plenary here.  "Colombia is one place.  Zimbabwe another. And Mozambique,"
she said.

	"Every situation is different, but we have needed basic guidelines to
coordinate communication, to determine when there is an emergency and to
balance the interests of the families and churches involved," McClure added.

	Longtime Congo missionary  Bill Simmons will head up the Crisis Management
Team that is now being formed and trained in Louisville to address
emergencies that may require evacuation of PC(USA) mission personnel. 
Simmons -- who is now WMD's financial officer -- will call the team into
action as needed.

	The policy sets several specific guidelines:

* ransom or other extortion should not be paid nor should the PC(USA) yield
to other demands issued by hostage-takers;
  
* if a church worker is taken hostage, the family of the hostage will be
evacuated to a safe 	location as soon as possible -- in most cases, the
family's home country;

* a WMD staff member will be assigned to work with the family throughout the
crisis;
  
* only members of the Crisis Management Team will release information on a
hostage situation, including to the hostage's family or news media;
  
* WMD will devise evacuations on one to 24-hour notice after consultation
with partner churches and institutions. Families and individuals are
expected to support evacuation directives and WMD will support a family's
decision to leave a site.
  
* personnel who are directly involved in a crisis will be evaluated by a
qualified Christian mental health professional and WMD shall pay for the
associated costs.

	McClure told the PNS that the policy is modeled upon those used by other
mission agencies who have had to address hostage situations.

	PC(USA) missionaries have been evacuated from the Democratic Republic of
the Congo, the former Zaire, several times in the last 10 years -- so much
so that WMD has decided not to place families with children there for now. 
Several foreign armies currently occupy portions of Congo, including Rwanda,
Uganda and Burundi, and other armies that are allies of the Congolese
government are stationed in other areas of the country.

	Further, missionaries in Khartoum, in northern Sudan, remained sequestered
for a time last year after the U.S. government bombed a factory there. 
Members of the partner church ran their errands so that the missionaries
would not have to go out in public until the political situation calmed.

	McClure said WMD intends to propose the policy for the entire GAC, since
other staff and elected persons travel internationally as well.  The policy
will come before the council in February.

	In other business, WMD Chair Inez Allen told the council that WMD has
negotiated a new partnership covenant with the Mizoram Presbyterian Church
Synod of the Presbyterian Church in India.
	In addition, a broken covenant with the Independent Presbyterian Church of
Brazil (IPIB) was renewed after a 75-year split.  The IPIB asked
Presbyterian missionaries to leave Brazilian churches years ago, accusing
them of paternalism.

	WMD Associate Director for Ecumenical Partnership the Rev. Will Browne told
the WMD Committee that the agreement with the IPIB moves the PC(USA) into a
new paradigm of partnership, where the two churches have agreed to cooperate
together in mission to East Timor and to Portuguese-speaking countries in
Africa.  "It is forcing us to look at a whole new way of relating," Browne
said, adding that the covenant negotiators used the term, ‘full communion,'
an ecclesiastical designation that has never been applied internationally
before.

	The Office of the General Assembly is currently exploring whether the
language is workable.

	WMD also approved the renewal or the establishment of three Presbytery
International Partnerships: between Donegal Presbytery and the Umtata
Presbytery of the Uniting Presbyterian Church in Southern Africa;
Mid-Kentucky Presbytery and the Asante Akyem Presbytery of the Presbyterian
Church of Ghana; and Tropical Florida Presbytery and the Peninsular
Presbytery of the National Presbyterian Church of Mexico.

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