A Letter from Bishop Daniel Wandabula re: Bishop's Appeal for Peace and Reconcilliation in the Post Election Crisis in Kenya
To all brothers and sisters in Christ,
I extend the New Year greetings from the East Africa Annual Conference of the United Methodist Church. I take this opportunity to inform you all that Kenya, a country which has been a cradle of peace in the turbulent Great Lakes region, has been hit by an unexpected outbreak of ethnic violence.
The deteriorating situation in Kenya, following the disputed December 27, 2007 Presidential Elections has claimed the lives of numerous innocent civilians. Official government estimates have conservatively put the death toll at 240 lives. However, independent reports put the number beyond 400, as of January 5, 2008. The clashes have claimed a number of casualties mainly from the Kikuyu, Luo, and other ethnic groups. Overall more than 250,000 people have been displaced from their localities making them homeless.
The 6 districts of the United Methodist Church, in Kenya, namely Nairobi, Nakuru, Naivasha, Busia (Kenya side of the boarder with Uganda), Central Nyanza, and South Nyanza, have not been spared. Many parishioners in our churches have been displaced, some killed, and many have lost property. A group of 30 people who attempted to escape the violence, by boat across a river, drowned and perished.
The United Methodist Church founded schools in Nairobi, Nakuru and Naivasha have been offered to the displaced people for shelter. Our churches have been gravely affected as many families have been displaced. A number of them are seeking refuge at Police Stations, churches, and other religious shelters, especially in the Nairobi, Kisumu, and Mombasa localities. It is our prayer and hope that the violence comes to an end soon. We have noted that on New Year’s Day, at least 50 innocent people, many of them women and children, who had taken refuge in a Pentecostal Assemblies of God Church in Eldoret, were attacked by a mob and burnt to death.
One United Methodist Church in Naivasha District had so far received more than 250 people, especially children and women, in search of safety. Ms. Hendrick Ouma Alois, the Women President, Nairobi District, has been forced to accommodate over fifty people in her home in the rift valley area of Kajiado. The people have been rendered refugees, within their own country!
There is a growing number of people crossing over the national boundaries especially into Uganda and Tanzania. Our parishioners on the Ugandan side have so far received these brothers and sisters with numerous challenges. We have been relieved to learn that UMCOR is considering extending some emergency relief funding to ease the suffering within the temporary settlements here. There is great need for food, safe water, clothing, medicines, blankets, temporary shelter, mosquito nets, and basic household utensils.
We commit prayers to our brothers and sisters who are currently experiencing this stressful and critical situation. We are grateful to God that most of our parishioners, and missionaries, in Kenya have so far been spared. Indeed all churches in the East Africa region dedicated last Sunday January 5, 2008 to prayers for Peace and Reconciliation among the warring factions. As a church we empathize with all the people that have suffered from this injustice, violence, loss of lives/property, and the overall disruption of daily lives.
We pray for the return of peace to Kenya, and a more lasting settlement of the conflict. I appeal to all people of goodwill to contribute towards the settlement of the conflict through prayer, lobbying the parties in conflict, counseling, and material support to the displaced people in the various affected countries of East Africa. All assistance for relief to the affected areas should be directed to GBGM/MCR Offices in New York.
Grace and Peace,
Daniel Wandabula
Resident Bishop
East Africa Episcopal Area
The United Methodist Church
Thursday, January 10, 2008
Post-tsunami Sri Lanka rebuilds amid worsening war
By Paul Jeffrey*
A fisherman throws a net at Waligama on Sri Lanka's southern coast. The National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, with support from United Methodist-supported ACT International, has helped tsunami survivors start over and rebuild their livelihoods. UMNS photos by Paul Jeffrey.
COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (UMNS) - Three years ago, Susantha Jayalath survived the tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean and devastated the coast of Sri Lanka.
He lost his fishing boat and nets, and within weeks sold his wife's jewelry to make the down-payment on a new boat. Then a war got in the way of earning a living, and life for Jayalath remains stalled long after the waves receded.
Jayalath's struggles reflect larger challenges that Sri Lanka has faced in the three years since the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami killed 35,000 people and left more than half a million people homeless on the island nation. Yet hope seems an integral element of the character of those who take to the sea in small boats, so Jayalath has not given up.
His boat is anchored in the harbor of Mirissa, a nearby village on Sri Lanka's southern coast, and has a motor and nets donated by the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, part of the massive relief effort of Action by Churches Together (ACT), a United Methodist-supported alliance of church agencies responding to emergencies.
Jayalath often sets off to resume fishing; yet each time he is told by military officials that he can't go far from shore. "Before the tsunami, there were lots of fish," he explained. "But since then, everything has changed. It's much harder to earn a living fishing today.
"I can only have a motor that's less than 15 horsepower, because if it's bigger the Navy says it could be used by the LTTE [the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam]. And I can only go out 5 kilometers, even though the big fish are farther out. They let the big boats go out there, but not small fishermen like me. I don't know how I'm supposed to earn a living."
Jayalath and his family still live in a temporary shelter built on the ruins of their old house. He's not allowed by law to rebuild there, however, as it falls within a coastal buffer zone where the Sri Lankan government has prohibited new construction of family dwellings. The government offered him land 9 kilometers inland, but he said he needs to be by the sea to work. The price of suitable land closer to the coast has skyrocketed.
Jayalath's frustrations mirror those of many around the perimeter of this island of 20 million people where, by a year after the waves receded, any sense of national unity generated by the tsunami had clearly evaporated.
Renewed fighting
Despite a 2002 cease-fire agreement, renewed fighting between Tamil separatists in the north and the Sinhalese-dominated government in Colombo has killed more than 5,000 people in the last two years, taking the death toll since the war erupted in 1983 to around 70,000. The government officially terminated the cease-fire agreement on Jan. 3.
Thousands of civilians, including many displaced by the tsunami and just resettled in new homes, have been uprooted again by the renewed fighting.
To the Rev. Jayasiri Peiris, chief executive of the National Christian Council, December of 2004 represents a missed opportunity. "When the waves were crashing down on Sri Lanka, both the LTTE and the government protected the people," he said. "They both carried out rescue operations without bothering about religion or ethnic affiliation. But some mischief makers with their own political agenda didn't want that to continue."
According to a November report from the International Crisis Group, a resurgence of Sinhalese nationalism in the south has emboldened extremists and handed "established politicians a diversion from their failure to address economic weakness, social concerns and pervasive corruption."
The report also blames the "brutality and intransigence" of the LTTE, the so-called "Tamil Tigers," for the country's deteriorating political climate, and argues that the two competing nationalisms "have sapped the ability of governments to develop a consensus for a negotiated settlement and power sharing" to the long conflict.
Despite the discouraging political environment, tsunami-related reconstruction goes on. ACT-sponsored houses are being finished and families are moving in. Supplementary classes for tsunami-affected children continue to meet in makeshift schoolrooms. Livelihood projects provide critical income for people for whom the depressed fishing industry has meant continued suffering.
"The housing problem is relatively solved from an outsider's view, but for the fishing families it's not all right," said the Rev. Ramash Fernando, a Methodist pastor in Tangalle. "If you're forced to live 8 to 10 kilometers away from the sea, it's difficult to do your job. These are people who know only how to fish. And there are indirect effects as well. Many of the women who lived near the harbors earned money stitching nets, but they can't do that now if they live far inland. Many fishing families were doing fine but lived in a poor house before the tsunami, and now after the tsunami they live in a nice house but have hardly any income."
Fernando said he joined with other Catholic and Buddhist religious leaders in the area to pressure the government to relax its restrictions on rebuilding along the coast, but with no significant result.
Rebuilding livelihoods
Although it has built almost 200 new homes for tsunami survivors, much of the National Christian Council's focus over the last three years has been rebuilding livelihoods, thus sidestepping the chronic delays and bureaucratic difficulties of housing reconstruction.
"We've had a significant impact by setting people back on their feet materially and psychologically, both in the fishing and non-fishing sectors. While some nongovernmental organizations focused more on housing, we worked on equipping people with the skills and tools for them to support their families over the long haul," said Kishani de Vaz, director of the National Christian Council's tsunami recovery program.
After that, it's been up to the ingenuity of beneficiaries. P.H. Nandasini's house near Tangalle was destroyed by the tsunami. He never found his boat or nets. He got a new boat motor from ACT, which he puts on the back of his bicycle and peddles 15 kilometers to place on a friend's boat. Together they fish and then divide the proceeds.
A Buddhist, Nandasini said ACT has provided the only significant assistance in his village. "The government doesn't have money or a plan. And other groups from other countries come here and ask thousands of questions about our needs, then they come back and take pictures of us, and then we never see them again," he said.
According to de Vaz, the renewed conflict-with its security restrictions and massive population displacements-has made tsunami recovery even more complicated and expensive. "If prices and people would have just remained where they were in 2005, this would have been a lot easier," she said.
Training programs have to be constantly reworked. "We do an assessment and mark some people out for training or education, but when we go to find them they've been forced to move because of the conflict," she said.
Since the war's renewal, Sri Lanka has been a dangerous place for aid workers, and access by nongovernmental organizations to internally displaced families is often prohibited by the government. So the National Christian Council works with pastors from its eight member denominations who do have access. "There's a lot we can do through them," de Vaz said.
In the south of the country, which is strongly Buddhist, access to affected communities often was accomplished in coordination with local temple leaders. Cooperation was so successful in most areas that church leaders say Buddhist-Christian tension, which had erupted in several violent attacks before the tsunami, is today greatly reduced.
"We have always communicated with the religious leaders of an area that we had no intention of converting the people," she explained. "We were there simply to provide them assistance. As a result, there are fewer tensions today than in the past, because they've seen that our work was done to help them, not to convert them."
Relief worries
De Vaz does worry about the effect that the larger tsunami recovery effort-what some dubbed the "second tsunami"-has had on Sri Lankan culture.
"We've unfortunately become a more dependent society. In our work, we've tried hard to help people move away from wanting handouts, from waiting for someone else to come and solve their problems, and instead learn to study and work to set themselves up in a way they can support their families. Perhaps much of the relief funding came in too quickly and took away the opportunity that people had to help each other."
Most of that outside assistance came with billboards attached. Sri Lanka has become "logoland"- its coastal areas blanketed with signs explaining how houses, boats, villages and schools are sponsored by foreign aid groups, governments, corporations and churches. The National Christian Council made a conscious decision at the beginning of the tsunami operation not to engage in such branding.
Peiris thinks questions about relief funding should go even farther. "Many of us ask why so much attention got focused on this disaster," he noted.
"Is the world only compassionate when there are dramatic catastrophes? How many children die every day from hunger or the lack of safe drinking water? That's an even greater catastrophe, but the conscience of many in the western world isn't moved to respond by that," he said. "There's something wrong with the world."
*Jeffrey is a United Methodist missionary and senior correspondent for Response, the magazine of United Methodist Women. He has covered Sri Lanka's response to the tsunami for Action by Churches Together.
By Paul Jeffrey*
A fisherman throws a net at Waligama on Sri Lanka's southern coast. The National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, with support from United Methodist-supported ACT International, has helped tsunami survivors start over and rebuild their livelihoods. UMNS photos by Paul Jeffrey.COLOMBO, Sri Lanka (UMNS) - Three years ago, Susantha Jayalath survived the tsunami that swept across the Indian Ocean and devastated the coast of Sri Lanka.
He lost his fishing boat and nets, and within weeks sold his wife's jewelry to make the down-payment on a new boat. Then a war got in the way of earning a living, and life for Jayalath remains stalled long after the waves receded.
Jayalath's struggles reflect larger challenges that Sri Lanka has faced in the three years since the Dec. 26, 2004, tsunami killed 35,000 people and left more than half a million people homeless on the island nation. Yet hope seems an integral element of the character of those who take to the sea in small boats, so Jayalath has not given up.
His boat is anchored in the harbor of Mirissa, a nearby village on Sri Lanka's southern coast, and has a motor and nets donated by the National Christian Council of Sri Lanka, part of the massive relief effort of Action by Churches Together (ACT), a United Methodist-supported alliance of church agencies responding to emergencies.
Jayalath often sets off to resume fishing; yet each time he is told by military officials that he can't go far from shore. "Before the tsunami, there were lots of fish," he explained. "But since then, everything has changed. It's much harder to earn a living fishing today.
"I can only have a motor that's less than 15 horsepower, because if it's bigger the Navy says it could be used by the LTTE [the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam]. And I can only go out 5 kilometers, even though the big fish are farther out. They let the big boats go out there, but not small fishermen like me. I don't know how I'm supposed to earn a living."
Jayalath and his family still live in a temporary shelter built on the ruins of their old house. He's not allowed by law to rebuild there, however, as it falls within a coastal buffer zone where the Sri Lankan government has prohibited new construction of family dwellings. The government offered him land 9 kilometers inland, but he said he needs to be by the sea to work. The price of suitable land closer to the coast has skyrocketed.
Jayalath's frustrations mirror those of many around the perimeter of this island of 20 million people where, by a year after the waves receded, any sense of national unity generated by the tsunami had clearly evaporated.
Renewed fighting
Despite a 2002 cease-fire agreement, renewed fighting between Tamil separatists in the north and the Sinhalese-dominated government in Colombo has killed more than 5,000 people in the last two years, taking the death toll since the war erupted in 1983 to around 70,000. The government officially terminated the cease-fire agreement on Jan. 3.
Thousands of civilians, including many displaced by the tsunami and just resettled in new homes, have been uprooted again by the renewed fighting.
To the Rev. Jayasiri Peiris, chief executive of the National Christian Council, December of 2004 represents a missed opportunity. "When the waves were crashing down on Sri Lanka, both the LTTE and the government protected the people," he said. "They both carried out rescue operations without bothering about religion or ethnic affiliation. But some mischief makers with their own political agenda didn't want that to continue."
According to a November report from the International Crisis Group, a resurgence of Sinhalese nationalism in the south has emboldened extremists and handed "established politicians a diversion from their failure to address economic weakness, social concerns and pervasive corruption."
The report also blames the "brutality and intransigence" of the LTTE, the so-called "Tamil Tigers," for the country's deteriorating political climate, and argues that the two competing nationalisms "have sapped the ability of governments to develop a consensus for a negotiated settlement and power sharing" to the long conflict.
Despite the discouraging political environment, tsunami-related reconstruction goes on. ACT-sponsored houses are being finished and families are moving in. Supplementary classes for tsunami-affected children continue to meet in makeshift schoolrooms. Livelihood projects provide critical income for people for whom the depressed fishing industry has meant continued suffering.
"The housing problem is relatively solved from an outsider's view, but for the fishing families it's not all right," said the Rev. Ramash Fernando, a Methodist pastor in Tangalle. "If you're forced to live 8 to 10 kilometers away from the sea, it's difficult to do your job. These are people who know only how to fish. And there are indirect effects as well. Many of the women who lived near the harbors earned money stitching nets, but they can't do that now if they live far inland. Many fishing families were doing fine but lived in a poor house before the tsunami, and now after the tsunami they live in a nice house but have hardly any income."
Fernando said he joined with other Catholic and Buddhist religious leaders in the area to pressure the government to relax its restrictions on rebuilding along the coast, but with no significant result.
Rebuilding livelihoods
Although it has built almost 200 new homes for tsunami survivors, much of the National Christian Council's focus over the last three years has been rebuilding livelihoods, thus sidestepping the chronic delays and bureaucratic difficulties of housing reconstruction.
"We've had a significant impact by setting people back on their feet materially and psychologically, both in the fishing and non-fishing sectors. While some nongovernmental organizations focused more on housing, we worked on equipping people with the skills and tools for them to support their families over the long haul," said Kishani de Vaz, director of the National Christian Council's tsunami recovery program.
After that, it's been up to the ingenuity of beneficiaries. P.H. Nandasini's house near Tangalle was destroyed by the tsunami. He never found his boat or nets. He got a new boat motor from ACT, which he puts on the back of his bicycle and peddles 15 kilometers to place on a friend's boat. Together they fish and then divide the proceeds.
A Buddhist, Nandasini said ACT has provided the only significant assistance in his village. "The government doesn't have money or a plan. And other groups from other countries come here and ask thousands of questions about our needs, then they come back and take pictures of us, and then we never see them again," he said.
According to de Vaz, the renewed conflict-with its security restrictions and massive population displacements-has made tsunami recovery even more complicated and expensive. "If prices and people would have just remained where they were in 2005, this would have been a lot easier," she said.
Training programs have to be constantly reworked. "We do an assessment and mark some people out for training or education, but when we go to find them they've been forced to move because of the conflict," she said.
Since the war's renewal, Sri Lanka has been a dangerous place for aid workers, and access by nongovernmental organizations to internally displaced families is often prohibited by the government. So the National Christian Council works with pastors from its eight member denominations who do have access. "There's a lot we can do through them," de Vaz said.
In the south of the country, which is strongly Buddhist, access to affected communities often was accomplished in coordination with local temple leaders. Cooperation was so successful in most areas that church leaders say Buddhist-Christian tension, which had erupted in several violent attacks before the tsunami, is today greatly reduced.
"We have always communicated with the religious leaders of an area that we had no intention of converting the people," she explained. "We were there simply to provide them assistance. As a result, there are fewer tensions today than in the past, because they've seen that our work was done to help them, not to convert them."
Relief worries
De Vaz does worry about the effect that the larger tsunami recovery effort-what some dubbed the "second tsunami"-has had on Sri Lankan culture.
"We've unfortunately become a more dependent society. In our work, we've tried hard to help people move away from wanting handouts, from waiting for someone else to come and solve their problems, and instead learn to study and work to set themselves up in a way they can support their families. Perhaps much of the relief funding came in too quickly and took away the opportunity that people had to help each other."
Most of that outside assistance came with billboards attached. Sri Lanka has become "logoland"- its coastal areas blanketed with signs explaining how houses, boats, villages and schools are sponsored by foreign aid groups, governments, corporations and churches. The National Christian Council made a conscious decision at the beginning of the tsunami operation not to engage in such branding.
Peiris thinks questions about relief funding should go even farther. "Many of us ask why so much attention got focused on this disaster," he noted.
"Is the world only compassionate when there are dramatic catastrophes? How many children die every day from hunger or the lack of safe drinking water? That's an even greater catastrophe, but the conscience of many in the western world isn't moved to respond by that," he said. "There's something wrong with the world."
*Jeffrey is a United Methodist missionary and senior correspondent for Response, the magazine of United Methodist Women. He has covered Sri Lanka's response to the tsunami for Action by Churches Together.
UMCOR begins fourth year of tsunami assistance
by Michelle Scott*
The United Methodist Committee on Relief delivers boats to communities in Sri Lanka following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated coastal communities of South Asia and East Africa. A UMNS file photo courtesy of UMCOR.
NEW YORK (UMNS) - The United Methodist Committee on Relief is working to help tsunami survivors find a "new normal" more than three years after one of the world's worst natural disasters killed an estimated 230,000 people and displaced millions in 11 countries.
In Indonesia and Sri Lanka-the countries most affected by the tsunami-UMCOR offices continue to work daily to help survivors recover whatever possible. UMCOR also provided relief and recovery assistance in Somalia, India and Thailand.
United Methodists and others have contributed approximately $42 million to UMCOR's tsunami relief response since the Dec. 26, 2004, disaster.
UMCOR emphasizes a shared approach that encourages participants to take ownership of their recovery and to act as project partners in an effort to empower survivors to restore their lives.
UMCOR officials offer this update on their ongoing work in the two hardest hit countries:
Indonesia
In Aceh Province, UMCOR has helped 40,000 people directly through housing and infrastructure reconstruction, community development, income generation and livelihoods programs, and education. The agency also worked with the Methodist Church of Indonesia in Banda Aceh to help the church be a place of service to their community.
In addition to the work in Aceh Province on the island of Sumatra, UMCOR is expanding its relief to Nias Island, which was also heavily damaged by the 2004 earthquake and tsunami. In March 2005, the island was nearly leveled by a second earthquake.
In Nias, an area where many families are without access to safe water, UMCOR is conducting a large-scale water research project, which will result in a master water supply plan for South Nias and at least one water supply infrastructure project on the island.
Sri Lanka
UMCOR's recovery efforts in Sri Lanka have involved collaboration with the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka, including helping Sri Lankan Methodists expand their own capacity to respond to disaster. The work is interrupted from time to time by ongoing political and military conflict in the tsunami zone.
The challenge spurred UMCOR to seek ways to overcome the causes of the violence, a determination enhanced by a partnership with Muslim Aid, an aid agency based in the United Kingdom.
UMCOR's programs support survivors of both the tragedies of tsunami and civil strife, providing homes and food, improving agriculture production, rebuilding infrastructures, and generating jobs and business development. Rural reconstruction and development ranks high on the list of priorities. More than 100,000 people have been helped through these projects.
*Scott is director of communications for the United Methodist Committee on Relief.
by Michelle Scott*
The United Methodist Committee on Relief delivers boats to communities in Sri Lanka following the 2004 Indian Ocean tsunami that devastated coastal communities of South Asia and East Africa. A UMNS file photo courtesy of UMCOR.NEW YORK (UMNS) - The United Methodist Committee on Relief is working to help tsunami survivors find a "new normal" more than three years after one of the world's worst natural disasters killed an estimated 230,000 people and displaced millions in 11 countries.
In Indonesia and Sri Lanka-the countries most affected by the tsunami-UMCOR offices continue to work daily to help survivors recover whatever possible. UMCOR also provided relief and recovery assistance in Somalia, India and Thailand.
United Methodists and others have contributed approximately $42 million to UMCOR's tsunami relief response since the Dec. 26, 2004, disaster.
UMCOR emphasizes a shared approach that encourages participants to take ownership of their recovery and to act as project partners in an effort to empower survivors to restore their lives.
UMCOR officials offer this update on their ongoing work in the two hardest hit countries:
Indonesia
In Aceh Province, UMCOR has helped 40,000 people directly through housing and infrastructure reconstruction, community development, income generation and livelihoods programs, and education. The agency also worked with the Methodist Church of Indonesia in Banda Aceh to help the church be a place of service to their community.
In addition to the work in Aceh Province on the island of Sumatra, UMCOR is expanding its relief to Nias Island, which was also heavily damaged by the 2004 earthquake and tsunami. In March 2005, the island was nearly leveled by a second earthquake.
In Nias, an area where many families are without access to safe water, UMCOR is conducting a large-scale water research project, which will result in a master water supply plan for South Nias and at least one water supply infrastructure project on the island.
Sri Lanka
UMCOR's recovery efforts in Sri Lanka have involved collaboration with the Methodist Church of Sri Lanka, including helping Sri Lankan Methodists expand their own capacity to respond to disaster. The work is interrupted from time to time by ongoing political and military conflict in the tsunami zone.
The challenge spurred UMCOR to seek ways to overcome the causes of the violence, a determination enhanced by a partnership with Muslim Aid, an aid agency based in the United Kingdom.
UMCOR's programs support survivors of both the tragedies of tsunami and civil strife, providing homes and food, improving agriculture production, rebuilding infrastructures, and generating jobs and business development. Rural reconstruction and development ranks high on the list of priorities. More than 100,000 people have been helped through these projects.
*Scott is director of communications for the United Methodist Committee on Relief.
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