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Bishops in search of food for Malawi
By
by Gedion Munthali - 31-07-2002 |
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Catholic Bishops of the Association of Member Episcopal Conferences of Eastern Africa (Amecea) have asked the world community and humanitarian organisations to urgently help Malawi and other southern African countries with food to check hunger.
The bishops, who met in Tanzania for the 14th Plenary Assembly said they have committed themselves to “share food with those who have less, and we ask the international community to assist with necessary infrastructure and logistics to realise this.”
Coming from Malawi, Djibouti, Eriteria, Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia, the church leaders called on African governments, the civil society and all people of God to fight root causes of poverty through hard work, proper policies, accountability and transparency.
Secretary General for Episcopal Conference of Malawi Father Robert Mwaungulu said yesterday that Archbishop Tarsizius Ziyaye of Blantyre Archdiocese led a 14-member delegation from Malawi which included Bishop Joseph Zuza from Mzuzu Diocese and Monsignor Joseph Jimu from Mangochi Diocese.
The prelates also called for total debt cancellation for all poor countries of the world, saying it was immoral, unethical and “a structure of sin” for rich countries to continue demanding from the poor countries the payment of huge sums of money as debt repayments.
“This servicing of debt is at the expense of providing basic health care, education and other social services to the poor in our countries,” a statement issued yesterday by Amecea chair Paul Bakyenga, Archbishop of Mbarara -Uganda, quoted the bishops as saying.
They noted that the structural adjustments imposed on poor countries by the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank have in many instances resulted in rising poverty, food insecurity, massive job losses, rising cost of living, devaluation of local currencies and accelerated privatisation that leaves the economy in few hands.
“We ask all people in our region to ensure that the money from debt forgiveness is solely used for the uplifting of the poor,” the bishops advised.
The bishops also called on all political leaders to respect values and principles of good governance particularly tolerance, pluralism, rule of law and full participation of the people in their own governance.
“In this respect we acknowledge recent positive intervention of the church and the people of Zambia and Malawi in defending constitutionalism against those who wanted to selfishly undermine it,” the bishops noted.
They welcomed the transformation of the Organisation of the African Unity into the African Union, but called on political leadership in member countries to ensure that the “success of these efforts depends of the active participation of their citizens in these processes and new body.” |
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