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Middle East Council of Churches expresses alarm at prospect of military intervention in Iraq
2002-192-3
8/14/2002
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[Episcopal News Service]
The Middle East Council of Churches (MECC), an umbrella organization of Orthodox, Catholic and Protestant churches with headquarters in Beirut, has issued a statement expressing alarm about possible U.S. military action against Iraq.
The August 5 statement said that the MECC 'views with disappointment and increasing alarm intensified efforts in the United States to gather support for major military action against Iraq. Apart from its humanitarian concerns for the Iraqi people who, for over a decade, have been ground down by sanctions and daily air raids, the MECC is committed to Iraq not least of all because of the cries of its member churches there for peace and sanity.'
The statement said that the council viewed the conflict as 'one against the people of that country, the common people, not the politicians or power brokers. The UN sanctions, themselves a type of violence, have not really touched Iraq's governing elite, but have caused the people untold suffering.'
'Not only has the sanctions regime failed; that failure is now to be compounded by an initiative that lacks justification and has discernible or constructive goal,' the statement said. 'It has no support in the region. All that military offensive will leave behind is ruin and a shattered country. Chaos will ensue. In the meantime, nothing will be done to ameliorate the human suffering that has already scarred and ruined a whole generation of Iraq's youth, caused the death of thousands of infants, destroyed one of the region's most productive and creative middle classes, and left a wasteland, a swirling pool of despair and rage, a time-bomb to bedevil the future.'
The statement urged the Christian churches of the West 'to speak to their governments,' arguing that violence will mean more suffering. 'The churches of the Middle East are committed to peace that comes through the power of the Word to establish justice, and champions the cause of the poor and downtrodden. We believe that through peaceful intervention, the moral force of truth can break the cycle of violence in Iraq, in Palestine, and throughout the world.'
The statement was signed by the Rev. Riad Jarjour, general secretary of the MECC.
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