wfn.org | WCC NEWS: At nuclear treaty summit, churches find positive signs

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>World Council of Churches - News

UP CLOSE AT NUCLEAR TREATY SUMMIT, CHURCHES FIND POSITIVE SIGNS

>For immediate release: 04 May 2010

The president of Iran and the US secretary of state made early headlines
at the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) conference in New  York with
a volley of accusations over nuclear development and nuclear weapons.

However, for the members of a World Council of Churches (WCC) delegation
pursuing peace and human security goals at the conference the event,  which
opened Monday in New York, started with a more constructive air.

The US secretary of state, Hilary Clinton, for example, promised  that the
US would reveal how many nuclear weapons it has. That information  will
finally answer a call heard since the days of the Cold War from  many
quarters, including the WCC.

Clinton also said the US would provide legal assurances against  nuclear
attack to members of a new treaty that protects Africa. WCC member
churches also helped put the new treaty protecting Africa in place
recently. The US made the same promise to the countries of the South
Pacific.

The South Pacific Nuclear-Weapon-Free Zone is another achievement  churches
helped which had not been fully recognized by the nuclear powers.  The
actions meet requests the WCC representatives would have made when  they
meet with the US delegation in New York. With the addition of Africa  in
2009, such zones now cover all of the Southern Hemisphere and virtually
all of the Global South.

Members of the WCC delegation are the Rev. Dr Michael Kinnamon,  general
secretary of the National Council of Churches of Christ in the USA,  the
Rev. Dr Gunnar Stalsett, moderator of Religions for Peace and former
archbishop of Oslo, and Dr Ninan Koshy, a current events commentator  and
international affairs analyst.

Another positive sign is that after years of work – mostly  by civil
society groups including churches – a majority of the governments
represented in New York are now in favour of starting work on a  nuclear
weapons convention.

While the NPT was designed to stop the spread of nuclear weapons  and
someday reverse it, the proposed convention would ban them completely.  The
first country to address the NPT conference, Indonesia speaking  on behalf
of the non-aligned movement, took up the call. Churches on five  continents
have joined WCC and a wider civil society effort to promote a nuclear
weapons convention at the NPT conference.

Hundreds of survivors of the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki  are
also in New York, part of 2,000 Japanese Buddhists and Christians  who have
come determined to put the human face on nuclear danger through
demonstrations and workshops.

An atomic relic has come with them, the head of a statue of Mary  the mother
of Jesus, found in the rubble of Nagasaki’s Roman Catholic  cathedral
after the US attack.  Her scorched cheek and empty eyes looked out  on an
overflow crowd at New York’s St. Patrick’s Cathedral  during mass on
Sunday, 2 April, and then on an inter-faith service at the church  center
where the WCC has its UN office.

The archbishop of Nagasaki brought the relic to the NPT conference.  It
rarely leaves Japan. “Along with the now elderly A-bomb  survivors, this
Mary helps bring the suffering of the Japanese people to governments  and
people here,” a WCC representative told the Japanese broadcaster  NHK.

Nearly every government at the conference and at two days of preparatory
meetings on nuclear-weapon-free zones has stressed the urgent need  for a
nuclear-weapon-free zone in the Middle East.

The issue, a long-standing NPT commitment, is also addressed in  ecumenical
policy and current work.  A panel on lessons learned from existing  zones
included a report of WCC experience in Africa and its relevance  to
situation in the Middle East.  Many participants think that, if
unresolved, frustration over the lack of progress on the Middle  East zone
is enough to sink this NPT conference.

The UN secretary general Ban Ki-moon came to New York’s  historic
Riverside Church for a large civil society conference leading up  to the
NPT conference, 1 April. “You who have pledged to keep your  ground free
of nuclear weapons,” he said, “you are leading by  example. Our goal,
my goal, is to make the whole world a nuclear-weapon-free zone.”

Nearly 200 governments, 121 NGOs and thousands of demonstrators  are in New
York for the conference which began Monday, 3 May and ends 28 May.

WCC project: Churches engaged for nuclear arms control (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=c53b5655e30ac9a0e332 )

WCC Central Committee, September 2009: Statement of hope in a year  of
opportunity: seeking a nuclear-weapon-free world (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=c7ff677f2d0f54521736 )

NCCCUSA release, 2 May 2010: Nuclear weapons "must be removed from  the face
of the earth" (Link:
http://www.oikoumene.org/index.php?RDCT=ba450939f22408c937a4 )

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 Olav Fykse  Tveit, from 
the [Lutheran] Church of Norway. Headquarters: Geneva, Switzerland.