September 7, 2004

GENEVA - The Council of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF) meeting near Geneva, September 1-7, has condemned attacks by militia against communities in the Darfur region of Sudan and expressed dismay at the refusal by the government of Sudan to accept an adequate force of international peacekeepers in the region.

As a mark of solidarity with the victims of the violence and with its ecumenical partners, the 2004 Council also endorsed the call by the Catholic bishops of Sudan for help from the international community to prevent the terror, rape, torture, murder and slavery and annihilation of an entire ethnic group in Darfur. The LWF governing body also urged the government of Sudan to enable the delivery of humanitarian assistance to the people of the region, and for all parties to the conflict to negotiate a just and peaceful settlement.

The Council expressed deep concern about the unfolding humanitarian crisis in the region and affirmed the importance of LWF support for the delivery of humanitarian assistance through Action by Churches Together (ACT) International, the global network of churches and their related agencies responding to emergencies worldwide. The LWF is a founding member of the Geneva-based ACT.

These actions formed part of a resolution adopted by the Council upon a recommendation of its Program Committee on International Affairs and Human Rights. Presenting the recommendation to the Council, Program Committee Chairperson Ms Diadem Depayso, Lutheran Church in the Philippines, reminded members of the 2002 Council resolution on the protection of civilians in times of war. The adoption of the statement follows a spate of events around the world in which civilians have been deliberately targeted by armed groups pursuing a political cause.

In response to the massacre of over 300 hostages at a school in Beslan, Russia, the Council said it was horrified by the news of the bloodshed. The Council described the incident as an atrocity [that] evokes a particularly strong sense of revulsion, because the armed insurgents who planned it and carried it out deliberately targeted children. No cause can justify such inhumanity.

Also named in the Council action were the violent attacks in recent days on civilians in Israel, Palestine, Iraq and Moscow. The people most directly affected by the escalating violence in the world today were non-combatants whose only crime was to be associated in the minds of their attackers with a perceived enemy or to be seen as representative of the other, the statement said. The Council said that attacks on civilians are in violation of the fundamental religious and ethical principle that human life and dignity is to be valued and respected. The LWF condemns all such atrocities regardless of the claimed justification.

The Council called on the global LWF communion to pray for an end to the violence in the world and in human hearts, for the transformation of those whose hearts have been hardened by violence, and the liberation of those trapped in its vicious cycle.

There are around 100 church representatives including the 49-member Council attending this years meeting at Chavannes-de-Bogis near Geneva. In addition there are 70 participants consisting of invited guests, LWF staff persons, interpreters, stewards and journalists. The Council is the LWFs governing body between Assemblies, normally held every six years. The current Council was elected at the July 2003 Tenth Assembly in Winnipeg, Canada, where it held its first meeting. The Council comprises the President, the Treasurer and ordained as well as lay persons drawn from the LWF member churches. The LWF currently has 136 member churches in 76 countries all over the world, representing 62.3 million of the estimated 66 million Lutherans worldwide.

Lutheran World Information