February 23, 2000

PARTICIPANTS in the Stockholm conference conclude the event by joining in a circle to sing "We Shall Overcome."

Texan leads international
effort against ethnic cleansing
___By Kenny Byrd
___& Robert O'Brien
___STOCKHOLM, Sweden--"Never again"--the agonized cry of protest against the Holocaust--degenerated into "again and again" in the bloodiest century in history, according to participants in a conference intended to launch international action against ethnic cleansing.
___Forty-four people from a variety of nations, world religions, ethnic backgrounds, governments, organizations and professional disciplines came to Stockholm, Sweden, for the first conference on "Reverence and Reconciliation: A Healing Response to Ethnic Cleansing" in late January.

SAN MARCOS pastor Doug Tipps, organizer of the event, hugs a participant from another nation.

___The event was organized by San Marcos pastor Doug Tipps, who urged those present to "think outside the box."
___"We did not come here to play it safe ... but because we're willing to risk something," said Tipps, pastor of First Baptist Church in San Marcos and founder of Global Strategies, an international organization working for personal and civil liberties.
___"Some may think we're foolish to say we can solve this problem," added Derek Davis, director of Baylor University's J.M. Dawson Institute for Church-State Studies. The Institute and the Church of Sweden joined Global Strategies as co-sponsors of the Stockholm conference. "But I think we're cowards if we don't do something."
___Tipps and Davis were among seven Texans in what came to be called the "Stockholm 44." Other Texans participating were Jerry Bullock of San Marcos, executive director of Global Strategies; Robert Newell, pastor of Memorial Drive Baptist Church in Houston; John Jonnson and Marc Ellis of the Baylor faculty; and U.S. Ambassador to Sweden and Baylor graduate Lyndon Olson Jr.
___Other participants came from Albania, Kosovo, Macedonia, Argentina, Northern Ireland, South Africa, Zambia, Kenya, Australia, Germany, Singapore, Sweden, the United Kingdom and elsewhere in the United States.
___The diverse interfaith group, which hopes to meet again this summer, selected two participants--and will add a third--to draft the "Stockholm Accords" on ethnic cleansing and reconciliation. The document will be circulated for editing and then signed in a nation to be named by mid-August.
___"The Stockholm Accords will be the first document of its kind in the 21st century," Tipps said. "The public signing will be first in a series of international signings involving governments, organizations and individuals in a worldwide effort to resurrect the cry for 'never again.'"
___Tipps called the Stockholm Accords "a document of the people" that also will be available on the Internet to be signed by individuals around the world. He expects the final document to be posted by August on a new ethnic cleansing website that will go online in March. The website, yet to be named, will be linked to the Global Strategies website at www.globalstrategies.org.
___Conference organizers said the accords will not mean much unless signed by people committed to abiding by them.
___"It's one thing to sign documents and another to uphold them," said Lonnie Turner, representative for the Cooperative Baptist Fellowship to the diplomatic community in Washington, D.C.
___Between 80 percent to 90 percent of conventional weapons used around the world are provided by the big five nations who sit on the United Nations Security Council, Turner said. "It's easy to sign a document, but where are the weapons coming from?"
___Tipps emphasized the Stockholm Accords will not end with just words against the horrors of ethnic cleansing.
___"We hope the document will provide compassionate leverage for us in urging governnments, organizations and individuals to help us work in specific areas of crisis and conflict to bring about ethnic reconciliation," he said.
___Tipps projects development of models to adapt to various crisis areas. "We want to work with every sector--religious, political, educational and economic--to launch dialogue, education and direct action to deligitimize ethnic cleansing as a political tool for conflict resolution," he said.
___Participants agreed the final version of the accords should define ethnic cleansing with broader terms than "genocide," which many participants said leaves out forced removal of ethnic groups from one area to another.
___"'Ethnic cleansing,' like 'tribal warfare,' implies a problem that can't be solved," said Kimete Basha, a native of Kosovo. But ethnic cleansing is caused by humans and therefore can be prevented by humans, she suggested.
___Wolfgang Lenz from the European Association of Academies in Germany called ethnic cleansing a politically correct term for destruction of diversity that governments "think they can get away with" in world opinion.
___"When you share space with people who have different world views, an easy way out is ethnic cleansing so you can become the sole dispenser of truth," said Stephanus Francois du Toit from the Institute of Justice and Reconciliation in South Africa.
___"Ethnic cleansing," he added, "requires ethnic politics."
___That kind of politics resulted in a conservative estimate of 170 million people being murdered by their own governments in the 20th century, said Greg Stanton, director of the Campaign to End Genocide, based in Washington, D.C.
___"The 20th century was the bloodiest in human history," Stanton said. "We've just got to make the 21st century different."
___The committee to draft the accords thus far includes Charles Z. Smith of Seattle, a Washington State Supreme Court justice and grandson of slaves, and John Jonnson, a South African who teaches at Baylor University.
___Smith is one of 10 members on the U.S. Commission on International Religious

See related story: Eight Stages to genocide explained

Freedom, a group that tracks religious persecution abroad and advises the U.S. administration on how to react to those issues. Jonnson serves on the Baptist World Alliance's Commission on Human Rights.
___By the conclusion of the conference, participants had debated the meaning of "ethnic cleansing," cried, hugged and moved each other with stories of genocide, ethnic cleansing and oppression.
___The conference ended with the group holding hands in a circle and singing "We Shall Overcome," a song sung by freedom fighters worldwide.
___Kenny Byrd is a news writer for the Baptist Joint Committee on Public Affairs in Washington, D.C. Robert O'Brien is a veteran foreign missions correspondent who covers international issues as a freelance writer.

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