ecause
the Church is catholic, faithful to the call of Jesus to go and baptize all
nations, the Church is present in every nation and in every part of the world.
One of the great stories of the last two hundred years is the story of missionaries who have brought the faith “ad gentes” to the peoples of Africa and Asia and Oceania who had not heard the good news of Jesus Christ. The Xaverian Missionaries are among those of whom the Church, all of us, should be so proud.
Recently one of their number, Fr. Robert Maloney, came to see me to bring me some information about one of the countries where his confreres have been laboring for decades: Sierra Leone. The truth is that for some time Sierra Leone has been suffering from a brutal internal war which has devastated the country, killed off untold numbers of the population and reduced the society to a barbarism that is beyond anyone’s ability to describe adequately.
Sierra Leone is a former British colony in West Africa which had been haven for freed slaves - hence the name of its capital Freetown. It gained its independence from Britain in 1961 and had one president for almost 30 years, not unusual in African countries immediately following independence. War broke out in 1991 and has not ceased since then. At the beginning it seemed like a border dispute, not unusual in Africa whose national borders have been drawn by colonial powers rather than African realities.
Liberia’s
President Taylor seemed to have been mixed up in this. Since then the war
has gone on within the country but aided and abetted, it seems, by outside
forces, including Libya, Burkina Faso and Liberia. The current President Kabbah
was elected in 1996 and managed to work out a cease fire and peace accord only
to be exiled himself in 1997 and then reinstated in March 1998. This month he is
to meet in Togo with leaders of the rebel forces to discuss a new cease fire.
What has been happening is simply brutal. I have before me written reports
from the Xaverian missionaries. Simple people in villages have been
massacred in cold blood. Children have their arms cut off and then get sent away
into the forest. Families, half of them maimed and crippled, are run off
their lands and left to wander in the bush. Homes are razed, livestock
killed. Nothing is left to feed the poor, homeless wanderers who now face
only death in the jungle.
Missionaries have not been spared. Several have been killed. Nuns are in danger all the time. There is neither any security nor any civility. In the recent newsletter of the Xaverians, Bishop Biguzzi pleads for the release of some missionaries from the hands of the rebels. One missionary writes “I still see them: a mother, aged beyond her young years, with a child strapped to her back, a bundle of rice on her head, her right hand grasping another child’s hand and a third child at her heels. Their eyes are still wide with horror. One child’s arm is a bloody stump chopped off at the elbow while her brother has stumps at both wrists. Where are they going? As far as they can to save their lives.”
This forgotten war is about refugees, hostages, rampant destruction, villages burnt, possessions looted, children maimed and wanton killing by youngsters who are too young even to be handling guns or machetes or other instruments of destruction and death.
Something must be done to end the chaos. The missionaries to a person want to stay although most have had to be evacuated. Those who have left are waiting to return. What will they return to? Until this forgotten war is ended, there will nothing but death and destruction. If the western world can bring pressure and the Organization of West African States would exercise their influence and the United Nations use its voice to catalyze international support, an agreement can be brokered.
The lure of riches is of course part of the problem: Sierra Leone is rich in diamonds, gold and minerals. Hence the interest of outside forces. Hence the reason why the rebels in Sierra Leone are so eager to carve out a niche of control through death and devastation.
Do not be fooled that this can easily be reversed. The country has been brought to its knees. The people have little or no experience of nation building. It will take great patience, great forbearance and much help from the world, stopping the recourse to violence, teaching people basic civic virtues and giving them the help they need to build a society. This will take decades. The Missionaries are ready and eager. What will the rest of the world do?
(From Xaverian Mission Newsletter)