One of the last duties of the assassinated speaker of the parliament, Karen Demirchian, was to welcome participants to a "roundtable" meeting, convened by the WCC, for the churches, non-governmental organizations and international Christian agencies that set up the agricultural programme.

Demirchian spoke of his appreciation of ecumenical work in Armenia, which involves Orthodox, Protestants and Roman Catholics in the form of the Armenian Apostolic Church, the Armenian Evangelical Church and the Armenian Catholic Church. The roundtable meeting began with a service in memory of the late Catholicos Karekin I, who was personally instrumental in creating the programme and in securing funds for another one of its successes, a loan project benefiting 300 families and small enterprises.

Religious achievements of the programme include setting up Christian education centres, assisting Evangelical and Orthodox seminaries and restoring an historic Orthodox church. The roundtable is already planning the next three years on an expected budget of USD $451,000, which will include not only social projects, involving local churches more fully, but also ways of further reconciling the Christian traditions.

They call for French defence archives on 30 years of testing to be opened and for the atolls of Mururoa and Fangataufa to be registered as official French nuclear sites subject to radiological monitoring. The campaign will provide 10,000 worried former test site workers in Polynesia with independent research into effects of the tests, and will disseminate information internationally.

In 1997 independent researchers reported that 41 percent of a sample of 737 site workers from the 1960s had worked in possibly contaminated zones and 30 percent of the workers said they had no protective clothing. Last year a French journalist discovered from an official archive that severe contamination of an island in 1966 had been covered up by the military.

The campaign is being run in conjunction with the Pacific Conference of Churches and is backed by a consortium of churches and non-governmental organizations in six European countries.

The Christian community in Ambon fears a systematic attempt to drive it out. The Protestant Church of the Moluccas’s request for an international ecumenical delegation, is receiving urgent joint attention by the WCC, the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) and the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI).

On the Hong Kong agenda were the situations in Irian Jaya and Aceh and East Timor. The meeting examined short-and long-term ecumenical responses to the situation throughout Indonesia and ways of working with its churches through this critical period.

The meeting heard the latest reports from East Timor. Rev Francisco de Vasconcelos of the Christian Church of East Timor told the meeting that his church was so dramatically affected that only four pastors remain. He spoke of the current need for reconciliation among East Timorese Christians divided by political opinion. He also said his church is readying itself for independence from the Indonesian ecumenical body, the PGI.

Stien Jalil, a PGI staff member, sends reports from West Timor, where she is helping the local church to provide over 250,000 refugees with humanitarian relief. In October WCC and CCA staff visited the East Timor refugee camp in Darwin, Australia, where up to 25,000 people have found a temporary home and health care before moving to Sydney or Melbourne. The Hong Kong meeting also heard from the Evangelical Christian Church in Irian Jaya. Its moderator, Rev. Herman Saud, reported that a vast majority of his people support the call for independence from Indonesia.

These political developments have brought new pressures on the Communion of Churches in Indonesia (PGI). Tony Waworuntu, a member of the international affairs committees of both WCC and the Christian Conference of Asia, reminded the meeting of the PGI general assembly to be held in March 2000. He called on that assembly to elect new leadership that is "brave enough ... to put democracy into the life of the church itself."

His subject is the international debt crisis as an obstacle to reconciliation, and he may have some forthright things to say on the Christian record toward debt-laden nations.

When, last year, he handed over to President Mandela the five-volume winding-up report of South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission, which he had headed, it contained a trenchant attack on the country’s churches for past support of apartheid - not only those which preached a doctrinal basis for it, but also those which allowed racially separate congregations or failed to succour apartheid’s victims.

The Sarah Chakko Theological Endowment Fund aims to help women, especially from the southern hemisphere or central and eastern Europe, who seek a theological education but have difficulty in getting scholarships, and who have to cope with heavy responsibilities at home.

The fund was launched by female WCC staff at the 1998 Festival for the Decade of Churches in Solidarity with Women. But first comes the twin targets of raising $3 million in five years, to give the fund an annual income of $150,000, and of finding a young female intern who will help in the fund-raising for a year. Contributions can be sent to the WCC, clearly marked ‘The Sarah Chakko Theological Endowment Fund’.

While TV screens flash with other conflicts, the agony of Sri Lanka slips out of sight. The 16-year-old civil war drags on, making citizens refugees in their own country and maiming and killing children with landmines.

The government and rebel leaders are in deadlock over the national peace process. But grassroots reconciliation moves continue by the churches, one of the few only institutions that bring both ethnic groups together. Sri Lanka’s National Christian Council, for example, is half Sinhalese and half Tamil.

The council gives emergency relief to displaced people and helps their children to continue schooling. For instance, a Methodist pastor and his wife run a home for 54 displaced boys in the Mannar district, where the army patrols by day and Tamil Tigers roam at night. Among several other Christian initiatives, Methodists visit Vavuniya’s camp, which holds 7,000 people returned from India or displaced internally.

Children in school in Sri Lanka

The boys’ home and the camp had other special visitors when the WCC and the Christian Conference of Asia held a consultation in Sri Lanka for 36 Asian church leaders on the rights of displaced people. Before business began, the international delegates divided into three groups to visit distant camps.

Elizabeth Ferris, a WCC International Affairs executive, recalled: "Our van passed through at least 150 military checkpoints, and as darkness fell we were stopped every few minutes by soldiers carrying guns. A pastor explained: ‘The government forces control this side of the road and the Tamil Tigers control that side.’"

The Rev. Andrew Chang of the Presbyterian Church in Taiwan said after seeing the camps: "I had no idea of the scale of suffering in Sri Lanka."

Supporting the island’s churches both morally and practically is a WCC priority. Clement John, an International Affairs executive, said in Geneva: "We have to remind the world community that Sri Lanka’s needs must be addressed."

Dr Heidi Hadsell, director of the Institute and a Presbyterian from the United States, described the gift as "an investment in the ecumenical education of global Christian leadership in the next millennium". This year the Institute set up a five-year redevelopment plan seeking $6 million in new endowments for faculty chairs and scholarships, and allocating $4 million to improved facilities. Renovation will start in April on accommodation, kitchen and reception areas.

The Institute will be doubling its current intake of 48 ordained and lay students, who benefit from graduate courses and seminars led by Protestant, Orthodox and Roman Catholic professors.

An accord was signed between the government of Sierra Leone and the Revolutionary United Front on July 7 this year. But most people realise the peace is fragile and disarmament is a major next step. This is also a call for reconciliation among all the factions.

They have called on the international ecumenical community to pray for them, including a Day of Prayer throughout Africa for Peace in Sierra Leone, but also to assist them in advocacy and lobbying work at the international level, including at the United Nations Commission on Human Rights and the United Nations Secretary-General’s Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Mr Olara A. Otunnu.

Delegation members were deeply impressed at the lack of bitterness among those who have suffered for so long. The visit has provoked a series of urgent discussions at the WCC and AACC about intensive follow-up to the appeals, especially with partner agencies and mission boards. The Sierra Leone church leadership is under strong pressure and needs urgent solidarity and support.

The delegation made the first ecumenical visit to the island’s northern Turkish occupied area since it unilaterally declared independence in 1983. The team crossed the dividing line after a positive response to the suggestion from President Glafcos Clerides of Cyprus and Archbishop Chrysostomos of the Church of Cyprus. A wide range of church, political and community leaders were consulted in both parts of the island, including the Acting UN Special Representative in Cyprus, James Holger.

The WCC renewed support for those courageous enough to seek reconciliation between the two sides and called on the religious communities to engage in those initiatives.

The team was led by the Very Rev. Dr Georges Tsetsis, of the WCC Central and Executive Committees, accompanied by Dr Ernie Regehr, a Canadian Mennonite specialist in conflict transformation and Salpy Eskidjian, of the WCC’s International Relations staff.