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Note: This document is from the archive of the Africa Policy E-Journal, published
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Southern Africa: Uprooted People Statement
Southern Africa: Uprooted People Statement
Date distributed (ymd): 990518
Document reposted by APIC
+++++++++++++++++++++Document Profile+++++++++++++++++++++
Region: Southern Africa
Issue Areas: +economy/development+ +security/peace+
Summary Contents:
This posting contains two documents from the annual regional
meeting of Southern African Churches in Ministry with Uprooted
People, on regional issues and on child soldiers.
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***Africa Policy Web Site Announcement***
New Policy Theme Pages:
Economy and Development
(http://www.africafocus.org/docs99/econ.shtml)
Democracy and Human Rights
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(http://www.africafocus.org/docs99/peace.shtml)
Links to key African and international statements, documents
distributed by theme, starting points for web resources, plus
working papers and draft plans of action of the National
Summit on Africa (http://www.africasummit.org). A resource for
debates at the West Coast Regional Summit (San Francisco, June
4-5, 1999; http://www.africasummit.org/west/westhome.htm -- link
no longer active) and
subsequent meetings.
A Statement of the 1999 Annual Meeting of the Regional
Committee of Southern African Churches in Ministry with
Uprooted People
As the annual gathering of churches from 14 southern African
countries engaged in ministry with uprooted people meeting in
Mbabane, Swaziland from April 13 to 16, we recognise that
uprooting is a massive phenomenon on our continent and we
cannot ignore its significance for the life and mission of the
church today. In light of this, we appeal to our churches to
give concerted attention to those qualities that create
stability in family and community life, and to actively oppose
the forces that undermine this stability. We also appeal to
our churches to extend community and stability to those who do
not have it and who are strangers in our midst. We urge
thoughtful commitment to becoming the Church of the Stranger,
and the development of that identity in light of Biblical
reflection, a continuous review of the forces that threaten to
destabilise individuals and communities, and the experience of
uprooted people needing support. We urge our churches to give
more time to listening to the voices of the uprooted and to be
open to receiving the vision and talents which they bring to
our communities. We recognise that Christian education
programmes in our congregations at all age levels, theological
seminaries for clergy formation, and lay training events are
all opportunities for building an understanding of becoming
the Church of the Stranger. We appeal to our churches to be
determined, innovative and creative in developing skills and
sharing experiences in this effort.
We have identified the following issues which require the
serious attention of the Christian community of our region. In
calling for this attention, we recognise signs of hope that
give impetus to our attempts to move through and beyond the
problems and the threats of failure which create apathy.
MIGRATION
We join with Christian communities around the world who are
drawing attention to the effects of an open-market global
economy on the quality of life for the poor, particularly as
it creates a greater flow of migration across borders as
people seek to make a living. We note that when people flee
their home situations to seek refugee status in neighbouring
countries and are not allowed by the host country to use their
skills to make a suitable living to support their families,
they take the risk of giving up their refugee status and move
on as undocumented migrants. We see that the effects of mass
migration on the communities of origin is often a devastating
drain of skills and ideas which are essential to developing
those home communities, and this drain is not adequately
compensated for by the financial remuneration that comes from
the jobs obtained abroad. We are concerned that the
desperation of many people to find jobs has caused them to
fall victim to unscrupulous middlemen who exploit them
financial and physically, even to the point of running slave
trades, and we note that in many of our countries migrants
must also face the corruption of government officials who
control their documentation. We also note that migrants
returning from long periods abroad often face serious
reintegration difficulties and in many cases family unity is
never restored.
Signs of hope include the Pastors Without Borders programme of
the Catholic Church in our region, the local congregations in
South Africa and Mauritius that have trained and engaged
themselves in helping migrants to register themselves in those
countries legally and to find support communities, and the
efforts by churches in Lesotho to reintegrate returning
migrant labourers. We recognise that the prevailing world
economy which feeds mass migration is an area where our
churches have had little influence. In this light we applaud
the recent formation of the southern Africa church network for
economic justice. We urge our church leaders to seek the
orientation, training and exposure they need in order to
assert an informed Christian influence on the forces that
create and control migration. We call on our churches to train
their congregations for intervention in the reception,
documentation and accompaniment of migrant workers and their
families to ensure that these procedures are transparent and
fair. We urge our churches to follow up the return of migrants
and family reunification with pastoral care, including
demobilised soldiers. We appeal to our church leaders to
actively promote to their governments the ratification of the
International Convention on the Protection of the Rights of
All Migrants and Members of Their Families which was adopted
in December 1990 by the UN General Assembly.
XENOPHOBIA
We see wide-spread evidence that communities and congregations
which may themselves have little to offer in terms of material
assistance nevertheless continue to open their doors and their
hearts to strangers in greater need. We have heard testimonies
from communities all through the region whose vision and faith
have been immeasurably strengthened when they have allowed
themselves to receive the blessings of God through the
uprooted people in their midst. Uprooted people have testified
about the risks that people unknown to them have been willing
to take on their behalf. Our review of the current state of
traditional mores and practices reveals that while modern day
pressures of life have created new suspicions and ways of
protecting our selves and our property from strangers, the
will to accept other human beings as equals is very strong. We
believe that the church world-wide has much to learn from the
approach of our base communities to strangers.
It is against this positive background that we call upon our
churches to intervene urgently where xenophobia is growing: to
understand what is causing it and to deal with the causes in
an urgent, forthright and practical manner, to publicly
challenge and break through the myths that spread xenophobia,
to dilligently protect and promote the dignity and value of
all persons, to create opportunities for uprooted people in
our communities to contribute their abilities and talents to
the welfare of the communities in which they find themselves
hosted, to build up a theology of the Church of the Stranger
which becomes not only a framework for the life of the church
but is also applicable to our dialogue with wider society on
this issue, to approach our governments with sound guidance as
they also wrestle with the phenomenon of xenophobia.
ACCESS TO LAND
We note that despite the heavy movement of people in our
region towards urban settlement, access to land for cattle
rearing and food production continues to be close to the
hearts of most of the population of our region - to quote a
refugee returning to Magoe Province of Mozambique: "To be
human is to have land to work with". This is a sign of hope in
the face of growing degradation of land and the denial of
access to land for political gain. However, the number of
people uprooted in our region who have no land where they can
settle is on the increase.
We call on the churches to uphold the Biblical principle that
land belongs to God and humans are entrusted with it on a
stewardship basis. We urge churches to use this principle as
a foundation for influencing public policies on land access
and distribution; for intervening on behalf of those whose
land access rights are denied or unfairly dealt with; for
reviewing the best use of lands held under title deed by the
church in favour of the many people who are landless; for
ensuring that land which has been made dangerous by the
planting of landmines is restored to its original purpose and
is not further endangered; for taking pre-emptive steps to
halt the abuse of land which reduces its natural production
capacity and contributes to the destabilisation of
communities.
AIDS
It is with deep concern that we note from global statistics
that countries with the highest rate of infection are to be
found in our region. One of the multiple ways in which this
serious pandemic is pulling apart the fabric of our societies
is that those who become infected with the HIV virus also
become victims of rejection by their workmates and employers,
communities, and even family members. We note with shame that
often churches are the perpetrators of this rejection. In such
a way, people who are HIV positive become seriously uprooted
with no place to turn to for help. Many of those who are
homeless and living in the streets are dependents of people
with AIDS. Lack of a stable home and community can also make
people more vulnerable to AIDS, although we recognise that the
disease is not confined to any social class or grouping.
There is hope in the fact that some churches in our region
have recently taken up a more positive counselling role both
in preventing the spread of the disease and in helping those
who are ill to live abundant lives. We also find hope in the
experience of Uganda and other places where the rate of
infection is diminishing. In many cases our youth are leading
the way to ensure that the disease is not perpetuated. We call
upon our churches to make an urgent and concentrated effort to
ensure that all age, interest and leadership levels in the
church receive training aimed at making them activists in
society to combat the ignorance, apathy and immorality,
particularly among adults, that are aiding the spread of AIDS.
We urge the churches to take a strong and open stand in favour
of abstaining from sex before marriage and faithfulness within
the sanctity of marriage, and to educate the public on how to
do this. We call on the churches to preach loving acceptance
of all people affected by a terminal illness, to ensure that
church leadership at community level is trained in counselling
them and their families, and to provide support groups in the
community to help them deal with the burdens and plan for
their dependents' future.
PEACE-BUILDING
We deplore the disturbing tendency to resort to violence as a
means of settling conflicts, which has recently revealed
itself to be on the increase in our region. This has
contributed to the uprooting of millions of people in our
region, the erosion of protective services and structures
which they should be able to turn to for help, and the
destruction of community infrastructure which makes return and
resettlement more difficult. An analysis of various situations
in our country has show us that many of these violent
conflicts are growing out of a struggle for control over
wealth and political influence in which the right of the
citizens of our countries to guide and control their leaders
is either ignored or actively stifled. We note that the
proliferation of arms in the region, their movement and
accessibility, greatly worsen this situation.
There are many examples of efforts by the churches to teach
confict resolution and peace-building and a few outstanding
examples, such as the Swords to Ploughshares movement in
Moçambique, are undoubtedly influencing the course of history
in the countries where they are applied. These are signs of
hope to be replicated and built upon. However, we are
distressed to find more examples where the churches'
intervention to prevent open and violent conflict and to lead
our countries to a state of peace is not happening at all or
is coming too late, is ill-targeted, does not reflect an
intensity of conviction, and is compromised by concern for
self-preservation or gain. We therefore call upon the churches
to to build approaches based on the urgency of our Biblical
mandate, to give priority of time and energy to this matter,
to be vigilant and pre-emptive, to learn systematically from
past mistakes, to develop intervention skills based on the
vast experience already gained in our region, and to hold each
other accountable and give each other moral and physical
support. We urge the churches to use every opportunity in
teaching, preaching and negotiating, to promote signs of hope
and determination for peace so as to deliberately combat the
despair which leads to apathy in the face of war and threat of
war.
CARING FOR CARE-GIVERS
Our attention has been drawn to the special support needs of
those care-givers on the frontline who are working with
uprooted people. Care-giving is too often organised as a
hierarchical chain and in such a system these people are
considered to be the lowest rank in the hierarchy and
therefore do not receive the appreciation and capacity
building that is rightfully theirs. The practical, mental,
physical and spiritual requirements for coping with separation
from family and dealing day and night with stressful
situations require the concerned support of the church as a
whole.
We call on churches and church-based organisations who employ
ground-level care givers to give special attention to this
area of need. We appeal to all our church organisations and
leaders to ensure that the vision and guidance of those
directly involved in giving care to people in difficult
circumstances is respected as a basis for planning the
churches' response to uprooting. We urge local congregations
to take an active pastoral care approach in the provision of
friendship to care-givers and their families, practical
assistance for their working and living requirements,
opportunities for rest and recreation, access to spiritual
growth support, and professional counselling as needed.
Adopted April 16, 1999, Mbabane, Swaziland
Southern African Churches In Ministry With Uprooted People
Statement on the Use of Children as Soldiers
Adopted April 16, 1999 in Mbabane by the Regional Committee
As members of the Regional Committee with Uprooted People, we
are deeply concerned about the situation of child soldiers. We
recognise that the methods used in the recruitment and
deployment of these children are deliberately designed to cut
off their psychological and emotional roots to home and
community. They thereby become the most uprooted of all
victims of war.
Throughout the past year we have received reports from
churches in Angola of the conscription of underaged combatants
in that country. We have recently received reports of children
among the Congolese soldiers who are requesting transport
through Zambia from one side of the DRC to the other. We are
encouraged by the efforts of Mozambican communities who are
exposing the extent to which children were used in the
conflict in that country and who are accompanying these
children through the long and difficult process of finding
their roots again.
The recruitment, training and use of children under the age of
18 to fight in armed conflicts is a violation of their basic
human rights and must be stopped. We have seen that the
rehabilitation of child soldiers after conflicts is a very
painful process and not always successful. And yet every
effort must be made to re-integrate these children and young
adults back into society to enable them to live lives of
dignity and contribute positively to their countries’
development.
While the issue of the child soldiers has been taken up by
secular NGOs, the World Council of Churches, and United
Nations bodies, we call on our churches in southern Africa to
make child soldiers a priority for action. These children of
God are our children. The churches must call for an immediate
end to the recruitment, conscription, training and use of
child soldiers. The churches have a moral responsibility to
support the rehabilitation of children who have already served
as combatants.
We call on all church leaders to take an active role in
preventing the use of child soldiers in our region and in
ensuring the adoption and application of the optional protocol
to the UN Convention on the Rights of the Child, which raises
the minimum age for all forms of recruitment and participation
in hostilities from 15 to 18. We believe that the churches
have a unique role to play in raising this issue with the
governments, state non-state armed forces, political parties,
NGOs and UN bodies. We enclose a copy of the statement on
child soldiers which was adopted by the assembly of the World
Council of Churches, meeting in Harare in December 1998.
The Regional Committee:
Mr E. Nkoka and Mrs M. Setloboko, Lesotho
Mr J Ramahaleo, Madagascar
Reverend L. Rakotoarisoa, Mauritius
Reverend H. Nkhoma, Malawi
Mr A. Francisco and Mr T. Macie, Mozambique
Mr S. Ndeikwila, Namibia
Reverend T. Mobbie, South Africa
Reverend A. Mukuyamba, Zambia
Reverend Z. Shabalala and Reverend N. Hlope, Swaziland
Reverend H. Murray, Zimbabwe
The Rt. Reverend G. Mpango, Tanzania
Reverend MPT Basele, Botswana
Reverend A. Chipesse, Angola
Reverend Dr. M. E. Mpofu, Christian Care
Dr. E. Ferris, World Council of Churches
Ms C. Gavi, Ecumenical Documentation and Information Centre
for Eastern & Sthn Africa
Sister A. Hughes, the InterRegional Meeting of Bishops of
Southern Africa
Reverend W. Rakuba, Regional Moderator and rep for All African
Conference of Churches
Reverend S. DeWolf, Regional Coordinator
Shirley C. DeWolf, Regional Coordinator
Southern African Churches in Ministry with Uprooted People
Box 926 Mutare, Zimbabwe
(80 Second Street, Mutare, Zimbabwe)
tel: 263 20 66923; fax: 263 20 60494;
E-mail: uprooted@pci.co.zw
This material is being reposted for wider distribution by the
Africa Policy Information Center (APIC). APIC's primary
objective is to widen the policy debate in the United States
around African issues and the U.S. role in Africa, by
concentrating on providing accessible policy-relevant
information and analysis usable by a wide range of groups and
individuals.
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