World Council of Churches asked to intervene for suffering people of Sudan By Faith J. H. McDonnell International Religious Liberty Associate Institute on Religion and Democracy Tuesday, December 15, 1998 At the 1983 World Council of Churches Assembly in Vancouver, delegates heard from Deacon Vladimir Rusak of the Russian Orthodox Church. Rusak's letter appealed to the WCC delegates to intervene on behalf of persecuted Christians in the Soviet Union. The Assembly did not respond to Deacon Rusak's prophetic voice, and less than three years later he himself was arrested and received a combined labor camp/exile sentence of 12 years. The Soviet Union is no more, but Christians around the world continue to suffer and die for their faith. Nowhere is this more evident than in the Sudan, where the National Islamic Front Government wages genocidal war against Christians and anyone else objecting to the imposition of Sharia (Islamic law) throughout Sudan. Once again, a prophet has spoken to the World Council of Churches: The Most Reverend Paride Taban, Roman Catholic Bishop of the Torit Diocese of Sudan. Bishop Taban, who was preaching at an Africa Day service organized for the WCC Eighth Assembly by the churches of Zimbabwe on December 5, 1998, said that the people of Southern Sudan had asked him to speak on their behalf. "They ordered me to do everything I can to stop this senseless war and killing, to stop the suffering. I promised to try, to be their voice and bring their message and cry to the world." Traumatized children This was no new calling for Taban, who has been a voice for the suffering Christians in Sudan since 1983, when the Khartoum regime's troops invaded the Torit area. The ensuing battles between government troops and the rebel SPLA forces caused the displacement of thousands. The bishop then commenced fifteen years of suffering, imprisonment, bombing, fleeing, and journeying to many countries, ministering to and fighting for his displaced flock. A founder and former chairman of the New Sudan Council of Churches, Taban told delegates and visitors to the WCC's Eighth Assembly that he had recently returned from a visit to the western part of Eastern Equatoria, Southern Sudan. "I witnessed two blitz-style bombing raids carried out by Khartoum," he said. "There was no military presence in either of the centers where I witnessed the bombs fall. The recipients are simple, struggling, uninvolved civilians. I saw them as people trying to reconstruct their lives, trying to experience and taste again some of the normality that you and I take for granted. "They are building schools - their children hunger for knowledge. They construct small chapels - they want to be a community, to be close to God, to live out their hope. They plant food - they want enough to eat. "The devilish bombs from above continually rip their ambitions apart. The planes from Khartoum come almost daily. Who knows the deep psychological and emotional scars that are on the souls and minds of these innocent people?" Taban pondered. "They feel abandoned. They are alone and frightened, disillusioned and confused. The cry that arises from all this suffering and pain is: "Is there anybody, anywhere, who knows us? Is there anybody, anywhere who really cares?" Bishop Taban's observations are confirmed by UNICEF psychologist Magne Raundalen who reported in 1994 that the children of Southern Sudan and the Nuba Mountains were the most traumatized children he had ever seen. Protecting human life Taban noted that the Sudanese Christians have heard about the no-fly zones imposed by the Western nations on Iraq to protect the Kurds. "Our people ask, 'Are we not worth human life to be protected from the Sudanese air force by the imposition of a no-fly zone from the 13th to the 14th parallels?'" He said that Sudanese Christians are aware that "the President of Yugoslavia was forced by Europeans and Americans to stop the massacre of the people of Kosovo and to pull out his troops or face the wrath of NATO." Taban's people said, "What about us in Sudan? Can anyone, please, can you tell the Americans and Europeans to do the same thing for us in the Sudan?" "Can anyone help me, delegates of this great fellowship of Christians from all over the world? Can anyone assist us to bring a lasting and just peace to the people of Sudan, to live in peace as brothers and sisters?" Bishop Taban implored the gathering. It is not enough merely to offer aid to victims of genocide. Bishop Taban observed, "Many friends of Sudan are very keen on relief work. Spending on relief alone is like fattening a cow for slaughter. How long can one be doing relief work without spending time, energy, and resources on root causes?" His criticism has been echoed by many, including Senator William Frist (R-TN), a medical doctor who recently did mission work in Sudan. Frist wrote in The Washington Post that American policy "may be a contributing factor in the horrendous prospect of widespread starvation" because of acquiescence in the Khartoum Government's blatant manipulation of a humanitarian relief program in which the United States participates. Incomprehensibly, in a 1989 arrangement with the United Nations, the Sudanese government was given power to veto when and where aid could be delivered by Operation Lifeline Sudan, the coalition of relief groups under the auspices of the United Nations. Unless the Western governments cease their indefensible deference to the Sudanese government, demand the imposition of no-fly zones, and provide relief on the level of the Berlin air lift, another 2.6 million Sudanese will die of starvation. But, in the words of Bishop Taban, it will take "anointed voices" to force the governments to action. Will those "anointed voices" come from the World Council of Churches? Not if they continue in the pattern established by their past "dialogue" with "religious figures" from the old Communist bloc, which prohibited them from taking to heart the pleas of Deacon Vladimir Rusak. A watershed opportunity In more recent history, the WCC has participated in Christian-Muslim dialogues on religion and human rights in such bastions of freedom as Khartoum. The Khartoum "dialogue" juxtaposed vulnerable Christian leaders from Islamic countries and a Muslim religious leaders who also happened to be official government representatives from Sudan, Pakistan, Libya, and Yemen. Dr. Paul Marshall, a leading human rights expert and author of Their Blood Cries Out, observed of the conference, "At best, it had a naïve and distorted view of worldwide attacks on religious freedom. At worst, it is part of a legitimization campaign by Sudan and other repressive regimes to validate their persecution." Bishop Taban has provided the World Council of Churches with a watershed opportunity - to break that pattern of the past, and raise an "anointed voice" for the people of Sudan, both Christians and Muslims, who are giving their lives in their stand against tyranny and oppression.

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