AFTER A 4,000 KM DETOUR, ECUMENICAL DELEGATION TO REACH SOUTH OSSETIA

COE (Communiqués de presse
/index/pr-08-76.html
Sept 5 2008
Switzerland

A pastoral delegation sent by the World Council of Churches (WCC) to
Georgia and Russia has not been able to visit South Ossetia from the
Georgian side of the ceasefire line. Unable to make the half-hour drive
to Tskhinvali from within Georgia, they are now traveling thousands
of kilometers to reach the enclave from the Russian side instead.

The ecumenical delegation could not get a guarantee of safe passage
from the authorities inside South Ossetia. The route should by
now be a corridor for aid, but the humanitarian access stipulated
by the ceasefire agreement in mid-August is apparently not being
honored. Armed groups are accused of acts of violence in the area.

Government and aid officials in Georgia told the WCC group that up
to 7,000 ethnic Georgians are still living in South Ossetia under
uncertain conditions. Even the Red Cross has largely been denied
access, they said, but the Georgian Orthodox Church has limited access
to a few of them.

Early in the war, with help from the Russian Orthodox Church, Georgian
Orthodox Patriarch Ilia II secured permission to visit a bishop and
a few priests and nuns who have stayed in South Ossetia. Since then
the church has brought in food and brought out Georgian casualties
that were still lying unburied several days after the war.

"We want to express our immense gratitude that you have come in the
difficult situation Georgia is facing now," the Georgian Patriarch
told the WCC delegation.

"Be assured we are with you at this difficult time," said Archbishop
Nifon of Targoviste, Romania, the delegation head. "We have been
following the situation in your country with great sorrow," said
Rev. Jean-Arnold de Clermont, president of the Conference of European
Churches. "At the same time, we are greatly impressed by your visit
to South Ossetia and by the public declarations in favor of peace by
the two patriarchates of Russia and Georgia."

"Russia is our neighbour and we should have good relations with it,"
Ilia noted.

In Georgia the WCC delegation also met Armenian Orthodox and Baptist
leaders, a member of parliament and a government minister responsible
for refugees, the country’s public defender, member agencies of Action
by Churches Together (ACT) International and displaced people living
in camps and schools.

Humanitarian situation

About two-thirds of the 150,000 people displaced into Georgia by the
conflict have now returned to their homes. Most of the nearly 50,000
still displaced are housed in school buildings. Even as more durable
solutions become urgent, ACT member agencies and local church aid
workers told the WCC delegation of many gaps in meeting immediate
needs.

"With schools in Georgia scheduled to open in one week, the people
we met do not know what will happen next," said Rev. Laszlo Lehel,
director of Hungarian Inter-Church Aid and representing ACT on the
delegation. Some 26,000 of these people are from South Ossetia,
with little immediate prospect of returning home.

Lia Gogitze, a woman from South Ossetia living in a Tbilisi school,
told the delegation, "We lived so well there with our orchards
and livestock. It was like a small paradise. Here we share one
cup." Satellite photos show her village, Kemerti, as one of dozens
of communities in the enclave heavily damaged by fire in the days
since the major fighting ceased.

To visit the enclave the delegation is making a 4,000-kilometer detour
via Moscow and North Ossetia. When they reach the South Ossetian
capital, Tskhinvali, they will be just 40 kilometers from where they
were on their first day in Georgia.

In South Ossetia the ecumenical visitors will meet with church leaders,
local officials and the recently displaced residents who have now
mostly returned from North Ossetia. Also of concern are the ethnic
Georgian residents still thought to be in the enclave after weeks of
violence and many reports of looting, arson and forced evictions.

The trip will end in Moscow with visits to the Russian Orthodox Church
and the government. In addition to Nifon, de Clermont and Lehel,
the delegation includes Rev. Elenora Giddings-Ivory and Mr. Jonathan
Frerichs from the WCC secretariat in Geneva.

Media contact in Georgia/Russia: +41-79-814-5637

More information on the visit:
ement/eng/a/article/1722/wcc-delegation-visits-ge. html

Action by Churches Together response to the conflict:
/UpCaucasus-1-08.html

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