wfn.org | ELCA Presiding Bishop Meets With Kofi Annan on UN Role in Iraq

["Frank Imhoff" <FRANKI@elca.org>]

ELCA Presiding Bishop Meets with Kofi Annan on UN Role in Iraq
Secretary-General Encouraged Religious Leaders Work toward Sustained
Global Peace

CHICAGO, United States of America/GENEVA, 26 May 2004 (LWI/ELCA NEWS) -
The Rev. Mark S. Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran
Church in America (ELCA) and president of the Lutheran World Federation
(LWF), was among church leaders who met with United Nations
Secretary-General Kofi Annan, May 24 about the UN role in Iraqi's
transition from military to civilian leadership. 

The National Council of the Churches of Christ in the USA (NCC) hosted
the 40-minute meeting between Annan and the delegation of 11 religious
leaders from Europe and North America. NCC General Secretary, Rev. Bob
Edgar carried letters to the meeting from church leaders in Africa and
the Middle East.

In a conference call with reporters after the meeting Hanson said, "One
of the key messages we conveyed was our support for the
secretary-general's leadership and the critical moment for his
exercising strong leadership in the world today. We expressed our
confidence in his leadership."

As a US church leader, Hanson said he asked Annan to help the United
States "move beyond a preoccupation with our national self-interest to
even laying down some of that self-interest for the sake of sustaining
peace in Iraq. It is clear that the United Nations is the crucial link
between moving from occupation by US forces to a sustained
self-governance by the Iraqi people."

On May 24 Annan held initial informal talks with UN Security Council
members to get their impressions of a proposed US-British resolution
outlining a post-occupation Iraqi government.

"We never knew, when we set up this meeting, that we would be at the
United Nations on such a critical day," Hanson said. "We hope and
sincerely pray that the United States will be committed to that critical
role of the United Nations in this time of transition."

Hanson said Annan recognized and encouraged religious leaders working
toward sustained peace in the world. "We talked clearly that sustained
peace is not just the cessation of violence or the removal of US forces,
but it is the presence of the end of human suffering, the end of poverty
and the complex set of human factors that have been a result of this
tragic war," he said.

On the evening of May 24, President George W. Bush addressed the United
States on issues related to the transfer of power on June 30 in Iraq,
and the shared goal of the international community to see a democratic
government in Baghdad.

Speaking before that address, Hanson said he hoped Bush would
acknowledge "that the future of Iraq rests now with the United States'
willingness to be a full partner with the United Nations and the people
of Iraq."

"Can the United States give up economic, military and political control
of Iraq enough on June 30 to allow for the transition, which will be
complex and slow to occur, that Iraq will be governed ultimately by
Iraqi people?" Hanson asked. "The United States has to be willing to
abdicate that power, and the United Nations has to be willing to stand
in the breach and assume some of that leadership."

Reporters asked the church leaders if they had spoken out too much or
too little in opposition to war in Iraq. "As I travel around the world,
I hear appreciation for the opposition to this war voiced by US
religious leaders that has been heard more clearly throughout the world
than in our own administration in the United States," Hanson said.

"Our plea now is that, even in the midst of a presidential election,
this administration would engage religious leaders across a broader
continuum than it's been willing to do around our common commitment to a
lasting peace in Iraq," he said.

"We went to the United Nations today, not as an act of opposition to
the United States government, but in recognition that this government is
now at least publicly saying that only through the United Nations can
there be lasting peace. So I see our action today as a bridge to our US
government, not as opposition to it," Hanson said.

The ELCA belongs to the NCC, the US ecumenical body comprising 36
Protestant, Anglican and Orthodox member denominations. The ELCA has
around 5 million members and joined the LWF in 1988. Presiding Bishop
Hanson is LWF president. (734 words) 

(The LWF is a global communion of Christian churches in the Lutheran
tradition. Founded in 1947 in Lund (Sweden), the LWF now has 136 member
churches in 76 countries representing 62.3 million of the almost 66
million Lutherans worldwide. The LWF acts on behalf of its member
churches in areas of common interest such as ecumenical and inter-faith
relations, theology, humanitarian assistance, human rights,
communication, and the various aspects of mission and development work.
Its secretariat is located in Geneva, Switzerland.)

[Lutheran World Information (LWI) is the LWF's information service.
Unless specifically noted, material presented does not represent
positions or opinions of the LWF or of its various units. Where the
dateline of an article contains the notation (LWI), the material may be
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