wfn.org | Durban Review Conference declaration “a moral compass” says Namibia’s prime minister

["Franziska Surber" <Franziska.Surber@warc.ch>]

>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>News Release
>23 April 2009

DurbanReview Conference declaration “a moral compass” says
Namibia’s prime minister

The prime minister of Namibia is calling the final declaration
of the Durban Review Conference a moral compass that should
inspire global citizens by its moral authority.  

“I am satisfied with the deliberations of the review process and
with the final declaration”, Prime Minister Nahas Angula told
members of the ecumenical press corps in Geneva on Wednesday.  

Angula was accompanied by Namibia’s ambassador to the United
Nations in New York, Kaire Mbuende.

In comments made during a briefing at the Ecumenical Centre,
Prime Minister Nahas Angula said churches should be in the
forefront of efforts to combat racism as they were in the
struggle against apartheid in South Africa. 

The Durban Review conference convened by the United Nations in
Geneva (20-24 April) is reviewing progress towards the goals set
in 2001 at the World Conference against racism, racial
discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance held in
Durban, South Africa. 

Participants at the 2001 conference issued a programme of action
which includes calls for tougher anti-discrimination legislation,
better education, improved support for victims of racism, greater
multi-culturalism and respect for the rule of law and human
rights.

Nahula noted that the process of the Durban Review serves to
remind Namibians that even though Namibia was born from the
struggle against racism and colonialism, “unresolved racial
problems” persist in the country. 

In a statement issued Wednesday, the general secretary of the
World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC), Setri Nyomi, welcomes
the Durban Review process and writes, “We hope that this process
will stimulate the improved educational programmes and enforced
anti-racism legislation that can bring lasting changes in
behaviour.”

WARC has a long-standing commitment to justice for all,
regardless of race, creed or gender.  In 1982 WARC declared
apartheid a sin and its theological justification heresy.  WARC
also welcomed the Belhar Confession developed within the Reformed
family in South Africa as a gift for the ecumenical movement.  

In 2007, WARC delegates to an ecumenical conference in Jamaica
on the British transatlantic slave trade signed a joint
declaration which said that human trafficking, child labour,
child soldiers, enslaved labour in the Amazon and elsewhere, are
modern forms of slavery that need to be addressedby churches
today.

“WARC continues to say clearly and loudly that the churches must
repent of past involvement in racism and intolerance and commit
to processes which will lead to the elimination of all forms of
intolerance in the modern world,” says Nyomi.

>***

The World Alliance of Reformed Churches (WARC) brings together
75 million Reformed Christians in 213 churches in 107 countries -
united in their commitment to making a difference in a troubled
world. The WARC general secretary is Rev. Dr. Setri Nyomi of the
Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana. WARC's secretariat is
based in Geneva, Switzerland.

>Contact:

>Kristine Greenaway 
>Executive Secretary, Communications
>World Alliance of Reformed Churches
>150 Route de Ferney
>P.O. Box 2100
>1211 Geneva 2, Switzerland
>tel.  +41.22 791 6243
>fax: +41.22 791 6505

>web: www.warc.ch ( http://www.warc.ch/ ) 
>e-mail: kgr@warc.ch