JANUARY/FEBRUARY 2006

January 1st, 2006

This issue concentrates on the need for Peacemaking. It cannot be said that the world has become more peaceful in the last twelve months.

EDITORIAL

This issue concentrates on the need for Peacemaking. It cannot be said that the world has become more peaceful in the last twelve months.

Barbara looks forward to 2006 and notes our wish, as a Commission, to work with others who have similar aims.

The “Living Ghosts” campaign run by Church Action on Poverty, highlights the plight of those seeking asylum here whose applications are refused and who cannot return home. In our diocese the Mary Thompson Fund tries to help with small weekly payments to those who are left with neither money nor accommodation. Some generous parishes are providing food parcels.

And finally, this first issue for 2006 gives me an opportunity to say thank you to all those who sent donations in 2005 to cover the cost of production and postage. If you would like to help, Nan would be pleased to receive your contribution.

Chris Dove

Note: the views expressed in this newsletter do not necessarily coincide with those of the Commission.

Looking forward to 2006

Newspapers are full of predictions for 2006. Whilst most of these may prove to be fanciful, it is good both to reflect on the achievements of 2005 and to look forward to our programme for the next twelve months.

One of the significant features of the MAKEPOVERTYHISTORY campaign was the coming together of so many different organisations with a common aim. The momentum and unprecedented level of campaigning did so much to raise awareness of the global impact of economic injustice. The true results of that campaign will be seen over the next few years but for those of us who were in Edinburgh on July 2nd the experience of witnessing so many who were intent on making their voices heard was very powerful.

Within the Commission we are also keen to work more closely with others. Our January meeting, facilitated by Yorkshire CND, builds on connections made last year with other peace organisations and will concentrate on Trident and the future of British Nuclear Weapons.

In March, the focus of our meeting will be the environment with Elisabeth Rendall from Christian Ecology Link and in May at our AGM we will have a speaker from WDM.

Another fruitful initiative which will gather pace this year is the Fair and Just Trade Project – a coalition of churches of all denominations in North and East Yorkshire working towards achieving Fairtrade status across the region.

It is good to take the momentum of 2005 into the coming months and I hope that, together, we can continue to make our voices heard in 2006.

Barbara.

For Peace Sunday

With his 2006 Peace Sunday Message, Pope Benedict reminds us that the struggle for peace must begin in our hearts. He invites us to reflect on the theme “In Truth is Peace”. Unless we are people of truth, and unless we speak the truth of the Gospel, we cannot bring healing and peace to the world. And this requires more than words.

“What is needed now is the Christian who manifests the truth of the Gospel in social action … clear and decisive action explains itself and teaches in a way words never can.”

Thomas Merton. ‘Peace in the Post Christian Era’.

“Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity. Violence destroys what it claims to defend: the dignity, the life, the freedom of human beings.”

Pope John Paul II. Drogheda, Ireland 1979.

Since the 1970s, Truth Commissions have been a feature of building peace and reconciliation in countries including Argentina, El Salvador, South Africa and Guatemala. Their aim has been to help communities deal with war crimes and other human rights abuses. Truth-telling and breaking the culture of silence are part of the more difficult reconciliation process.

Source: Pax Christi

Peace

From America comes this comment:

“Peace is at the heart of our sacred texts. It is a peace that defies logic. We don’t hear much about it from our pulpits and even less from our civic leaders except as the platitudinous denouement to speeches about war.

One would be hard pressed to discover the vaunted “Christian” character of the United States through the official references to peacemaking. In fact there is no single pursuit to which we give more time, energy or resources than the preparation of mass violence and war-making. The military budget for 2005 is expected to be around $400 billion. That doesn’t include the $300 billion already spent on the open-ended wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Our religious leaders can muster the fervour of the newly converted, arguing against any state concessions for same sex couples or railing against officials they deem insufficiently vigilant on such matters as abortion. But there is relative silence when it comes to the enormous sums Americans dish out to fund the preparations for wars themselves; or for the extension of the global nuclear threat through development of new generations of bombs; or for the slaughter of untold thousands of civilians by our military hardware.

Much is made of the need to work for a culture of life. Too often the message has been severely truncated.”

Source: Editorial NCR Oct 21

The Second Vatican Council attempted to look upon war “with an entirely new attitude.”

* It condemned the concept of “total war”.

* It declared the arms race “an utterly treacherous trap for humanity which injures the poor to an intolerable degree.”

* It called for a “universal public authority” which would be “endowed with effective power to safeguard security, regard for justice and respect for rights.”
* It urged international co-operation to end “excessive economic inequalities” between nations which are among the chief causes of war.”

* It foresaw a “surpassing need for renewed education of attitudes … to instruct all in the sentiments of peace.”

John Paul II, during the Falklands war (1982), appealed for war itself to be abolished: “War should belong to the tragic past, to history; it should find no place on humanity’s agenda for the future.” In 1993 he said: “nuclear deterrence prevents genuine nuclear disarmament …. It is a fundamental obstacle to achieving a new age of global security.”

“War cannot be decided upon, even when it is a matter of ensuring the common good, except as the very last option and in accordance with very strict conditions and taking into account all the consequences for the civilian population.”

Pope John Paul II

“In this age which boasts of its atomic power it no longer makes sense to maintain that war is a fit instrument with which to repair the violation of justice.”

Pope John XXIII Pacem in Terris 1963

“Today the scale and horror of modern warfare, whether nuclear or not, makes it totally unacceptable as a means of settling differences between nations.”

Pope John Paul II 1982.

On Nuclear weapons

In his acceptance speech last December, on receiving the Nobel Peace Prize, the International Atomic Energy Agency director, Mohamed ElBaradei, said that the world should move towards nuclear weapons being seen as immoral, like slavery or genocide. “We must ensure, absolutely, that no more countries acquire these deadly weapons. We must see to it that nuclear weapon states take concrete steps towards nuclear disarmament.”

The most recent statement comes from Pope Benedict. In his message for the World Peace Day 1 January 2006 he writes:

“What can be said about those governments which count on nuclear arms as a means of ensuring the security of their countries? This point of view is not only baneful but also completely fallacious. In a nuclear war there would be no victors, only victims. The truth of peace requires that all agree to change their course by clear and firm decisions, and strive for a progressive and concerted nuclear disarmament. The resources which would be saved could then be employed in projects of development capable of benefiting all their peoples, especially the poor.”

In a legal opinion for the campaigning group Peace Rights, Rabinder Singh QC and Professor Christine Chinkin of the London School of Economics state: “A Trident warhead would be inherently indiscriminate.” The blast, heat and radiation effect would infringe what the International Court of Justice calls the “intransgressible” or absolute requirement that a distinction must be drawn between combatants and non-combatants. This distinction is a key component of the statute setting up the Court which Britain has signed.

And yet – the government continues to argue the need for us to have the Trident nuclear submarine system in order to, in their words, ‘maintain a credible minimum deterrent.’ What is ‘credible’ about a deterrent which cost £12.5bn to acquire, at least £500 million a year to maintain, has no conceivable sensible target and will only be used in what the government perceives as ‘extreme circumstances’?

Last year we saw many programmes showing the effects of the bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki. Our present Trident system is a thousand times more powerful than the Hiroshima bomb, which killed 237,062 people, and now we are considering a replacement which will probably be a more powerful and yet more expensive system.

First there were five nuclear weapon states, now it is believed that there are ten states possessing nuclear weapons and thirty more with the potential to join the nuclear arms race. Is this the kind of world we wish to leave to our children and grandchildren? Terrorists can never be deterred by nuclear weapons. And we should always remember that most casualties in future wars will certainly be civilians and not the military.

In the 19th century, according to the United Nations Development Fund for Women, civilian casualties accounted for 5% of the war dead. In World War I, the total number of civilians killed had climbed to 15% of total wartime casualties. In World War II, civilians were 65% of the victims of war. By the mid-90s, civilians were over 75% of the war dead. And today, over 90% of those killed in war are civilians.

Cluster munitions

Out of Balance, a new report by Landmine Action, analyses parliamentary statements regarding cluster munitions. Successive government officials have been confident that the use of cluster munitions bombs has struck an acceptable balance between military needs and the protection of the civilian population.

However this analysis suggests that over the last 15 years the UK government has done little or nothing to gauge the humanitarian impact of these weapons but has invariably given preference to military over humanitarian concerns.

Thus, the UK has undertaken no practical assessments of the impact of cluster munitions on civilians, nor has it gathered the information necessary to do so. No substantive evidence has been provided on how UK forces evaluate and control the humanitarian impact of cluster munitions use during operations. In their analysis of the likely failure rates of cluster munitions, the UK has failed to gather the relevant field data and officials have neglected to represent internal criticism of these weapon systems and have repeatedly described them in extremely positive abstract terms.

Overall, when military considerations are set against consequence for civilians, the former are held to be much more important than the latter.

Source: Landmine Action Campaign www.landmineaction.org

Living Ghosts

Church Action on Poverty (CAP) have opened a campaign under this title. Increasing numbers of refused people seeking asylum are being left without basic hospitality and the means of life. They are removed from their accommodation and financial support is stopped two weeks after their case for asylum is deemed to have ‘failed.’

Dignity not destitution….

It is government policy that creates ‘Living Ghosts’ –people who have lost the rights afforded to a person seeking asylum but who have never gained the rights of a refugee. Refused asylum seekers are human: they are people who still seek asylum.

CAP is campaigning against people being written out of existence as a ‘failed’ asylum seeker.

CAP believes in a society where no-one is deliberately made destitute and is calling upon the Government to allow people seeking asylum to sustain themselves and contribute to wider society through paid work, and where this is not possible, to re-instate benefit entitlement to people refused asylum until such time as they are ready to return safely to their home country.

The serious detrimental effect on the material and emotional well-being of failed asylum seekers has resulted in negative mental health experiences including acute anxiety and stress, depression, feelings of extreme vulnerability and powerlessness.

The CAP campaign literature gives detailed case studies. Councillor Irene Graham, Glasgow’s equality spokeswoman said: “The national decision not to allow these people to work is wrong. We have doctors, nurses, teachers and engineers who can contribute to society but are not allowed to.”

“Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for by doing that some have entertained angels without knowing it.” Hebrews 13:2

In Matthew 25:35 Jesus gives us a clear command to feed and welcome the stranger and warns us that we will have to answer for this at the Judgement.

Please write to the Home Secretary or your MP to seek reconsideration of the present policy.

Contacts: CAP. www.church-poverty.org.uk

Mary Thompson Fund: 119-121 Marton Rd Middlesbrough TS1 2DU Tel:01642 217447

“Treating people humanely”

By way of contrast, Malta, the smallest state in Europe with the highest population density, has one of the highest acceptance rates for those seeking asylum, with nearly 60% being granted either refugee status or humanitarian status.

Malta joined the EU last year and as a member state is obliged to deal with the asylum applications of the arrivals, none of whom want to stay in Malta but all of whom are detained while their applications are processed. Many fail to gain refugee status, so they hover in limbo, unable to return to their countries, unwanted by tiny overcrowded Malta and by mainland European governments unsympathetic to African immigrants.

“Most of them come by mistake. They have never heard of Malta, but the boat breaks down or they lose their way,” says Marija Schranj of the Jesuit Refugee Service.

The leader of the Green Party in Malta, Harry Vassalo, says he is appalled by the conditions in the detention camp at Safi where 1500 are held waiting to be processed along with a further 1000 denied asylum. “We cannot take every refugee that comes out of Africa and we need other countries to take them, but none of this can ever allow us to treat people inhumanely …. 1.2 million tourists come every year and the island hasn’t sunk yet.”

Source: Guardian Weekly Oct 21-27.

Commission contacts

Barbara Hungin Chair 01642 784398

Sr Mary Walmsley CJ Secretary 01904 464917

Nan Saeki Treasurer 01904 783621

Chris Dove Editor 01947 825043

email: dove.whitby@ukgateway.net

or 22 Blackburns Yard Whitby YO22 4DS

website:www.ayton.info/middlesbroughjp

If you have not checked it out, the Commission website gives access to much more than just the current newsletter. John Blatchford has set up an ongoing archive of all the newsletters for the last 2 years.

PROGRAMME FOR 2006

Date Place Theme

21 January York Peace

18 March Middsbro’ Environment

20 May York AGM WDM

15 July Hull Quiet Day

16 September York

18 November Youth Forum

Lest we forget

The angels sang “Peace on earth”,

Jesus said, “My peace I give you”.

We pray for peace, we plead for peace,

we march and demonstrate for peace,

and all the while the earth is plagued

by violence and war,

the people suffer and die.

Why do I still forget

that it has to begin with me?

A.M.D.