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The Lutheran World Federation
Lutheran World Information |
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| 26.05.2004 |
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| ELCA Presiding Bishop Meets with Kofi Annan on UN Role in Iraq |
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Secretary-General Encouraged Religious Leaders Work toward Sustained Global Peace
CHICAGO, United States of America/GENEVA, 26 May 2004 (LWI/ELCA NEWS) - The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America (ELCA) and president of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), was among church leaders who met with United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan, May 24 about the UN role in Iraqi’s transition from military to civilian leadership.
The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) hosted the 40-minute meeting between Annan and the delegation of 11 religious leaders from Europe and North America. NCC General Secretary, Rev. Bob Edgar carried letters to the meeting from church leaders in Africa and the Middle East.
In a conference call with reporters after the meeting Hanson said, “One of the key messages we conveyed was our support for the secretary-general’s leadership and the critical moment for his exercising strong leadership in the world today. We expressed our confidence in his leadership.”
As a US church leader, Hanson said he asked Annan to help the United States “move beyond a preoccupation with our national self-interest to even laying down some of that self-interest for the sake of sustaining peace in Iraq. It is clear that the United Nations is the crucial link between moving from occupation by US forces to a sustained self-governance by the Iraqi people.”
On May 24 Annan held initial informal talks with UN Security Council members to get their impressions of a proposed US-British resolution outlining a post-occupation Iraqi government.
“We never knew, when we set up this meeting, that we would be at the United Nations on such a critical day,” Hanson said. “We hope and sincerely pray that the United States will be committed to that critical role of the United Nations in this time of transition.”
Hanson said Annan recognized and encouraged religious leaders working toward sustained peace in the world. “We talked clearly that sustained peace is not just the cessation of violence or the removal of US forces, but it is the presence of the end of human suffering, the end of poverty and the complex set of human factors that have been a result of this tragic war,” he said.
On the evening of May 24, President George W. Bush addressed the United States on issues related to the transfer of power on June 30 in Iraq, and the shared goal of the international community to see a democratic government in Baghdad.
Speaking before that address, Hanson said he hoped Bush would acknowledge “that the future of Iraq rests now with the United States’ willingness to be a full partner with the United Nations and the people of Iraq.”
“Can the United States give up economic, military and political control of Iraq enough on June 30 to allow for the transition, which will be complex and slow to occur, that Iraq will be governed ultimately by Iraqi people?” Hanson asked. “The United States has to be willing to abdicate that power, and the United Nations has to be willing to stand in the breach and assume some of that leadership.”
Reporters asked the church leaders if they had spoken out too much or too little in opposition to war in Iraq. “As I travel around the world, I hear appreciation for the opposition to this war voiced by US religious leaders that has been heard more clearly throughout the world than in our own administration in the United States,” Hanson said.
“Our plea now is that, even in the midst of a presidential election, this administration would engage religious leaders across a broader continuum than it’s been willing to do around our common commitment to a lasting peace in Iraq,” he said.
“We went to the United Nations today, not as an act of opposition to the United States government, but in recognition that this government is now at least publicly saying that only through the United Nations can there be lasting peace. So I see our action today as a bridge to our US government, not as opposition to it,” Hanson said.
The ELCA belongs to the NCC, the US ecumenical body comprising 36 Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox member denominations. The ELCA has around 5 million members and joined the LWF in 1988. Presiding Bishop Hanson is LWF president. (734 words)
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