15.06.2004
Absent Delegates at LWF Assembly Say 'We Are Still Pained by This Wound'
Indian Churches Dispute Canadian Government Explanation for Visa DenialsKUALA LUMPUR, Malaysia/GENEVA, 15 June 2004 (LWI) – Representatives of Lutheran churches in India still feel hurt about being barred by the Canadian government from attending the July 2003 Tenth Assembly of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF). The LWF must take steps to ensure such a scandal does not recur, said the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in India (UELCI) Executive Secretary, Rev. Chandran Paul Martin.
Twenty-seven participants from India were denied visas to attend the Assembly in Winnipeg, Canada, along with some 30 participants from several African and Asian countries. They were refused visas despite assurances from the sending church in India, from the Assembly host church Evangelical Lutheran Church in Canada, and LWF Geneva Secretariat.
Martin does not regard the matter as closed. "We are still pained by this wound," he told Lutheran World Information (LWI) during the Asian Church Leadership Conference (ACLC), which he was attending in early June in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia.
"We would like this wound to be healed." However, the UELCI has still not received any written explanation of the decision either from the Canadian government or the High Commission in New Delhi. Martin personally had traveled to the Indian capital from the church's secretariat in Chennai to submit the batch of 27 visa applications.
The only clue as to the Canadian authorities' reason for rejecting the Indian requests was a mark on each applicant's form, indicating that the authorities were not convinced the applicants would return to their home country. Martin is still scornful: "We were insulted by this criterion."
Five other Assembly participants from India who made separate applications were issued visas by the Canadian High Commission in New Delhi and were thus able to travel to Winnipeg. This contradicted the Canadian authorities' wholesale rejection of the applications submitted by the UELCI, Martin said. The would-be participants included several veteran church leaders with decades of experience as international travelers.
Martin lauded the several ways in which the Assembly delegates remembered the absent participants in Winnipeg. He was also grateful to LWF General Secretary Rev. Dr Ishmael Noko for his support. During a visit to India last November, Noko told UELCI officials that he was still in touch with the Canadian government over the visa denials.
Call for Future Government Assurances
When the LWF decides on venues of its international meetings in the future, it must insist on assurances from each host country's government that visas would be issued to all participants, the UELCI executive secretary said. Countries whose governments were unwilling to accept all participants should be avoided, Martin stressed.
The Indian delegates who could not travel to Winnipeg agreed at the time that they would back all decisions taken by the Assembly. "Maybe some elections would have been different if we had been there," mused Martin, who was appointed to serve on the LWF Council.
Several Lutheran churches in India staged retreats and other events at the time to pray for the Assembly. "In a way we were not too far away," the UELCI executive secretary concluded. (525 words)
(See Message from the LWF Tenth Assembly at www.lwf-assembly.org/PDFs/LWF_Assembly_Message.pdf
and Statement on the Exclusion of Assembly Participants at www.lwf-assembly.org/PDFs/LWF-Resolutions_and_Statements.pdf
(By Amsterdam-based correspondent Andreas Havinga, reporting on the ACLC on behalf of LWI.)
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