Mennonites, church groups call for peace for Serbia

AKRON, PA.

While NATO continued its air bombing raids on Yugoslavia, Mennonite groups in Canada, the US and Germany and Canadian churches were calling for NATO to end the bombings in Serbia.

The Conference of Mennonites in Canada sent a letter April 1 to the Canadian government saying that CMC condemned the bombings.

Mennonite Central Committee Canada, which also wants Canada to stop its involvement in the bombing campaign, is asking its constituency to write members of Parliament, Foreign Affairs Minister Lloyd Axworthy and Prime Minister Jean Chrétien, asking that Canada help find a peaceful solution.

MCC is committed to supporting peace initiatives and working towards reconciliation in the Balkans. Besides requests for prayer, MCC is asking that humanitarian agencies increase their emergency efforts; that the United Nations Security Council pursue a peace settlement; that aggression against the people of Kosovo end; and that NATO cease the bombing campaign.

The Union of German Mennonite Congregations (Vereinigung der Deutschen Mennonitengemeinden) in northern Germany approved a statement concerning the Balkan conflict at its annual meeting in Niedergörsdorf on April 24. The statement says:

"We believe in the power that grows out of God's reconciling love, and in the gospel of Jesus Christ. This belief challenges us at this time to search for possibilities of nonviolent solutions. . . .Therefore, we call upon all of the parties in this conflict to reason together to break out of the violence spiral and to find ways to peace through civilian conflict resolution. For the sake of the suffering people, we want to support those efforts that nonviolently strive for peace and human rights in all parts of the Balkans."

The Evangelical Fellowship of Canada, an association of 32 denominations, is calling on the Canadian government to work towards peace and justice in the Balkans.

While mainline churches in Canada acknowledged the horrors of the Serbian "ethnic cleansing" policy as a tragedy, they also called for a moratorium on the NATO bombing campaign.

Canada, a member of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, launched its CF-18 Hornets from NATO airbases in Italy on March 24, setting new precedents for a country that once was known for its peacekeeping stance. NATO launched airstrikes against Serbia after Yugoslav President Slovodan Milosevic rejected NATO's proposal to send in peacekeeping troops under a Paris peace plan.

Meanwhile, a group of lawyers from several countries has laid a formal complaint with the International Criminal Tribunal in The Hague for the Former Yugoslavia aganist all of the individual leaders of the NATO countries and officials of NATO itself. The group is charging NATO with war crimes. The complaint was initiated by professors from Osgoode Hall Law School of York University in Toronto. They allege that NATO leaders ordered the bombings of civilian targets in hopes that the people of Serbia would oppose President Milosevic's government. The hearings were scheduled to open May 10 at the International Court of Justice in The Hague, the Netherlands.--PW, from releases

600s Serbs, part of south Slav peoples, arrive in the Balkans.

1200s Serbian rule of the region, including Greece and what is now Albania.

June 28, 1389 Battle of Kosovo: "Field of Blackbirds". Serbia is conquered by Muslim Turks, becoming part of the Ottoman Empire.

1874 Serbian revolt in two provinces of Bosnia and Herzegovina.

1876 Serbia declares war on Turkey. Britain is bound to defend Constantinople because of Britain's interest in the Suez Canal and India.

1878 Russia and Romania ally to fight Ottoman Empire. Russia is forced to give up its support of Serbian nationalism. Austria-Hungary occupies Bosnia and Herzegovina. Peace is negotiated at Congress of Berlin, but Serbian claims are ignored.

1885 Hostilities erupt between Serbia and Bulgaria. Austria-Hungary intercedes to prevent Russian domination of the Balkans.

1887 Germany refuses to help Russia in the Balkans.

1908 Austria-Hungary annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina against Russia's objections. Russia supports Serbia's discontent over Austrian acquisition. Serbian nationalism grows.

1912 The Balkan Wars. Serbia shows interest in Bulgaria; Russia backs Serbia. Serbs resent Austria-Hungary for frustrating Serbian quest for nationalism.

June 28, 1914 Bosnian Serb Gavrilo Princip, 19, assassinates Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the Austro-Hungarian throne, in Sarajevo, Bosnia.

July 28, 1914 Austria-Hungary declares war on Serbia. Austro-Serbian war esclates into the Great War with most of Europe engaged.

1919 Treaty of Paris. The map of Europe is redrawn. Kosovo is part of the Kingdom of Serbs, Croats and Slovenes; in 1929, it is renamed Yugoslavia.

1941 Germany invades Yugoslavia. The Albanians, allies to Nazi Germany and fascist Italy, slaughter the Serbs.

1945 Josip Broz (1892-1980) a.k.a. Tito, a Croatian communist, leads the new nation-state; later becomes president of the communist republic.

1974 Kosovo is granted autonomy from Yugoslavia.

1987 Slobodan Milosevic (b. 1941) comes to power.

1989 Milosevic is elected president; Kosovo's autonomy is taken away.

1991 Following the collapse of communism, Croatia, Slovenia and Macedonia declare independence.

1992 Kosovo votes to secede from Serbia and Yugoslavia, indicating a desire to merge with Albania. Serb forces carry out "ethnic cleansing".

1995 Bosnia declares independence.

1997 Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA) starts aggressions against Serbs.

1998 Milosevic sends in Serb troops to handle KLA aggressions.

March 1999 Peace talks are suspended when Serbs reject NATO's proposal to send in peacekeeping forces.

BELGRADE, YUGOSLAVIA

Evangelical Christians in Yugoslavia are often viewed with scorn, both by Orthodox Christian Serbs and by ethnic Albanian Kosovars. Ethnic Albanians, who comprise 90% of Kosovo's population, are Muslim, and Serbs are Orthodox Christians. But, as NATO bombs began to fall around Belgrade, a local evangelical relief worker found her apartment full of neighbours seeking comfort in words of hope she read from her New Testament.

They knew she was a Christian because of her work with refugees in the community, reported Jasmina Tosic of Bread of Life, the humanitarian outreach of Serbian evangelical churches, which represent between 200 and 400 Kosovans. Tosic urged Christians around the world to pray for the safety of those in Yugoslavia who do not know Jesus Christ.

Tosic's story is not unique; throughout Yugoslavia the war is creating ministry opportunities for Christians. "They are thinking of their neighbours, relatives and friends," Branko Bjelejac, a Serb journalist and evangelical Christian, told Religion Today.

Pentecostal pastor Miodrag Stankovic of Leskovac, Serbia, sent an e-mail March 24 indicating that his church was providing refuge in a bomb shelter. "Our non-Christian neighbours asked if we would allow them to seek refuge in it. 'Of course', we said. We also thought of the children from the kindergarten near our church. They will need a safe haven too. We Christians see it as our duty to stand up in the gap between the nations of our land," Stankovic said.

The growing refugee problem also presents an opportunity for Christian ministry. "Reaching Kosovar refugees is the key to establishing a people for His name in Kosovo," said Eastern Europe director of Christian Aid Mission, Ray Miles.

Miles, a missionary to Albania in 1992-93, recalled visiting a refugee family last September while a fellow believer helped them obtain food, clothing and medical care. "This Muslim family, who had eaten nothing but green peppers for weeks, was utterly disarmed by the compassion of these evangelical Christians," Miles said.

"Before that, the only kind of Christians they had known were Serbian Orthodox. Seven years earlier, the head of the family, then a member of the Serb army, had watched while Serb soldiers wearing crosses on their uniforms cut out the eyes of Croatian captives. That was when he abandoned the army and sided with the rebels."

Miles added, "It is this kind of love-in-action witness that will open the doors of Kosovo like nothing else will."

Since the fighting broke out, Bread of Life has provided 31 tonnes of food, clothing and hygienic supplies to Christian organizations in Kosovo. The aid, primarily distributed to Kosovo Albanian Assistance, has also been provided to other victims of the fighting, including Kosovo Serbs and various other Kosovo ethnic groups. Some of this aid has been channeled through the Serbian-language Baptist Church in Pec.--Evangelical Press News Service, Compass Direct

* More than 600,000 Kosovars have been displaced; nearly 400,000 of them are seeking refuge in Macedonia, Albania and Montenegro.

* Montenegro, a republic of Yugoslavia, has 638,000 people, 70% are Montenegrin and 7% Albanian.

* Albania, Europe's poorest country, has 3.3 million people. The 95% Albanian majority make it the most ethnically receptive area.

* Macedonia is made up of Macedonians, Serbs and ethnic Albanians, who make up 23% of the republic's 2 million people.

* Refugees crossing into Albania and Macedonia were given 2,500-calorie humanitarian daily ration packet, which is a meatless meal consisting of vegetable biscuits, "rice loaf" and a book of "USA" matches.--Time, Newsweek

TIRANA, ALBANIA

Tent cities in Albania have become the home of thousands of Kosovar refugees in recent weeks. Less visible are the thousands of refugees who have been welcomed into the homes of Albanian families, who are themselves poor. Some two-room apartments house 20-30 people. Other refugees find shelter in churches and community centres. Mennonite Central Committee is concentrating its aid on helping Kosovar refugees and their Albanian hosts. Large aid agencies, such as the United Nations, are running refugee camps. MCC will spend at least $1.5 million to supply food, bedding and other necessities for Kosovar refugees in Albania. MCC's relief efforts will be mainly coordinated through local churches.

In Tirana, Albania's capital, churches are running a transit centre handling more than 3,000 refugees inside an indoor sports stadium. They are providing water, food, clothing and emotional support. Volunteers are helping in an outdoor tent city of 2,200. A church in the southern town of Erseke is caring for 760 refugees and another 300 are expected. In northern Albania, a small church is welcoming mothers with newborn babies into church members' homes, providing them with food and shelter. Despite these efforts, it seems that the trauma of the refugees is the hardest part to ease. President of World Relief, Clive Claver, described the refugees as "traumatized by what they've endured, shocked by how quickly it has happened and unable to see any human answer to the plight they now face."

MCC workers Dan and Evanna Hess are in Albania to coordinate MCC relief efforts to more than 300,000 Kosovar refugees there. The Hesses report of refugees' chilling stories. The accounts have become too familiar: people forced to leave their homes at gunpoint, homes burned, families separated, women taken by police, possessions and legal documents taken, the dead left unburied.

One refugee described how because his family was given only a few minutes to pack up and leave Kosovo, they were separated. The rest of his family is in Montenegro. Another tells of watching a car explode when it hit a land mine, killing an entire family.

Reports of attacks by Serbian police and the Kosovo Liberation Army (KLA), which have caused many to flee the province, have also been noted. The situation in other refugee camps is the same. For the Kosovar refugees who manage to escape Kosovo finding a place of safety is no guarantee. That was made clear when about 100 refugees spending the night in a village in southwestern Kosovo were reportedly killed during a NATO bombing raid.

In response to overcrowding in the refugee camps, Canada has begun emergency airlifting 5,000 Kosovars to Canada. There are 23 countries that are taking in some refugees, including the US, Germany and Britain. Further, MCC is searching for Mennonite sponsorship to help refugees coming to Canada. To date, 110 families, comprised of 450 people, have been accepted under the family reunification program. The federal government will pay for food, lodging, clothes and furnishings for up to two years. Since the Balkan conflict erupted in the early 1990s, MCC has helped Mennonite church groups in Canada sponsor more than 650 people from the former Yugoslavia. MCC also has shipped two 20-foot containers filled with 30,240 kg of canned beef to northern Albania. At the end of May, MCC was preparing to ship 6 more containers of material aid. The shipment includes comforters, sheets, winter clothing, soap, towels, canned turkey and chicken, and 500 refugee kits. To date, MCC has received over $1.98 million and over 25,400 refugee kits from the US and Canada to help Kosovo victims. Canadian Foodgrains Bank is providing 45 containers of oil, flour and beans for distribution.

Refugee kits and/or cheques should be sent to MCC marked "Yugolsav War Victims". The contents of the kits are as follows:

4 bars of antibacterial soap

1 plastic bottle of shampoo (min. 450 ml. Put in plastic bag.)

10 cups of powdered laundry detergent. (Place in two large resealable plastic bags)

1 tube of toothpaste (min. 130 ml)

4 adult-sized toothbrushes

4 new bath towels

1 hairbrush

1 comb

1 nail clipper

1 box of sterile gauze (min. 10 in a box, approx. 10 cm x 10 cm)

1 roll of adhesive tape for medical use (1.2 cm x 9 m long)

1 package of 24 sanitary napkins (thin maxi)--from reports by Mennonite Central Committee, Evangelical Press News Service, The Winnipeg Free Press

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