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Church officials meeting in Geneva reject legitimacy of G-8 summit
Episcopal News Service
Issue:
Section:
2003-122
Posted: Tuesday, June 03, 2003
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Church officials and protestors who met during the summit of the Group of Eight nations in Evian, France, which ended on June 3, rejected the legitimacy of the grouping of the most industrialized nations, also known as the G-8.
'We see the G-8 as an illegitimate group because they were not elected by anybody to rule the world,' said Rogate Mshana, economy and justice program executive for the World Council of Churches (WCC), at the Ecumenical Centre in Geneva, about 25 miles from the summit.
'On whose behalf are they speaking?' Mshana said at a meeting on Monday hosted by the general secretaries of four world church bodies headquartered in the Ecumenical Centre--the WCC, the Lutheran World Federation, the Conference of European Churches and the World Alliance of Reformed Churches.
The leaders of Britain, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Russia and the United States held talks on June 1-3 on the world economy, security, democracy and the global fight against HIV/AIDS. During the G-8 gathering an amalgam of protestors said to number between 50,000 and 120.000 tried to disrupt the meeting of industrial leaders by marching in Geneva and Lausanne, the Swiss cities closest to Evian, and in neighboring Annemasse, France.
Most of the demonstrations were peaceful with discussions like those taking place at the WCC occurring in different locations, but some street protests during the three days resulted in violent attacks against property that were put down by riot police using rubber bullets, water cannons and teargas.
The ecumenical meeting was called in part to counter a perception that local news media had emphasized the fear of violence rather than the positive elements of the peaceful protest.
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