GAC applauds Jubilee 2000 campaign
Video about debt-relief campaign will go to
Assembly
by Evan Silverstein, Presbyterian News Service
LOUISVILLE -- February 26, 2001-- Members of the
Presbyterian Church (USA) General Assembly Council (GAC) took time
during a recent meeting here to celebrate the religious community's
success in loosening the chains of international debt.
Responding to a recommendation from the National
Ministries Division (NMD) Committee, the council affirmed the
unprecedented debt-cancellation victories of the Jubilee 2000/USA
campaign, which eased the burden of debt on some of the world's poorest
nations by pressuring governments and international financial
institutions to forgive millions of dollars of debt.
The council's action came in response to the NMD
panel's report, presented on Feb. 23, which highlighted the role played
by faith groups -- including Presbyterians -- in the national,
bipartisan grassroots coalition that organized rallies, wrote and
visited lawmakers and successfully lobbied for debt-relief legislation
that will help poor nations feed and educate their people.
Reading from the recommendation, NMD chair Emily
Wigger said the debt-relief campaign, which was linked to an
international Jubilee movement, brought about "some measure of
justice for the world's poorest and (most) beleaguered citizens,"
while affirming "God's call to all of us to do justice, love
kindness and walk humbly with our God."
Wigger said Presbyterians -- individuals,
congregations, presbyteries and synods -- were instrumental in making a
success of the Jubilee 2000 campaign, which is based on a passage from
the Old Testament book of Leviticus that describes a Year of Jubilee
that comes once every 50 years, when slaves are freed and debt is
canceled.
Wigger, of Alton, IL, said the denomination's
debt-relief work was accomplished by a partnership of PC(USA) staff and
funded by the church's three mission divisions -- Worldwide Ministries (WMD),
Congregational Ministries (CMD) and NMD -- and coordinated by the
Presbyterian Washington Office.
The Presbyterian Hunger Program, along with the
Women's Ministries, Presbyterian Women, the denomination's
social-justice program area and the Presbyterian Peacemaking Program
actively supported the campaign.
"The Presbyterian denomination really has been
the heart of this from the very beginning," Dan Driscoll-Shaw, a
former Maryknoll priest who served as coordinator of the Jubilee
2000/USA initiative, said during a recent meeting in Denver, CO, devoted
to planning the future of the initiative, now called the Jubilee 2000
Network. "Frankly, the Presbyterian Church has been one of the most
open and creative to say, 'We're here and we're going to move with
this,' and that's really important."
Wigger referred to the PC(USA)'s long history of
involvement in debt-reduction campaigns. In 1989, the General Assembly
(GA) approved a document called "The Third World Debt
Dilemma," providing a policy basis for advocacy of debt relief for
impoverished nations. That document was reaffirmed by assemblies in
1996, 1998 and 1999.
The Jubilee campaign scored a big coup on Nov. 6, when
then-President Bill Clinton signed into law a foreign-aid bill that
included a $435-million appropriation to the global effort to erase as
much as $90 billion owed by poor nations, most of them in Africa.
Supporters say the campaign will free up millions of dollars for
desperately needed social and human services.
The Rev. Walter Owensby, the former associate for
international issues at the Presbyterian Washington Office, helped
develop the key debt-relief concepts that became part of the bill.
Council members were shown a brief video of the White
House news conference during which the legislation's passage was
announced. The C-SPAN broadcast excerpt featured Clinton and, among
others, the Rev. Elenora Giddings Ivory, director of the Presbyterian
Washington Office. The clip will be included with the GAC's report
to the 213th GA in Louisville in June.
"For these poor nations, the future is almost
hopeless because of this crushing debt," Giddings said at the
November news conference. "Hopelessness is what the Biblical
jubilee was designed to avoid, and why it is time to lift this burden of
over 50 years of bad economic decisions that has created the present
debt crisis."
In calling for an end to the debt, Presbyterians
joined with other faith groups, including the Mennonite Central
Committee (MCC), the Methodist and Lutheran churches, a number of
Catholic orders, and the Union of American Hebrew Congregations.
"Not Since Dr. Martin Luther King and the
civil-rights movement have religious people at the grassroots level so
clearly been responsible for raising a justice issue and bringing
change," the Rev. David Beckmann, president of the anti-hunger
organization, Bread for the World, said during the news conference.
Jubilee facelift
Jubilee 2000 was conceived as a one-year campaign.
However, a transition team of eight grassroots representatives and six
members of the existing Jubilee 2000/USA Steering Committee -- including
one PC(USA) staff member -- came together in September to formulate a
long-term vision for the campaign.
They decided to continue advocating for debt relief,
but to broaden the group's focus to include social-justice and
health-related issues facing the world's poor, such as HIV/AIDS.
Earlier this month, three PC(USA)-related officials
gathered in Denver with about 75 other ecumenical representatives to build
on the Jubilee vision and ratify the name change. Attending from the
Presbyterian Church were Melanie Hardison, a PC(USA) staffer who
coordinated the denomination's Jubilee 2000 efforts, Karen Fritsch,
moderator of Presbyterian Women (PW), and DeLaina Gumbs, an intern in
the denomination's Women's Ministries program area.
