ELCA Policy
Our social statement “For
Peace in God’s World,” states that:
“ we oppose genocide and other
grievous violations of human rights such as torture,
religious and racial oppression, forced conscription,
forced labor, and war crimes.” (14) and we… “denounce
beliefs and actions that ordain the inherent right of one
people, race, or civilization to rule over others.” (5)
“We believe that God works
through human culture, economics, and politics, and
intends them to restrain evil and promote the common
good.” (7) and we “recognize the awesome responsibility
political leaders, policy makers, and diplomats have for
peace in our unsettled time. In a democracy all citizens
share in this responsibility.” (9)
“earthly peace is built on the
recognition of the unity and goodness of created
existence, the oneness of humanity, and the dignity of
every person.” (7)
“Faith in the crucified and
risen Lord strengthens us to persist even when God seems
absent in a violent and unjust world, and when weariness
and hopelessness threaten to overwhelm us.” (6)
(As adopted by more than a two-thirds majority vote
(803-30) as a social statement of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America by the fourth Churchwide Assembly on
August 20, 1995, at Minneapolis, Minnesota.)
Background
Since 2003, government-backed militias, known as the
Janjaweed, have been systematically committing mass
atrocities in Darfur, the western region of Sudan.
Estimates of innocent civilians killed range from 200,000
to more than 450,000. Recently, the U.S. State Department
confirmed that at least 1,500 villages have been
destroyed, leaving more than 2.5 million Darfurians
displaced, with an additional 2 million dependent
exclusively on humanitarian aid for survival. Nearly four
years after the conflict started, hundreds of Darfurians
continue to die each day due to violence, malnutrition and
disease.
Despite significant international outcry and the signing
of various cease-fires and peace agreements, the Government
of Sudan has consistently demonstrated a commitment to
propagating continued violence and suffering in Darfur.
Furthermore, what began as an uprising by two distinct rebel
groups in Darfur has splintered into at least 14 factions
with disparate objectives. Death and destruction in Darfur
will not end without a sustainable political agreement that
is negotiated between warring parties.
Additionally, both the government of Sudan and rebel
groups have proved disruptive to humanitarian relief
operations in Darfur. Since July 2006, there have been an
alarming number of attacks targeting aid workers, with
restrictions on visas and travel permits for U.N. staff,
journalists and other aid workers becoming more frequent.
As violence in Darfur continues to escalate and spill
over into neighboring countries like Chad and the Central
African Republic, it is clear that increased pressure – from
the United Nations, multilateral Government coalitions and
global citizen activists – is necessary in order to persuade
the Sudanese Government and rebel factions to end the
terrifying violence in Darfur.
Further background
Sudan has been plagued by internal conflict for nearly 40
years. A variety of complex factors, including race,
ethnicity, religion and economic disparities have fueled a
21 year conflict between the politically dominant
Muslims/Arabs in the north and the more impoverished
Christians/animists in the south. On January 9, 2005, the
government of Sudan and the Sudan People’s Liberation
Movement signed a peace agreement to end the civil war and
begin a six-year interim period.
This significant step toward peace between northern and
southern forces in Sudan continues to be overshadowed by the
ongoing humanitarian crisis in the western region of Sudan.
Tensions between African-Muslim ethnic groups and nomadic
Arab ethnic groups in the Darfur region date back to the
1930s. For decades, Sudan’s central governments in Khartoum
have showed little interest in resolving these ethnic
tensions or preventing Arab militias from attacking
non-Arabs in Darfur.
Since the 1980s, a variety of non-Arab groups from the
Darfur region have unsuccessfully attempted to overthrow the
central government in Sudan. When Sudan’s current
government, the National Congress Party (NCP) came to power
in the early 1990s, they began arming Arab militias to
disarm African ethnic groups in Darfur. In February 2003,
two rebel groups, the Sudan Liberation Army (SLA) and the
Justice and Equality Movement (JEM), rose in opposition to
the NCP. NCP’s support of Arab militias, including the
Janjaweed, has steadily increased since that time.
With more than half of 7 million Darfurians either
internally displaced or exclusively dependent on external
aid, coupled with the rising number of deaths due to
violence, the United Nations (UN) and U.S. officials
consider the humanitarian situation in the Darfur region to
be one of the worst in the world.
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