wfn.org | LWI FEATURE: Liberia - From Fear to Hope

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

FEATURE: Liberia - From Fear to Hope
Inter-Religious Groups Play Central Role in Peace Building

MONROVIA, Liberia/GENEVA, 27 November 2003 (LWI) - "During the
war, women suffered rape, and saw their children drugged. [Their]
children had guns, insulted their parents, girls had to
prostitute themselves to support the family. Women had to answer
the doors * to protect their husbands and sons. Something has
been [stolen from them] and they are afraid. They have a feeling
of failure." This is how Ms Etwada A. Cooper of the Liberian
Women's Initiative recently summed-up the suffering endured by
Liberian women during 14 years of civil war.

But the women have also been involved in the country's peace
process. "When the war started, women had to take action for
their voices to be heard," said Ms Cerue Konah Garlo of the Women
in Peace Building Network. They issued strong public statements
denouncing the fighting, and also sent letters to President
Charles Taylor and diplomatic missions. Women organized sit-ins
at Parliament and other public places, conducted prayers and sent
a delegation to meet with the Inter-Religious Council of Sierra
Leone, a group that had been actively involved in the peace
process there. "These initiatives led to the beginning of
dialogue, eventually to cease-fire and the deployment of
peace-keeping forces," Garlo noted. But "to have real peace," she
added, "[we] need to have credible people in government.
Individuals taking up positions in government should be people
with integrity and not people who fought for power through the
use of weapons."

An official of the Association of Female Lawyers of Liberia
stressed the need to address the issue of human rights violations
if a just peace is to be achieved in Liberia. "Thorough
application of the peace agreement is needed. The appointment of
people of doubtful credibility tarnishes the process and evidence
against those people cannot be provided," she remarked. She
expressed concern that "some government members are looking for
impunity rather than jobs. There is need for the creation of a
war crime tribunal, there is need for healing. Let people choose
how to treat those who tortured them," she said, and concluded
with a call to the international community to support the women's
voice. 

The three women were among representatives who met with members
of an inter-faith delegation that was in the country October
20-24 to express solidarity with the Liberian people. The visit
was in the context of the Inter-Faith Action for Peace in Africa
initiative, a process jointly initiated by over 100 religious
representatives at the October 2002 Inter-Faith Peace Summit in
Johannesburg, South Africa. The Inter-Religious Council of
Liberia (IRCL) hosted the six-member delegation headed by the
Lutheran World Federation (LWF) General Secretary Rev. Dr Ishmael
Noko. The group held discussions with the chairperson of the
National Transitional Government of Liberia (NTGL) Mr Gyude
Bryant, representatives of different sectors of civil society
including political parties, women and youth groups, Economic
Community of West African States (ECOWAS) officials, heads of
United Nations' agencies and the United States ambassador.

Speaking to Lutheran World Information (LWI) after the Liberia
visit, Noko commended the IRCL for its leading role in "keeping
dialogue alive in extremely volatile conditions." During the
different stages of the peace negotiation process, the IRCL held
consultative meetings with all sectors of civil society including
political parties, women and youth groups, aimed at galvanizing
views and opinions on the way forward for Liberia. Similar
meetings were held with then President Taylor and re
bel group
leaders urging them to create the necessary environment for
constructive dialogue and an end to the fighting. These
consultations also included the ECOWAS parliament and
secretariat.

Liberians Determined to Work toward Just Peace, Call for
International Community's Support

The Liberian visit was a major step in the implementation of the
"Johannesburg Plan of Action" adopted by religious leaders at the
2002 summit. Delegation member Rev. Dr David Kpobi, Council of
Churches of Ghana, described the visit "as an eye opener to the
negative effects of war, and also to the potential for peace by a
people determined to act together for the sake of a common
future." 

Noko reflected on the group's discussions with the NTGL
chairperson. "Mr Bryant said he has to deal with basic issues
such as payment of civil servants' salaries, establishment of a
police force and infrastructure. "But from what I learnt and saw
during this visit, I'm convinced that Liberians, with support
from the international community, are determined to work toward a
just peace as outlined in the recent peace agreement." The
Comprehensive Peace Agreement in Liberia was signed on August 18
in Accra, Ghana, between the government, rebel groups Liberians
United for Reconciliation and Democracy (LURD) and Movement for
Democracy in Liberia (MODEL), and 18 political parties, under the
aegis of ECOWAS. The IRCL officially witnessed the signing, in
which all armed parties agreed on the need to effectively cease
fire and jointly work to restore stability. 

The LWF general secretary hopes for new impetus to the
"resilience and spirituality of the Liberian women and IRCL, both
of whom have greatly contributed to the new day in Liberia."
Shortly after the inter-faith delegation visit, the IRCL
facilitated dialogue between the NTGL chairperson and LURD's
Sekou Conneh, after the latter announced publicly that his group
would pull out of the peace process and return to the bush. The
LURD leader recently returned from exile in Guinea, and was
complaining that his nominees were being prevented from taking up
government offices. 

The current peace agreement aims at resolving a civil war that
began in late 1989 when President Samuel Doe was executed by
dissidents from Taylor's National Patriotic Front. Fighting
ensued between the rebel splinter groups, national army and West
African peace-keeping forces. A 1995 peace agreement was followed
by the 1997 election of Taylor as president, but fighting
persisted. In August 2003, Taylor-- under international pressure
to quit, and ahead of the rebels' advance on Monrovia-- stepped
down and went into exile in Nigeria. Bryant was sworn into office
in October, and will lead the country until a new president is
elected in democratic elections scheduled for 2005. Over 200,000
people have died in the civil war that displaced more than one
million people. 

Inter-Faith Action for Peace Secretariat Now Established

The IRCL is among several inter-religious networks in Africa that
affirmed the action plan of the Johannesburg summit. A
secretariat for the work of Inter-Faith Action for Peace in
Africa has since been established and is currently based in the
LWF Geneva headquarters. The office coordinator Sheikh Saliou
Mbacki from Senegal's Murid Community described the visit to
Liberia as "very fruitful." In the context of an inter-faith
network, "we have explored the situation in Liberia and
transmitted our vision of a new Liberia to all those involved in
the country's reconstruction process," he told LWI. 

"Peace is a Basic Element of all Religions;" Dogmatic Differences
Should not Fuel Conflict

Other concrete follow-up actions aimed at inter-religious peace
building in Africa include exchange visits between organized
groups of people affected by conflict including former child
soldiers, women, land mine survivors and refugees. Mbacki sees
the main focus of the secretariat's work as facilitating
inter-religious encounters to move from mere dialogue--which is
also important in itself-- to joint action for peace. "We have
different approaches to dogma. But this should not be used to
project negative and enemy images about each other," he asserted.
"Peace is a basic element of all religions, and this is what we
should build on to realize our common objective --a non-violent
approach to conflict resolution in Africa," he added.

The Second Inter-Faith Peace Summit in Africa will take place in
October 2004 in Cairo, Egypt. Sub-regional conferences began with
one for Southern Africa in October this year. Similar meetings
for the Eastern/Central and Western regions will take place next
year prior to the Cairo summit. Mbacki explained that religious
networks in Nigeria, Africa's most populous country with over 100
million people, and with numerous religious communities, will
first hold an internal consultation in December, prior to the
sub-regional conference. Another inter-faith delegation will
visit the Democratic Republic of Congo and Rwanda in January 2004
co-hosted by inter-religious networks in both countries. Other
plans include a series of exchange visits between inter-faith
networks from June to October 2004.

Noko summed up expectations for this inter-religious peace
initiative. "The plan is to go beyond Africa. We began there
because of the level and impact of conflict on entire
populations. There are internal wars that affect not only
individual countries but tend to spill over to the respective
sub-regions." He recognized other complementary forms of
inter-religious work in Asia, Europe, Latin America and North
America in which the LWF and its partners are involved. (1,465
words) 

(LWI correspondent Prince Collins contributed to this article.)

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the
Lutheran tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now
has 136 member churches in 76 countries representing over 61.7
million of the 65.4 million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on
behalf of its member churches in areas of common interest such as
ecumenical and inter-faith relations, theology, humanitarian
assistance, human rights, communication, and the various aspects
of mission and development work. Its secretariat is located in
Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is LWF's information service.
Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent
positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where
the dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the
material may be freely reproduced with acknowledgment.]

(A contribution to the "LWI Healing Features" series.)

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