Williams Criticises International Community amid Ongoing Sudan Conflict

|PIC1|The Archbishop of Canterbury has criticised the selfishness of the international community in its lack of action on war-torn Sudan where many victims of the ongoing conflict face daily struggles without basic services, goods and security.

“Too few voices are raised in the wealthy world to protest. In Darfur, neither national nor international forces have found a way of breaking the cycle of brutal violence and terror,” said Dr Rowan Williams in his Eastertide Letter which was sent to the heads of Churches and confessional families throughout the world.

“Too many of us human beings, it seems, are content that death should be at work in others so long as our own life is unaffected.”

Dr Williams admitted he had been left troubled by his recent visit to Sudan which revealed the very little progress that has been made in easing the suffering of the people.

He also expressed his concern at the lack of speed in bringing vital aid to vulnerable people in the war-torn region who are still awaiting the arrival of most of the US$4.5bn of aid promised to be delivered to the south of the country.

A visit to Sudan, the archbishop said, “brought home just how little and just how slowly we respond to each other according to the laws of the new creation”.

|AD|A peace deal was signed last year to bring to an end 21 years of bloody strife and conflict. Dr Williams is among many observers concerned at the lack of movement since that time, however.

“The mechanisms by which international aid is delivered are so slow that the people of war-torn Southern Sudan, even a whole year after the peace agreement, are still waiting for basic aid, and too few voices are raised in the wealthy world to protest,” he criticised.

He exhorted Christians around the world to remember the Easter message, urging that the Church should live in testimony to the transforming power of the resurrection.

“Easter reminds us that the reality of the new world truly has arrived in our midst. It really is possible to live differently. The cost may look frightening, but its outcome is for all,” said Dr Williams.

“So we should give thanks that our world has been turned upside down by God in Christ; and we should be asking how we may live more fully in that world, accepting death for our selfishness so that the life of Jesus may be seen and experienced in peace justice and reconciliation.”

Jan Egeland, the United Nation’s top humanitarian official warned Thursday that the relief effort in Sudan’s Darfur region could collapse in a matter of weeks if foreign donors fail to contribute more money to the relief work and the government continues to uphold restrictions that have hampered the work of aid workers in the region.

According to Mr Egeland, only 20 per cent of the funds urgently needed to cover the huge relief effort have come in so far this year.

"We simply cannot sustain this massive relief effort much longer," Egeland told the Security Council. "The government has again been imposing restrictions that make our work a daily struggle and administrative nightmare. And funding is dwindling rapidly, as we had feared."

According to a Reuters report, around 180,000 people have died as a result of a three-year conflict between Darfur’s rebels and the Arab-dominated central government, mostly from disease and hunger. A massive 2 million people have been displaced by the unceasing conflict.