wfn.org | WCC NEWS: Germany European champion in arms sales: WCC team asks questions

["WCC Media" <Media@wcc-coe.org>]

World Council of Churches - News Release

Contact: +41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507 6363 media@wcc-coe.org

>For immediate release - 04/07/2008 11:03:05

WCC TEAM CHALLENGES GERMANY, "THE EUROPEAN CHAMPION IN ARMS
SALES", WITH QUESTIONS ABOUT THE PURPOSE OF WAR

On a visit to the German Federal Defence Ministry in Berlin on
Tuesday evening, members of a delegation of the World Council of
Churches (WCC) asked questions about German arms sales and about
whether wars, such as the Iraq war, can ever solve problems. 

The WCC delegation was received by Christian Schmidt,
parliamentary state secretary. Germany is one of the countries to
which the WCC, which comprises 349 churches worldwide, is sending
Living Letters ( http://overcomingviolence.org/?id=5725 )teams,
to learn about experiences of non-violence. The visit to the
Defence Ministry in Berlin also formed part of their programme. 

"Does Germany have to be the EU arms sales champion?" asked
Archbishop Bernard Ntahoturi, of the Province of the Anglican
Church of Burundi and leader of the WCC team, referring to the
ever increasing arms sales worldwide. 

Ntahoturi referred to the genocide in his own country, and
conflicts in Sudan, Zimbabwe, Somalia and the Congo. These civil
wars were waged with weapons from outside Africa. A mere fraction
of the money spent on them could, he claimed, help Africa to
combat diseases such as malaria or the extensive poverty
affecting many sections of the population. 

State Secretary Schmidt explained that the high level of arms
sales was a result of expensive weapons manufactured in Germany,
such as submarines, warships and aircraft. By far the highest
proportion of arms sold goes to NATO allies, he added. The German
law on armaments control expressly forbids the delivery of arms
to areas of conflict. That applied also to onward sales. "Our
contracts include a clause on final use." In addition, Germany
had, he said, agreed to the international ban on cluster bombs. 

Konrad Raiser, WCC general secretary until the end of 2003,
indicated that in Africa it is actually small arms that are the
problem. These weapons, from pistols to Kalashnikovs, were
smuggled in large quantities into African countries, he stated,
and were responsible for the deaths of hundreds of thousands of
people. The state secretary also recognized the problem, stating
that he was in favour of considerably stricter controls.

Georges Lemopoulos, WCC deputy general secretary, referring to
the Iraq war, asked whether the situation of people in Iraq had
on the whole not become worse. A member of the Ecumenical
Patriarchate of Constantinople [Turkey], he pointed to the dire
conditions in refugee camps in Syria. 

Lemopoulos stated that the exodus of Christians from Middle East
countries, and not only from Iraq, is a consequence of that war.
Schmidt responded that the Federal Minister of the Interior
Wolfgang Schäuble was willing to admit refugees from Iraq into
Germany, although that was not a solution to the problem. 

For Schmidt, the main problem for Germany in the Middle East was
not Iraq. When Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad declared his
intention to wipe Israel off the map, it was not possible for
Germany to remain silent, he said. "Israel's right to existence
is a cornerstone of German policy," he added. That policy also
involved encouraging negotiations between potential opponents,
and playing a mediating role. 

Thomas Yonker, of the Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in
the US, the youngest member of the WCC delegation, expressed
regret that wars started from his own country, and hoped that
this would soon change. Schmidt reminded him that good things had
also come out of the US, such as the planes which sixty years
earlier had been part of the Berlin airlift that broke the Soviet
Union's blockade of the city.

Schmidt clearly dissociated himself from the conditions in the
US Guantanamo camp in Cuba. By using torture America had crossed
a threshold, over which Germany would not go, he said. He
mentioned that Frankfurt's police commissioner, who had
threatened the abductor of a young boy with torture, had been
dismissed. The European Court for Human Rights had in a judgement
the previous day expressly confirmed the ban on torture. 

Prior to the Berlin visit, the delegation visited the Council of
the Evangelical Church in Germany (
http://www.ekd.de/english/2169.html )(EKD) in Hannover. Their
programme continued with a visit to Dresden on Thursday and
Friday, where they discussed racism with schoolchildren. 

Further information on the Decade to Overcome Violence
http://www.overcomingviolence.org 

Living Letters team visit to Germany:

http://overcomingviolence.org/en/iepc/living-letters-visits/germany.html

Travel blog by two members of the WCC's Living Letters team: 
http://overcomingviolence.org/?id=5997

>WCC member churches in Germany:
>http://www.oikoumene.org/?id=4709 

Additional information:Juan Michel,+41 22 791 6153 +41 79 507
6363media@wcc-coe.org

The World Council of Churches promotes Christian unity in faith,
witness and service for a just and peaceful world. An ecumenical
fellowship of churches founded in 1948, today the WCC brings
together 349 Protestant, Orthodox, Anglican and other churches
representing more than 560 million Christians in over 110
countries, and works cooperatively with the Roman Catholic
Church. The WCC general secretary is Rev. Dr Samuel Kobia, from
the Methodist Church in Kenya. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.