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Date: June 24, 2005
Contact: Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
V: 847/742-5100 F:  847/742-6103
E-MAIL: _CoBNews@AOL.Com_ (mailto:CoBNews@AOL.Com) 
 

CHURCH OF THE BRETHREN NEWSLINE
June 24, 2005
 
Sudan trip raises questions, brings unexpected hope
 
June 24, 2005 (Elgin, IL) -- Two Church of the Brethren leaders were part  of

a small interfaith delegation to Sudan June 6-15. Jim Hardenbrook, moderator 

of the Church of the Brethren Annual Conference, and Phil Jones, director of 
the  Brethren Witness/Washington Office of the Church of the Brethren General

Board,	met with Sudan's President El-Bashir and many other officials and 
organizations  during the trip. The group spent time in the capital city of 
Khartoum and in  North Darfur State, and visited a refugee camp in Darfur.
 
The trip was made to support the peace process between the northern  
government and rebels in the south of Sudan--the Comprehensive Peace
Agreement  
scheduled to take effect July 9--and to offer support and encouragement to
the  
people of Darfur. Atrocities such as killings, rapes, the burning of homes
and  
villages, and the destruction of crops in Darfur, are blamed on militias  
supported by the government and in some cases are blamed on rebels, according
 the 
"Christian Science Monitor" in a recent report. The Monitor said that as of  
June 10 at least 180,000 people have died in the violence in Darfur, and
nearly	
two million are homeless.
 
The delegation was sponsored by the National Black Leadership Roundtable  and

the Muslim American Society Freedom Foundation. Hardenbrook and Jones were  
Christian representatives on the delegation, which also included Muslim and  
Jewish members and was led by Roundtable president the Hon. Walter E. 
Fauntroy.
 
In addition to the president, the delegation met with officials of the	
government in Khartoum and state officials in Darfur; nongovernmental  
organizations based in Khartoum; officials of the African Union, an
organization  of 
African nations with "peacekeeping" troops in Darfur; officials of the United
 
Nations, which is responsible for several refugee camps in Darfur and is  
enforcing the north-south peace agreement; representatives of the Sudanese 
People's 
Liberation Movement (SPLM) from southern Sudan; and representatives of 
groups 
in Darfur considered outside the government. In most official meetings	the 
group was accompanied by two representatives of the Sudan government. "It 
would 
be fair to characterize the trip as flavored by the government of Sudan  
perspective," said Hardenbrook.
 
The visit to the El Fashir refugee camp in Darfur was "a very short and in  
some ways very unsatisfactory visit," Hardenbrook said. Some 70,000 people
live 
 in the camp. "This might be the government's show camp," Hardenbrook said,  
although the group visited the camp without government accompaniment.  
Hardenbrook said there was a sense of peace and security and the delegation
saw  that 
wells, schools, and food were available but there was no electricity.
 
"It was exciting to greet a friend from the New Sudan Council of Churches  in

our meeting with the SPLM," said Jones. Awut Deng Acuil, who spoke at the  
Church of the Brethren Annual Conference in 2001, is now a member of the SPLM
 
leadership team with special focus on women and children. "She reminded me of
 
the close and important ties that the Church of the Brethren has with the 
south  of Sudan," Jones said. "It seems most critical that the Church of the 
Brethren  continue this strong relationship and give special focus and
direction in 
 support for the rebuilding of this great but war-torn nation."
 
The trip was preceded by a briefing with Charles Snyder, US State  Department

undersecretary of state for Sudan. "One of the things that Snyder  said that 
was reiterated by others is that we're looking at spiritual and moral 
issues, 
not at political and humanitarian issues" in Sudan, Hardenbrook said.  
"Sharing wealth and power is a moral and spiritual issue." The comment	was
confirmed by a member of the SPLM, who told the delegation that in the	peace

agreement, "all we have is ink on the paper." 
 
As an interfaith group, "we could speak to those moral and spiritual  
issues," Hardenbrook said. Because of its interfaith make up, "this may be
the  most 
important delegation from the US ever sent to Sudan," Snyder told the  group.
 
"I'd love to go back in a month with my list of questions," Hardenbrook  
said, "and to be more forceful in saying God's not happy with how his
children  
are being treated" in Darfur. The trip raised more questions than it brought 

answers for Hardenbrook, who said he also has been disconcerted by the fact
that 
 he came away hopeful.
 
The sense of hope came despite finding that the situation in Darfur "is  
awful, it really is," Hardenbrook said. "It is bad, people are dying.... But
it  
might not be genocide. Underline the word `might,'" he added. "The UN is not 

using that term." The delegation's conversations led him to a new
understanding 
 of the roots of the conflict, in longterm ethnic and lifestyle tensions  in
the region.
 
"Having made this important trip I am less comfortable using these terms  
today," said Jones referring to "genocide" and "racism." He has heard these  
terms used to characterize the violence in Darfur in numerous visits to the
US  
State Department and congressional offices over two years of advocacy for US 

policies ensuring the end of the violence, he said. "Clearly the Sudan	
government has been heavily involved in the violence of war these past many 
months in 
the west, and many years in the south. Just as clear, though, is that  
movement has been made in recent months to pull back from this. International
 
awareness and pressure have been key in this transition."
 
The peace agreement with the south "has also moved the current government  to

a different place," Jones said. "President El-Bashir indicated the wear that 

war bears on a nation and its people in his comment that, `Peace with 
secession  is better than unity with war.'" Jones said that the peace
agreement gives 
the  south the right of secession at the end of six years, if so determined 
by the	people of the south. "Part of our reason for going on this trip was
to 
clearly  speak to those involved on both sides of the violence that a window 
of  opportunity is here. Do not let it pass," Jones said.
 
Whether the violence in Darfur is genocide is among many open questions,  
Hardenbrook said. "I think the first thing that I would like to do is repent
of  
my willingness to believe the absolute worst of Sudan," he said, citing many 

ways in which the situation is very complicated. Policies of the government  
"have been the cause of the conflicts in the west and the south," he said,
but  
the delegation learned that many southerners move to Khartoum because "it's  
better to live in a refugee camp near Khartoum than to live in the south in 
the  conditions created" by the government and rebels. The group also heard
that 
life  in refugee camps in Darfur is better than ordinary life for many people

in  Darfur who are not directly affected by the violence.
 
Another open question for Hardenbrook is whether a western style of justice  
is appropriate for Sudan, "because there is an African style of justice." The
 
International Criminal Court, which this month launched an investigation into

 possible war crimes in Darfur, "may not be the answer here," he said. The  
delegation met with a group of four chiefs from Darfur who have been brought 

together through a Sudanese process of reconciliation. "I don't understand
(the 
 process) very well," Hardenbrook said, but it "could be very effective," he 

added.
 
The meeting with President El-Bashir was a surprise for Jones, who last  fall

was arrested in front of the Sudan embassy in Washington, D.C., during a  
rally calling attention to the violence in Darfur. "I never envisioned that I
 
would be given complete access to the president of Sudan in his Khartoum  
office," Jones said. "The message was the same there as here, the Church of
the  
Brethren holds dear the sacred life of all people and implores nations and
their  
leaders to seek peaceful means to the many things that divide us. The 
injustices  of violence that lead to death and destruction must end."
 
The delegation made a practice of asking to pray together at the end of  each

meeting, Hardenbrook said. President El-Bashir accepted the group's offer  
and they joined hands as Fauntroy prayed. "That was very powerful,"
Hardenbrook  
said.
 
The delegation plans to hold a press conference at 1:30 p.m. eastern time  on

Monday, June 27, at the National Press Club in Washington, D.C. The press  
conference may be televised nationally by C-SPAN. A full report of the	
delegation's trip is available; e-mail Phil Jones at _pjones_gb@brethren.org_

(mailto:pjones_gb@brethren.org)  or call the  Brethren Witness/Washington
Office at 
800-785-3246.
 
The Church of the Brethren is a Christian denomination committed to  
continuing the work of Jesus peacefully and simply, and to living out its
faith  in 
community. The denomination is based in the Anabaptist and Pietist faith  
traditions and is one of the three Historic Peace Churches. It celebrates its
 300th 
anniversary in 2008. It counts about 130,000 members across the United	
States and Puerto Rico, and has missions and sister churches in Brazil, the  
Dominican Republic, Haiti, and Nigeria.
 
# # #
 
For more information contact:
 
Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford
Director of News Services
Church of the  Brethren General Board
1451 Dundee Ave.
Elgin, IL 60120
847-742-5100  ext. 260
_cbrumbaugh-cayford_gb@brethren.org_ 
(mailto:cbrumbaugh-cayford_gb@brethren.org) 
 
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The  Church of the Brethren Newsline is produced by Cheryl Brumbaugh-Cayford,

 director of news services for the Church of the Brethren General Board. 
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