from ouko joachim omolo
Colleagues Home & Abroad Regional News
BY FR JOACHIM OMOLO OUKO, AJ
KAREN-NAIROBI
TUESDAY, JUNE 28, 2011
TAKE-1
As Association of Member Episcopal Conferences in Eastern Africa (AMECEA), a Catholic service organization for the National Episcopal Conferences of the eight countries of Eastern Africa, namely Eritrea, Ethiopia, Kenya, Malawi, Sudan, Tanzania, Uganda and Zambia and Djibouti -Somalia as affiliate members celebrate a Golden Jubilee of Evangelization in Solidarity, it is still faced with many challenges.
Some of the challenges include the challenge to develop a culture of peace, need to strive for the right relationships within the Church, promotion of ecological justice, formation of Christian conscience among the people and Christians, lack of foundations to stand polarization, and lack of solidarity among Christians as compared to other denominations.
Other challenges include need for Church to take an active role in politics, strategy to make the social teaching of the Church a reality, emphasis in human development, the family, that is, children, parents, collaborators and friends to be deeply evangelized, the formation of the pastoral agents; religious men and women, priests, and bishops and to prioritize the values of reconciliation.
From June 27 through July 6, 2011 Kenya Episcopal Conference (KEC) has been accorded the honour of hosting the 17th Plenary Assembly which will also mark the Golden Jubilee for AMECEA. The venue is at Catholic University of Eastern Africa (CUEA), Langata-Karen.
The meeting will be officially opened by President Mwai Kibaki of Republic of Kenya on Wednesday June 29, 2011 at 0945hrs. It will be the Solemnity of St. Peter and Paul and the Holy Mass will be in honour of Pope Benedict XVI on the occasion of the 60th Anniversary of his priestly ordination. Main celebrant will be Archbishop Alain Paul Lebeaupin- Apostolic Nuncio in Kenya.
The vision of AMECEA is: A Holy Spirit filled family of God, committed to Holistic Evangelization and Integral Development. Its mission is to inspire and empower God’s family in AMECEA to a credible and prophetic witness to Christ, by promoting unity, justice, peace, and solidarity.
Some of the themes for discussion include a theological frame-work for addressing the quality dimension of evangelization in the AMECEA region, Justice, Peace and reconciliation, the role of Church leadership/ Bishops in the enhancement of evangelization in solidarity in AMECEA region, Good governance among others.
In evangelization, the challenges AMECEA Bishops are faced with include the evangelization in relationship with ethnicity, tribalism which in Africa has to remain top agenda. If evangelization is to take root in Africa, credibility and relevance of the Church has to remain evident, especially the tendency of insisting on the institutional Church and not the communitarian Church has to be reformed.
Yet, since the first African to the second Synod up to now regarding reconciliation,
Justice and Peace has left a negative impact on our social life in the sense that it lacks a common approach in solving problems and peace building, proper understanding of Catholic faith by Catholics and poor training of agents of evangelization including catechists and Social Teaching of the Church as a priority.
Other challenges the AMECEA Bishops are faced with include proper democracy in many African countries, poorly managed political elections, conflicts, poverty, poor health care, poor education, globalization, ecological imbalance and brain drain.
If we take country by country represented by AMECEA and begin with Eritrea, politically is one party system under transitional government. As such it does not have term limit for presidential elections.
This is because the new constitution is not honoured. This loophole gives the president power to postpone elections indefinitely like what it did in 2001. So the president can manipulate and that is why human rights are rated very low. Democratic space is almost zero.
This has resulted to Eritrean Churches to suffer a great deal in the hands of President Afwerki. His government has been seeking to possess by force the infrastructures of the Church sponsored Schools and Hospitals and vehicles.
In neighbouring Ethiopia the story is the same. Human rights abuses are on the increase daily, massive rigging, manipulation of NEBE (National Election Board of Ethiopia), arbitrary arrests and killing of protesters among others.
In Sudan even though according to Comprehensive Peace Accord (CPA), the key elements of the peace deal are being ignored. Nothing like media freedom that is why State-run radio and TV reflect only government policy since Sudan TV has a permanent military censor to ensure that the news reflects official views of the government. Abused human rights still a big problem.
In Uganda even though it is thought to be a democratic country, still there is no freedom of expression. President Yoweri Museveni has dominated the country for 25 years and still he won again another term.
Museveni believes no Ugandan apart from him can rule Uganda. His main rival, Dr Kizza Besigye from the opposition Forum for Democratic Change has faced treason and rape charges – as well as terrorism charges in a military court – which his supporters say are politically motivated.
He had to influence Parliament to abolish a constitutional limit on presidential terms in 2005, paving the way for him to seek a third elected term. He has also imposed severe restrictions on multi-party politics.
In Kenya the story is the same. No president wants to leave power not until his second term ends. It explains why presidential election on December 27, 2007 were protested by Kenyans when President Mwai Kibaki was declared the winner and sworn in on December 30, despite opposition leader Raila Odinga’s claims of victory.
The violence left over a thousand people dead and property worth billions destroyed. Still there are over 30, 000 Internally Displaces Persons (IDPs) who have not been resettled despite demonstrations that the government should do so. Apart from manipulation of elections, corruption and high level scandals still the order of the system. Gap between the rich and the poor is ever increasing.
Although in Malawi relatively the road to the state house and the legislative house can be said to be rather peaceful, especially because the actual 2004 election process did not seem turbulent, the fact remains that there are irregularities surrounding Malawi general elections according to election observers.
The irregularities range from the registration of voters, verification of the voters’ roll, primaries for respective political parties, and nomination of Presidential and Parliamentary candidates to the ongoing campaign period.
In Zambia the story of rigged elections are the same. Michael Sata had to go to court after he had claimed that Rupiah Banda rigged the election. But like many Africa countries the ruling of the courts are always in favour of the president since he controls judiciary. Because foreign miners are getting it almost free, the economy of Zambia has declined, with Zambian kwacha going down to the USD very steadily.
Although in Tanzania the president is to go for the second term, practically no president has been defeated until he ends his term as required by the constitution. Poverty levels are steadily very high due to bad governance and corruption. The mining-displacement still is a big problem in Tanzania. This is not to mention education and health challenges.
Yet still, in AMECEA regions the number of people living with HIV cannot afford medicine. Many people, especially children are dying of malaria almost daily. Conflicts are still rampant in some African countries.
Root causes of the conflicts are ethnic tensions, political instability, poverty, manipulation scarcity of basic needs, water supplies, grazing land; famine, internally displaced persons (IDPS) and refugees, proliferation of small arms contributing to civil strife and cattle rustling; land grabbing, witch hunting, women and gender based violence, escalation of terrorism and fundamentalism among others.
People for Peace in Africa (PPA)
P O Box 14877
Nairobi
00800, Westlands
Kenya
Tel 254-20-4441372
Website: www.peopleforpeaceafrica.org