wfn.org | WCC NEWS: International ecumenical team to visit Colombia

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World Council of Churches - News Release

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

>For immediate release - 04/12/2008 10:19:19

INTERNATIONAL ECUMENICAL TEAM TO VISIT COLOMBIA

A team of church representatives from around the world will pay
a solidarity visit to churches, ecumenical organizations and
civil society movements in Colombia from 6 to 12 December. One of
the most violent countries in the world, Colombia has been in
midst of a conflict between the army, two groups of left-wing
rebels and right-wing paramilitaries since the 1960s.
Drug-related crime adds to a situation that the United Nations
has described as one of the world's worst humanitarian crises.
During the decades-long conflict tens of thousands of Colombians
have been killed while some three million have been forced from
their homes. 

Visiting the country as "Living Letters (

http://overcomingviolence.org/?id=5725 )" on behalf of the
World Council of Churches (WCC) the international team will be
hosted by the Ecumenical Network of Colombia. 

Living Letters are small ecumenical teams visiting a country to
listen, learn, share approaches and help to confront challenges
in order to overcome violence, promote and pray for peace. 

The Living Letters team will visit locations in the western and
north-western regions of the country, where they will meet
communities in the so-called "humanitarian zones". These are
clearly demarcated areas inhabited by civilian population where
armed forces of any kind are not supposed to enter. Their goal is
to protect civilians from suffering human rights violations. 

In the city of Barranquilla the team will meet representatives
of organizations of displaced people and of the Presbyterian
Church of Colombia. In the capital city Bogotá they will meet
civil society organizations, UN officials and representatives of
communities of African descent as well as of indigenous peoples.

>The members of the ecumenical delegation are:

· Bishop (emeritus) Aldo Etchegoyen, Evangelical Methodist
Church, Argentina
· Bishop Solito K. Toquero, United Methodist Church,
Philippines
· Mr MarlonZakeyo, Zimbabwe Advocacy Office in Geneva,
Switzerland
· Rev. Jorge Ziljstra, Latin American Council of Churches,
regional secretary for the Caribbean and Great Colombia, Puerto
Rico

>WCC staff:

· Rev. Christopher Ferguson, WCC Representative to the United
Nations 

The international ecumenical solidarity visit to Colombia is
part of the WCC Living Letters initiative. Until 2010, several
Living Letters visits take place each year throughout the world
in the context of the WCC's Decade to Overcome Violence (
http://overcomingviolence.org )in order to prepare for the
International Ecumenical Peace Convocation (
http://overcomingviolence.org/iepc )to be held in Jamaica in
2011. 

Ecumenical Network of Colombia (Red Ecuménica de Colombia):
http://www.redecumenica.org

WCC member churches in Colombia

http://www.oikoumene.org/en/member-churches/regions/latin-america/colombia.html

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.