wfn.org | WCC: South Asia

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World Council of Churches
Update Up-02-31
For Immediate Use
11 October 2002

WCC appeals to South Asian leaders to pursue peace path

cf. WCC Press Release, PR-02-23.08e of 2 September 2002

A statement on South Asia adopted by the World Council of Churches (WCC)
central committee in early September was sent to the governments of India,
Pakistan and Sri Lanka.  The statement refers to the conflict between India
and Pakistan, and to the internal conflict in Sri Lanka and calls on its
member churches around the world to be in solidarity with churches in the
three countries and to assist them in their ministry of healing and
reconciliation in the region.

Letters on 7 October from new Commission of the Churches on International
Affairs (WCC/CCIA) director Peter Weiderud to India's prime minister Atal
Bihari Vajpayee and to Pakistan's president General Pervez Musharraf refer to
the WCC central committee's concern over "growing incidents of religious
intolerance and violence in India and Pakistan" as well as to the "continuing
military build-up and confrontation" between the two countries that,
according to Weiderud, "has raised the spectre of a nuclear war".

Weiderud asks the two chiefs of state to "restore and normalize relations"
between the two countries "by undertaking comprehensive confidence-building
measures that could pave the way for a political dialogue". "Such a
dialogue," suggests Weiderud, "would create an environment where other
important and complex issues like Kashmir and nuclear proliferation could be
addressed".

In a 7 October letter addressed to Sri Lanka's president Chandrika
Bandaranaike, Weiderud signals the WCC's delight at the signature of a
Memorandum of Agreement between the government and the Liberation Tigers of
Tamil Eelam (LTTE). The WCC, he adds, was "particularly encouraged by the
joint efforts of the National Council of Churches in Sri Lanka and the Church
in Norway to bring awareness amongst the people in support of the peace
process" - a reference to their education campaign among seminarians,
students and activists in Sri Lanka.

The statement on South Asia adopted by the WCC central committee is available
on our website at 
http://www2.wcc-coe.org/ccdocuments.nsf/index/pub-3-en.html 

For further information, please contact Media Relations Office,   tel: +41
(0)22 791 64 21

**********

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.

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