National Council of Churches USA, NY
Feb 17 2005
NCC Board Acts on Development, Security, Middle East, Genocide, Due
Process
NCC Endorses U.N.’s Millennium Development Goals
Halving global poverty by 2015 and ultimately ending it altogether is
the aim of the United Nations’ Millennium Development Goals. The
National Council of Churches USA, at its quarterly Governing Board
meeting Feb. 14-15, 2005, in New York City, endorsed the goals and
pledged to work for their achievement.
The Millennium Development Goals set specific targets within
categories of extreme poverty and hunger; primary education; gender
equality and empowerment of women; child mortality; maternal health;
HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases, and environmental
sustainability. They call for establishment of a global partnership
for development.
The NCC pledged “to support, through advocacy, education and other
appropriate means, programs that work toward the achievement of these
goals, and urges its member communions to work together with one
another and other church and ecumenical organizations that work
toward these same ends.”
SMART Security Platform Promotes Peace, International Cooperation,
NCC Says
What foreign policy alternatives exist to better assure America’s
security and address terrorism? The organization Physicians for
Social Responsibility offers its “SMART” Security Platform, and the
NCC endorsed the platform at its quarterly Governing Board meeting,
Feb. 14-15, 2005, in New York City.
“SMART” is the acronym for “Standing for Sensible Multilateral
American Response to Terrorism.” The platform makes specific
recommendations for strengthening international institutions and
supporting the rule of law to prevent acts of terrorism and future
wars; reducing the threat and stopping the spread of nuclear and
other weapons of mass destruction, and changing budget priorities to
reflect “SMART” security needs.
Statement of NCC Middle East Delegation Commended to Member Churches
“Barriers Do Not Bring Freedom,” the statement of the National
Council of Churches USA’s official delegation to the Middle East Jan.
21-Feb. 4, has been commended to the Council’s 36 member churches for
their consideration.
Delegation members reported Feb. 14 to the NCC’s Governing Board at
its regular quarterly meeting. The 11-member delegation met with
Christian, Jewish and Muslim leaders in Lebanon, Egypt, Israel and
Palestine, with the aim of understanding current on-the-ground
realities in the context of renewed optimism for peace, expressing
solidarity with Christians in the region and meeting with new
leadership of the Middle East Council of Churches.
The statement, which offers a sobering assessment of the current
situation, reflects the delegation’s experiences and insights gleaned
from the various meetings. The Board voted to receive the report and
commend it to the Council’s members.
NCC Commemorates 90th Anniversary of the Armenian Genocide
On April 24, 2005, it will be 90 years since the start of the
Armenian Genocide, in which 1.5 million Armenians in Ottoman Turkey
died and almost the entire Armenian population was deported from its
ancestral lands in Asia Minor.
Many of the methods employed in that genocide – the first of the 20th
century – would become models for subsequent genocides, such as under
the Nazi regime and in the Soviet Union, Cambodia and Rwanda.
Despite copious documentation and the inter-disciplinary consensus of
serious scholars, the Armenian Genocide is still not acknowledged by
the present-day Republic of Turkey – nor, officially, by the U.S.
government. And despite the lessons of the past, the horrors of
genocide continue to the present day, most recently in Darfur, Sudan.
In response, the NCC Governing Board, meeting Feb. 14-15, 2005, in
New York City, resolved to ask the Republic of Turkey and the U.S.
government to grant official recognition of the Armenian Genocide,
and to ask that the world community heed the lessons of the Armenian
Genocide.
Specifically, the Board asks recognition and unambiguous
acknowledgement of “the early ‘seeds’ of genocide when they arise, to
act speedily and decisively in these early stages, so as to pre-empt
full-blown genocide” and “to resist and rebuke the deniers of
genocide.”
Finally, the NCC joined other faithful, including members of the
Armenian Church, in remembrance of the souls of those who perished in
the Armenian and other genocides in the past 90 years, in prayers for
the peace of those who survived, and in petition that “in the century
just beginning, God will free humankind of the scourge of genocide
once and for all.”
NCC Weighs In, Again, on Due Process for National Security Detainees
The National Council of Churches USA Feb. 15 heard a concern
expressed by the NCC’s Interfaith Relations Commission on the effects
of the USA PATRIOT Act on civil rights and due process for Muslim
people.
The Governing Board of the Council, at its quarterly meeting (Feb.
14-15), voted to receive a statement which noted that in the past the
NCC has joined with other organizations “to advocate for tighter
controls on current anti-terrorism efforts and the highest standard
of scrutiny in laws and policy changes related to civil liberties,”
and has spoken out on civil rights and due process for detainees at
Guantanamo Bay and Abu Graib.
The statement asked that the NCC speak out more directly about the
USA PATRIOT Act in order to express its solidarity with Muslims and
others whose well-being continues to be threatened by some of its
provisions. “This is especially important in view of the upcoming
Congressional debates on certain provisions of the Act,” it said.
The Interfaith Relations Commission, in meetings last weekend in St.
Petersburg, Fla., with representatives of a Florida social advocacy
organization, HOPE (Hillsboro Organization for Peace and Equality)
and the Tampa chapter of the Council on American Islamic Relations
(CAIR), heard about the case of Dr. Sami Al-Arian.
Emphatically noting that it is not taking any stand on Dr. Al-Arian’s
guilt or innocence but rather on his right to due process and humane
treatment, the Council resolved to make known the plight of the
former professor at Florida State University, arrested in February
2003.
CAIR “shared with us statistics and concerns about civil rights in
the Muslim community since the passage of the USA PATRIOT Act,” the
Commission reported. “The Muslim community came to us as an
authoritative Christian body and said, ‘We are hurting over this.
Please stand up and be counted,'” said Betty Gamble, a member of the
NCC Interfaith Relations Commission.
Asserted Mia Adjali, United Methodist Church, “We are using this
person as an example of so many others. Whatever this man may have
done or not, the issue is the inhumane treatment that’s befallen
Muslim people, Arab people, anyone who looks like an Arab.”
In addition to the Board’s action, the NCC’s Justice and Advocacy
Commission is developing a new policy on civil liberties.