Support Mano river subregion, Church leaders urge US and UN

Church and grassroots leaders from The Gambia, Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone have urged United States and United Nations officials to help generate greater international support for the critical needs of West Africa’s Mano river subregion, the Church World Service (CWS) reported on Wednesday. The nine leaders, who met US government and UN officials, church leaders, NGO and public audiences during a two-week mission to the US that ended last week, said there could be no sustainable development in West Africa without an immediate end to hostilities and without durable peace. "They will continue to interact with CWS, focusing on cessation of hostilities, advocacy, institutional capacity building, implementation of a trauma counseling and recovery programmes and establishing an Eminent Persons process to guide conflict resolution," CWS said. "UN and U.S. officials reinforced the group’s and CWS’ premise, that the churches in Africa are playing a vital role in empowering civil society and promoting peace with justice." Delegates and policymakers, CWS added, agreed throughout the group’s visit that peace in Liberia was central to creating stability for the sub-region. Ongoing conflict in Liberia and the resulting flow of refugees across borders was stressing neighboring countries who were themselves burdened with varying levels of unrest, post-conflict rehabilitation, poverty, and uprooted peoples. "They met US Assistant Secretary for African Affairs, Walter Kansteiner in Washington, who talked about Liberia’s role in the region’s trouble," CWS said. "Kansteiner said the US policy toward Liberia was first that of "containment" and second, the rebuilding of civil society within Liberia. [He] said the US has made propositions for free, fair and open elections to Liberian President Charles Taylor, but Taylor hasn’t responded." The leaders included the general secretary of Sierra Leone's Council of Churches, Alimamy Koroma; the Anglican Bishop of The Gambia, S. Tilewa Johnson; Anglican Bishop Albert David Gomez, President, Christian Council of Guinea; head of the Lutheran Church Women’s Committee in Liberia, Comfort M. Freeman; Father Peter Gomez, executive member of The Gambia Christian Council; Victoria R. Bangura, a Baptist delegate from Sierra Leone; Madeleine Oularé Koundouno, Chairwoman of the Catholic Women’s Fellowship of Guinea; Liberia's Prince Porte and Ghana's Baffour Amoa. "[The leaders] launched their US trip by addressing and walking with nearly 300 volunteer, grassroots fundraisers in CWS’s two-mile Manhattan CROP Walk," CWS said. They held a roundtable discussion with Yvette Stevens, UN Special Coordinator for Africa and the Least Developed Countries, who told them and some 50 key UN officials and representatives of faith-based non-governmental organizations that "conflict and development are mortal enemies". The Mano River sub-region, consisting of Guinea, Liberia and Sierra Leone, is the focus of CWS's five-year Africa Initiative. The initiative, to start in 2004, will target three vulnerable populations: children, people living with HIV/AIDS, and uprooted peoples, including refugees, migrants and internally displaced persons. Details are available at: www.churchworldservice.org