Prospect Of War Raises Voices Of Experience, Peace

Baltimore, October 22, 2002 -- The prospect of war over Iraq raises questions rooted in past crises for Lutheran World Relief and for people with whom LWR works.

"What does a pre-emptive strike on Iraq mean to other governments involved in conflicts?" LWR President Kathryn Wolford asked members of the LWR board last month, noting places where LWR works, such as Colombia, Russia, and Israel and the Occupied Territories.

"Can we build security and build up the global 'immune system?'" she continued, "based on international law, human rights and respect for civil society?"

"There is official concern for civilians, but far more resources go to military strategies," she said. "With civilians in mind, we have to ask why this war should happen in the first place?"

"What is this war drawing away from other major issues like the war on AIDS?" she asked, and: "Can we bring the voices of our partners in the region to bear back here in the U.S.?"

Voices are being raised in the region and by church leaders and other church aid agencies. Middle Eastern Christians urge churches in the West to tell their governments to make "a sustained and determined diplomatic and political effort that engages the Iraqi government and re-empowers the Iraqi people," the Middle East Council of Churches says in a statement.

"[S]tand unequivocally for peace," says The Rev. Mark Hanson, bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. "We extend our prayers for peace to all who must decide and to all who are affected, here, in the Persian Gulf region and around the world." A current statement from Hanson urges the U.S. to work through the United Nations to control Iraq's weapons of mass destruction.

The American Friends Service Committee, a counterpart of LWR, calls "preemptive strikes by nations that feel threatened by others. . . a terrible precedent [that] would undermine international law and the U.N. charter and could lead to a tremendous increase in wars and violence in the future."

LWR has helped vulnerable Iraqi citizens during the past decade of sanctions and during the last Gulf war. LWR has worked in the Middle East for more than 50 years.