wfn.org | WCC - Raiser tells Khartoum to end injustices

["Sheila Mesa" <smm@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches
Update, Up-02-18
For Immediate Use
8 July 2002

Raiser tells Khartoum to end injustices

cf. WCC Press Release, PR-02-17, of 28 June 2002

World Council of Churches (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Konrad
Raiser has told the Sudanese government to end their policy of
political exclusion and social injustice. Raiser, who is on a
1-16 July 2002 pastoral visit to the Greater Horn of Africa and
Tanzania, expressed these concerns during a 2 July meeting with
the Sudanese government minister of Guidance and Endowments, Dr
Issam El Bashir, in Khartoum.  

He described the 18-year religious conflict in Sudan as a
deceptive facade used by Khartoum's government while actively
engaged in exacerbating all kinds of inequalities. He also told
the minister that unfair distribution of wealth was yet another
factor which must be addressed.  

Addressing an ecumenical gathering organized by the Sudanese
Council of Churches (SCC), Raiser noted that Sudanese peace talks
had become "endless", and stressed the WCC's commitment to
conflict resolution and reconstruction of war-ravaged southern
Sudan. The protracted conflict between the Arab Muslims in the
north and mostly Christian populations in the South has killed an
estimated two million southerners and produced one of Africa's
largest refugee populations of over half a million.  

The WCC helped set up a Sudan Ecumenical Forum in 1994
comprising the New Sudan Council of Churches in the South and the
Sudan Council of Churches in the North, along with overseas
partners, to monitor the conflict and mobilize ecumenical
support.  

Raiser expressed the WCC's support to the Inter-Governmental
Authority on Development (IGAD) as the necessary political
platform for addressing Sudan's civil war. IGAD is currently
meeting in Nairobi, Kenya. Its member countries are Kenya,
Uganda, Sudan, Ethiopia and Eritrea.  

The WCC delegation also visited the Dar-es-Salaam camp for
displaced people in Omdurman, Sudan province. It has a population
of 250,000 people with a single clinic for tuberculosis cases.
Describing the camp as a second hell, Raiser 
noted that the effects of two decades of war are pitifully
evident on the faces of the children. For many of them, "the
breath of hope is decreasing day by day," Raiser observed.  

The Sudan Council of Churches (SCC) expressed concern that the
exploitation of oil, located in the South, is being used to
sustain the war against southerners. In a message to the WCC
delegation signed by leaders of 14 member churches, the SCC
stressed that "the recent battles in Western Upper Nile region,
where most of the oil wells are located, justify our concern..."
Noting that the root cause of the civil war "is uneven
socioeconomic development" caused by "unfair distribution of
wealth", the council stressed that oil exploitation "is
aggravating that imbalance in wealth distribution and
contributing to the underdevelopment of the marginalized areas". 

The council, which represents the Catholic, Orthodox and
Protestant churches, underlined that peace initiatives like the
IGAD process continue to exclude churches even as observers, and
called on the WCC to help convey their concerns to such fora. "It
is our strong belief that the participation of the church as part
of civil society can ensure that the voices of voiceless people
reach those restricted forums where important decisions are being
made on their behalf," they stated.  

The only interlude of peace enjoyed by the southern Sudanese was
a short period following the 1972 Addis Ababa Peace Agreement,
brokered by the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC) and in
which WCC was instrumental.  

The SCC went on to stress that religious freedom for non-Muslims
remains restricted in Sudan. "Permits for building churches are
not given and some of the old church properties built during the
British colonial rule have been confiscated. Education
syllabuses, they noted, "have been islamized without due regard
to Christian students." The council pointed out that "the state
now favours Islam as a state religion. As Islam and Arabism are
combined to project Sudanese identity, Africanism and
Christianity are ignored. These two elements of identity (Islam
and Arabism) have been utilized for control of power and wealth
in Sudan."  

Sudanese Christian women from SCC member churches also had a
message for the delegation. "The story of the Sudanese woman is a
story of faith and hope in the midst of untold suffering and
misery [ranging from] economic marginalization, increased
poverty, harmful traditions and cultures, ill-health to
illiteracy," they told Raiser. Presenting their message, 45 women
leaders said that "Despite all this, women's creativity and
resilience, faith and actions have sustained them through many
difficult situations, even as they struggle to contribute to the
survival of communities, church and society...  

"We recognize the immense contribution that women have made as
educators, caregivers and in their endless sharing of their human
and material resources. It is women's faith that has continued to
sustain communities in the face of unfairness, personal hurts,
frustrations, stresses and horrors of the civil war, hunger and
disease." The women expressed the hope that "a Moses of today"
will emerge to be an instrument of deliverance of his people in
Sudan.  

For further information, please contact Media Relations Office,
Tel:  +41 (0)22 791.61.53   

**********
The World Council of Churches (WCC) is a fellowship of churches,
now 342, in more than 100 countries in all continents from
virtually all Christian traditions. The Roman Catholic Church is
not a member church but works cooperatively with the WCC. The
highest governing body is the assembly, which meets approximately
every seven years. The WCC was formally inaugurated in 1948 in
Amsterdam, The Netherlands. Its staff is headed by general
secretary Konrad Raiser from the Evangelical Church in Germany.

World Council of Churches
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