CNS STORY: South African church officials to help Sierra Leone Catholics rebuild

SAFRICA-SLEONE Oct-1-2009 (680 words) xxxi

South African church officials to help Sierra Leone Catholics rebuild

By Bronwen Dachs

Catholic News Service

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Catholic officials in South Africa will use their experiences of rebuilding after apartheid to help the church in Sierra Leone rebuild after its 11-year civil war, South African Catholic leaders said.

While a U.N.-backed Special Court for Sierra Leone and the country's Truth and Reconciliation Commission have completed their work, restitution to victims of the war that ended eight years ago is due to begin in October, said Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg, vice chairman of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference justice and peace commission.

Bishop Dowling and Father Sean O'Leary, director of the Pretoria-based Denis Hurley Peace Institute, visited the West African country Sept. 12-18.

The church in Sierra Leone "needs to help the country deal with the underlying causes of the civil war," Bishop Dowling said in a Sept. 28 telephone interview, noting that this is "a big challenge."

The war in the West African nation, which left tens of thousands of people dead and displaced hundreds of thousands more, was "most brutal," Bishop Dowling told Catholic News Service, noting that rebel groups in Sierra Leone were notorious for chopping off the limbs of their victims, instilling fear throughout the population.

"The dynamic between justice, peace and reconciliation is complicated, and often justice is sacrificed in the interests of peace," he said.

Helping the church in Sierra Leone set up structures to facilitate reconciliation and "build sustainable peace" will be a priority for the South African church, Bishop Dowling said.

The South African church "will use its resources," including the justice and peace commission, the Denis Hurley Peace Institute and the Cape Town-based parliamentary liaison office, "to strengthen church structures in Sierra Leone and support local efforts to rebuild," Bishop Dowling said.

Perpetrators and victims of the civil war "come from the same society, and the rebuilding of the community needs to be done on a basis of trust and forgiveness," he said, noting that "internal wounds need to be healed."

Huge damage was done to Sierra Leone's infrastructure in the war, said Bishop Dowling, who with Father O'Leary visited Bishop Patrick Koroma of Kenema, "whose entire diocese was destroyed in the war and is now being reconstructed."

During the war, priests and religious were expelled, church property was looted and vandalized, and many church-run clinics, schools, orphanages and church buildings were burned.

In the capital, Freetown, Father O'Leary and Bishop Dowling met with the government-backed national committee for social action, which has assessed the needs of 29,000 war victims who will receive government compensation, Bishop Dowling said.

"I was very impressed at the thorough and holistic way the assessments were done," he said.

"The needs of individuals have been assessed and the committee has passed on documents to the departments of health and education to make sure that children who have had limbs hacked off get proper schooling and medical care," he said, noting that the committee is "not just handing out money."

In a Sept. 29 telephone interview from Pretoria, Father O'Leary told CNS that $3 million has been allocated to compensate war victims, who have been divided into "amputees, war-wounded, victims of sexual violence, war widows and orphans of the war."

"There are parallels" with South Africa in that the South African government made payments to apartheid victims in 2003, seven years after the Truth and Reconciliation Commission began its investigations into human rights abuses under apartheid.

South Africa's system of apartheid, or racial segregation, lasted from 1948, when the nationalist government came into power, until the country's first all-race elections in April 1994.

Father O'Leary and Bishop Dowling held workshops in four centers in Sierra Leone, discussing South Africa's reconciliation process with local church leaders, victims of the war, members of civil society and truth commission members.

Despite the country's rich mineral resources, including diamonds, most of Sierra Leone's 5.3 million people are extremely poor, Bishop Dowling said.

Life expectancy at birth is 41 years and the likelihood of dying before the age of 40 is 47 percent, according to U.N. Development Program statistics.

END

Copyright (c) 2009 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250