The Signing Conference on Cluster Munitions opens!

Wednesday 3 and Thursday 4 December more than 100 countries will sign the convention to ban cluster munitions. – This is a historic day and a day for celebration says Religions for Peace - European Council of Religious Leaders (ECRL) Moderator, Bishop Gunnar Stålsett. – To fail to sign the convention banning cluster munitions is to fail humanity, he continued. It is a great joy to see all these representatives from so many countries gathered in Oslo to sign the convention and thereby serve humanity. A Religions for Peace delegation is present at the signing conference. Among the delegates are ECRL members Archbishop Yannoulatos Anastasios, Albania and Shaykh Ibrahim Mogra, Great Britain together with the Council Moderator, Bishop Gunnar Stålsett. The delegation is also joined by Venerable Vy Sovichea, Cambodia, Bishop Andon Merdani, Albania, Bishop Jean Nduwayo, Burundi, Revd Yoshitaka Hatakejama, Japan, Brigitte Chevalier, France and WCRP Deputy Secretary General Stein Villumstad.

“For more than 60 years, cluster munitions have killed and wounded innocent people – many of them children – causing untold suffering, loss, and hardship for thousands in more than 20 countries. Cluster Munitions continue to inflict injury and death for years – sometimes decades – after the end of a war. “It is not peace when children cannot play safely in their playgrounds. It is not peace when farmers cannot cultivate their fields, nor fishermen draw their nets without fear. It is not peace when people cannot move freely in their local communities”, religious leaders from Europe said in a statement from the European Faith Leaders Conference on Cluster Munitions in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina in October this year.

 

The signing conference on cluster munitions opened with a Christian service at the Lutheran Church of the Holy Trinity in Oslo where greetings from representatives from other faith communities were also given. Religions for Peace – European Council of Religious Leaders organised the service together with the Church of Norway and the Christian Council of Norway. Politicians, diplomats, international civil society representatives, activists, survivors, people of faith and religious leaders together with the inhabitants of Oslo expressed their solidarity with the affected people and communities and promised to continue to work for implementing the convention and assisting the affected.

The sermon of the service was given by the Catholic Bishop of Oslo . You may read the sermon here. 

Each country will sign the convention Wednesday and Thursday at Oslo City Hall. The Religions for Peace delegation will take part in the signing ceremony and witness the signing.

 

 

You may find more information about cluster munitions here.

 

- Receive E-mail Alerts
- Newsarchive
- Back