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West African Church Leaders, Civil Society at Frontlines of Liberian Peace 
Talks

Church World Service Sponsors Delegation to Heads of Ivory Coast, Guinea,
Sierra Leone to Bolster Support

NEW YORK - Mon July 7, 2003 -- As President Bush announced on Friday July 4
that the U.S. will send an advance military team to assess peacekeeping
intervention in Liberia, and as the Economic Community of West African
States (ECOWAS) announced in Accra, Ghana, that it would send a 3,000 member
Interpositional force to help maintain a ceasefire in war-stricken
Liberia, West African civil society and church leaders are also at the
forefront of the peace brokering process.

On Friday a group of Liberian church leaders met with President Charles
Taylor in Monrovia, who announced to the group that he would step down any
day, any time. Yesterday (Sun 7/6) Taylor confirmed that offer, meeting
with Nigerias President Olusegun Obasanjo. Flying to Liberia for a
quick-stop meeting with Taylor at the Monrovia airport, Obasanjo publicly
offered asylum to Taylor.

Concurrently, the global humanitarian agency Church World Service reports
that a delegation of Liberian civil society and church leaders are meeting
heads of state in Cote dIvoire now through today, then in Guinea and Sierra
Leone, through July 13.

Co-sponsored by Church World Service, the small delegation of three men and
one woman is meeting with presidents, government officials, civil society
organizations including womens groups, and inter-religious communities of
the three neighboring ECOWAS member countries, urging them to fully support
the peace process.

In parallel, in the U.S. on Thursday (7/3) Church World Service appealed to
UN Secretary General Kofi Annan with hopes that the Security Council would
decide to agree to UN participation in a peacekeeping mission.

In a separate communication to U.S. Department of State Gen. Colin L.
Powell, CWS Executive Director Rev. John L. McCullough also urged that the
U.S. join a multi-national peacekeeping force and assume a significant
leadership role in concert with other international bodies, including
ECOWAS.

We hope that the UN and the U.S. will be motivated, McCullough said,	 by
worsening humanitarian conditions in Liberia.

Such a stabilization force now seems the only viable way. McCullough
noted, to accelerate positive closure and settlement of the peace talks in
Ghana and finally bring decades of conflict to closure.
McCullough said the humanitarian agency, which is advancing a major Africa
initiative with immediate focus on the troubled Mano River subregion, joins
our voices with the people of Liberia who are pleading for both the UN and
the United States to give leadership and resources to help end the violence,
meet massive humanitarian need, and support stabilization.

The Church World Service communiquis urged the UN and U.S. to give every
incentive to all parties to lay down their weapons and return to the peace
talks; called for adherence to the terms of the June 17 ceasefire accords;
the ultimate signing of a peace agreement; the formation of a transitional
government that does not include President Charles Taylor; and supported the
need for rapid deployment of an international stabilization force, with
funding support for that initiative.

CWS also called for generous humanitarian emergency and reconstruction
assistance to the people of Liberia.

In a country where the Liberians themselves are staging demonstrations
crying for the U.S. to intervene, CWS McCullough commented today that
Liberia is not Iraq. In this case, the call for intervention echoes a
concern to avert the type of situation that occurred in Rwanda and Zaire.

ECOWAS chiefs are calling for the U.S., Morocco and South Africa to
contribute 2,000 additional troops.

Meanwhile, the Church World Service-sponsored delegation to Cote dIvoire,
Guinea and Sierra Leone are advocating for the peace talks in Ghana to
continue and for deployment of an international force that includes the U.S.

Mandated in their mission by the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC)
and the Fellowship of Christian Councils and Churches in West Africa
(FECCIWA), the delegation is led by Benjamin Dorme Lartey, General
Secretary, Liberian Council of Churches. Joining Lartey are Sheikh Kafumba
Konneh, Vice President of the Interreligious Council of Liberia, Counselor
Marcus Jones, President of the Liberian Bar Association, and Teresa
Leigh-Sherman, Vice President for Liberia of the Mano River Womens Network
for Peace.

The delegation of church and civil society leaders is a model for a new
Eminent Persons Peace Process program for Africa, being co-created by and to
be implemented by Africans. The program is now in development as part of CWS
 Africa Initiative.

Taylor tells Liberian church leaders hell step down any day, any time

Meeting with Charles Taylor last Friday, Monrovias Rev. Kortu Brown,
Chairman of the Board of Concerned Christian Community, a Liberian aid
organization and CWS partner, reports that the religious leaders presented a
statement to Taylor, who told them he was prepared to step down, any day,
any time.

  He didnt hold on to leaving office at the end of his term in January
2004, says Brown, but Taylor appealed for the U.S., ECOWAS, and UN to
allow him stay until the peace keeping force arrives.

Taylor told the church leaders he was prepared to "step aside to end the
suffering of the people.

Brown adds that Taylor requested the church in Liberia to help intervene
and save the country from further destruction. He averred that if he left
before the peace keepers arrive that it could turn chaotic, Brown
continues. He said he didnt know what his fighting men could do. He couldn
t guarantee anything and didnt think anyone would hold him responsible.

With its own appeal fund and aid  for Liberia,	in June New York based
Church World Service airlifted	blankets, cans of processed beef, rice and
personal hygiene kits for Liberians displaced by the war.  In April, a CWS
aid shipment was  successfully distributed and helped nearly 3,600 pregnant
and nursing mothers, children and elderly in six internally displaced
persons camps near Monrovia.

CWS is also providing financial and executive level support for the
sub-regions church and civil society leaders who are actively participating
at the peace talks in Ghana.

Ecumenical team helps keep factions in peace talks

  When the peace talks stalled out last week, the ecumenical team is credited
with being instrumental in getting Liberian government and rebel faction
participants to agree to come back to the table after a hiatus.

The negotiations are expected to today. High on the agenda: political
reconciliation and a signed peace agreement by close of the talks that
includes the establishment of a transitional government, excluding Charles
Taylor.

After the peace groups meeting July 2 with the UN Security Councils
visiting delegation on the Liberian crisis, Liberian
Council of Churches Benjamin Lartey reports that the Security Council was
committed to bring sustainable peace to Liberia and endorsed ECOWAS
participation, but Lartey said, the Security Council will not accept a
transitional government headed by any war lord in Liberia.

Let us all pray that these deliberations will minimize greed and the
rampant drive for personal advancement, Lartey added.

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Itinerary for the CWS-sponsored Liberian peace delegation:

Ivory Coast:
July 3-7
Contact delegates through: Imam Sesay, tel: 225-075-98741 or Rev. Immanuel
Tuku Nunekpeku, tel: 225-07-795416

Guinea:
July 7-9
Contact delegates through: Rev. Albert David Gomez, tel:
224 451 3 290703 / 293868

Sierra Leone:
July 9-13
Contact delegates through: Alimamy Koroma, tel: 232 22 240568 / 240554;
Cell: 76603989

###

MEDIA CONTACTS: 	Jan Dragin/New York/Boston
					Phone: 011-781-925-1526

					Ann Walle/CWS/New York
					Phone: 011-212-870-2654

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Send Email address changes to: nccc_usa@ncccusa.org.