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Peacemaking at GA 2006
by Marilyn White,
PPF GA Issues Coordinator
Observers of the General Assembly committees dealing with peace and justice issues found the commissioners of this GA willing to endorse a wide variety of peacemaking efforts but cautious in accepting without question the rationales accompanying many of the overtures and resolutions. This was particularly true for a commissioners' resolution on Colombia submitted by PPF member Barb Smith and drafted with the assistance of National Committee members. After hearing testimony from several accompaniers and Colombian Presbyterian leader Milton Mejia, the Ecumenical Relations Committee voted to approve the resolution, which endorses the accompaniment program. In the plenary, however, commissioners referred nine advocacy items in the resolution to the Advisory Committee on Social Witness Policy (ACSWP) and requested a human rights report on Colombia.
Two overtures on Haiti fared better, with the Peacemaking Committee combining them into a statement calling both for fair treatment of refugees and improvement to U.S. foreign policy. However, a list of groups responsible for violence was deleted in favor of more general language.
Several PPF members testified in favor of Baltimore Presbytery's overture to require the Peacemaking Program to provide training in proactive, constructive nonviolence, which was adopted in the consent agenda.
For a while it seemed that the Social Justice Committee might answer the overture on torture from the Presbytery of San Francisco with the approval of a resolution on the same subject from ACSWP. The committee eventually decided to approve both. The stronger language of the San Francisco overture, which had several concurrences from other presbyteries and which was written by members of the new No2Torture network, calls for an independent investigation of torture allegations against the U.S. and for the appointment of a special counsel to prosecute those involved in mistreatment of detainees.
Addressing the hot topic of immigration, the Social Justice Committee extensively revised an overture from New York City. The final version, passed by consensus in the plenary, calls for a process permitting immigrants to "regularize their status upon satisfaction of reasonable criteria" and also expresses "grave concern" about increased militarization of the border.
After hearing testimony from Will Browne of Worldwide Ministries Division about the loss of denominational travel licenses for travel to Cuba and the difficulty of obtaining visas for Cuban leaders invited to attend U.S. religious events, the Ecumenical Affairs Committee approved a commissioners' resolution addressing these problems. Nevertheless, the committee was reluctant to believe that visa denial was a U.S. policy and so changed the resolution's call to "rescind the unofficial policy of not granting visas" to a request to "swiftly grant visas."
Indicating a willingness to consider follow-up actions to the successful Taco Bell boycott, the Assembly approved a resolution from the Advisory Committee for Racial Ethnic Concerns which authorizes continued work with the Coalition of Immacollee Workers and the Campaign for Fair Food.
