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Washington D.C., Aug 31, 2016 / 02:31 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- As the Obama administration announced Monday that the U.S. had met its goal of accepting 10,000 Syrian refugees in fiscal year 2016, religious freedom advocates voiced approval.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom praised the administration, hailing the accomplishment as “an important step, but only a first step, given the severity of the [Syrian] conflict, the implications for regional and international security, and the vulnerably of Syrian civilians who have been subjected to the most appalling mistreatment from both the Assad regime and its opponents, including ISIL.”

President Obama announced last fall that the U.S. would try to increase its intake of refugees from Syria to 10,000 in the fiscal year 2016, pointing to the humanitarian crisis that has unfolded there because of sustained conflict.

“We know that it certainly is not feasible for millions of Syrians to come to this country.  But what we can do is make sure that we are doing everything we can to try to provide for their basic needs,” White House press secretary Josh Earnest stated.

Previously, the U.S. had accepted only about 2,000 Syrian refugees since the beginning of the civil war there, including 1,682 in fiscal year 2015 alone.

On Monday, Secretary of State John Kerry announced the goal of 10,000 had been met: “Today, by committing additional resources to our refugee admissions process and maintaining our rigorous screening process and commitment to the security of the American people, we have reached that goal.”

The conflict in Syria has run for over five years and is not expected to end any time soon, having been estimated to have caused almost half a million deaths. It has created the largest number of refugees of any current conflict, with millions having fled the country and over 6 million currently displaced within Syrian borders. There have been over 4.7 million registered refugees from Syria, Catholic Relief Services noted.

After November terror attacks in Paris that killed 130 and injured hundreds, where a terrorist involved was later alleged to have entered Europe by posing as a Syrian refugee seeking asylum, many called for a halt on refugee resettlement in the name of national security.

Republican presidential nominee Donald Trump proposed a ban on Muslims entering the country until greater security precautions could be enforced. His running mate Mike Pence, governor of Indiana, tried to stop the resettlement of Syrian refugees in his state.

Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of Indianapolis still resettled a Syrian refugee family under the direction of Archbishop Joseph Tobin, and against the wishes of Governor Pence.

Refugee resettlement experts had insisted at the time that the U.S. resettlement program was secure and did not need an overhaul or a temporary fix.

“A rigorous, multi-layered, and lengthy vetting and security clearance procedure is in place to screen refugees,” Dr. Susan Weishar, a migration fellow at the Jesuit Social Research Institute who directed immigration and refugee services for Catholic Charities of the Archdiocese of New Orleans for 14 years, stated to CNA.

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom has also insisted that the resettlement system is secure, and had advocated for increasing the refugee intake.

“USCIRF has called for the United States to admit 100,000 refugees from Syria, subject to the refugee resettlement process' rigorous interviews and background checks,” USCIRF stated on Tuesday.

“This rigorous individual vetting allows the United States to welcome Syrian refugees, protect national security, and respond effectively, humanely and generously to this unprecedented challenge.”

Bill O’Keefe, Vice President for Advocacy at Catholic Relief Services, voiced similar views.

“We are pleased to see that the Obama administration has made good on its promise of admitting 10,000 Syrian refugees within this fiscal year, but as a global leader we can, and we must, do better,” he said.

“In fact this is a relatively modest figure considering the global scale of the crisis and the amount of resources we have at our disposal to address it. The Administration should capitalize on the momentum they’ve built in recent months to speed up the admissions process by significantly increasing the target number of Syrian refugee admissions for the year ahead.”

Secretary Kerry also said on Monday that “more needs to be done” to remedy the humanitarian crisis in Syria.

“We recognize that more needs to be done to help those who are besieged inside Syria; more has to be done to assist refugees; more has to be done to support Syria’s neighbors, Lebanon, Jordan, and Turkey; and more has to be done to resolve this brutal conflict that has cost far too many lives and forced far too many people from their homes,” he stated.

On September 20, President Obama will host the Leaders’ Summit on Refugees, a high-level event on the margins of the UN General Assembly to increase humanitarian assistance and create more long-term, durable opportunities for refugees – not just for the millions of Syrian refugees, but for those fleeing intense strife and persecution in all places.

 

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Vatican City, Aug 31, 2016 / 03:39 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- On Wednesday Pope Francis expressed his pleasure that peace negotiations between the Colombian government and FARC rebels have been finalized, though he declined to send a representative to help select judges for a truth and justice commission.

The Pope “reiterates his support for the goal of attaining the peace and reconciliation of the entire Colombian people, in light of human rights and Christian values, which are at the heart of Latin American culture,” stated an Aug. 31 communique from the Vatican Secretary of State.

Pope Francis had declined an Aug. 12 invitation to appoint a representative to the committee in charge of selecting judges for the Special Jurisdiction for Peace, explaining that given “the universal vocation of the Church and the mission of the Successor of Peter as Pastor of the People of God” it would be more appropriate for another party to fulfill this task.

A ceasefire came into effect in Colombia this week as a result of a peace accord reached Aug. 24  between the Colombian government and the country's largest rebel group, Revolutionary Armed Forces of Columbia (FARC), intended to end the country's 52-year conflict.

Since 1964, as many as 260,000 people have been killed and millions displaced in Colombia's civil war. The Marxist FARC rebels and the Colombian government have been engaged in peace talks in Cuba since 2012.

The conflict has engendered right wing paramilitaries aligned with the government, as well as secondary rebel groups such as the National Liberation Army.

The agreement still needs to be approved by Colombians in a popular vote, scheduled to take place Oct. 2. Many have welcomed the peace accord, but some – including former president Alvaro Uribe – charge that it is too lenient on the FARC.

The deal would incorporate some of FARC's leadership into the government in exchange for their disarmament and renunciation of kidnapping and drug trafficking.

Pope Francis has voiced his support for an end to the violence in Colombia before, most recently during an in-flight Q&A with journalists during a return flight to Rome Sept. 27, 2015.

In response to a question regarding his feelings about a peace accord to be signed in March 2016 – an agreement which ultimately fell through – Pope Francis responded that when he heard the news of the upcoming signing he said, “Lord, help us reach March.”

“I was very happy and I felt like I was a part of it because I’ve always wanted this,” the Pope said. “I spoke to (Colombian) President Santos twice about this problem and not only me, but the Holy See. The Holy See was always willing to help and do what it could.”
Regarding this week's finalization of the 297-page peace accord, Pope Francis entrusted the peace process in Columbia to the Blessed Virgin Mary.

“Pope Francis commends the peace process in Colombia to the maternal protection of the Most Holy Mother of God, Queen of Peace,” the official communique reads, “and he invokes the gift of the Holy Spirit to enlighten the hearts and minds of those who are called to promote the common good of the Colombian nation.”

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Washington D.C., Aug 31, 2016 / 05:01 pm (CNA/EWTN News).- Amid a civil war, a humanitarian crisis, and the threat of mass starvation, the Church in South Sudan is still working to bring Christ to a troubled country.

After meeting with Archbishop Paulino Lukudu Loro of Juba, Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) noted that “the Church plays a key role, as always and everywhere, in the provision of humanitarian aid,” and that “the bishops I met with are just absolutely committed to living out Matthew 25, the vulnerable people and helping people as if they were Christ.”

Smith, chair of the House Subcommittee on Global Human Rights, just returned from a fact-finding human rights mission to South Sudan where he met with religious, humanitarian, and political leaders , including the Archbishop Lukudu, President Salva Kiir Mayardit, and Defense Minister Kuol Manyang Juuk.

South Sudan became an independent country in 2011 but it has been torn by a civil war since December 2013, between the state forces – the Sudan People’s Liberation Army – and opposition forces, as well as sectarian conflict.

A peace agreement was signed but it was broken by violence earlier this summer, which prompted the South Sudan Council of Churches to publicly condemn the violence and pray for peace. A ceasefire was then ordered by President Kiir and then-Vice President Machar in July. Machar, the former rebel leader, ended up fleeing the country.

The scale of the humanitarian crisis in South Sudan is immense: similar to that of the Middle East with the Islamic State, Smith noted to CNA.

There are an estimated 1.7 million people displaced within the country, more than 800,000 refugees, and almost 3 million people at risk of “life-threatening hunger,” according to congressional testimony by a USAID official earlier this year. Many are without food and medicine, Smith said.

Almost 6 million people “are facing a severe hunger crisis” there, Catholic Relief Services reports.

Archbishop Lukudu “described a loss of hope upon many people,” Smith said, and he related to Smith how “the great expectations from five years ago when they became independent have, for the time being, crashed and burned, although hope remains eternal.”

“So he expressed grave concerns about the humanitarian crisis, the crisis of leadership,” Smith said. The bishops of the country have also been “scrambling to provide shelter” and “safe refuge” for the many refugees there, he added.

Some of the top concerns that Smith said he addressed in his meetings with South Sudan's president and defense minister were atrocities such as rape inflicted upon civilians and missionaries by soldiers, as well as the recruitment of children as soldiers.

South Sudan is also listed as a Tier 3 country for its human trafficking problem. Tier 3 countries, under the Trafficking Victims Protection Act, are among the “countries whose governments do not fully comply with the minimum standards and are not making significant efforts to do so.”

Recruitment of child soldiers in South Sudan is “among the worst in the world” Smith said, with an estimated 16,000 child soldiers since the conflict intensified in December 2013. The special danger of child soldiers, he noted, is what violence does to a young person’s psyche, especially as they transition into adulthood.

Ethnic violence and the victimization of aid workers by state and opposition soldiers are other grave problems in the country. Aid workers are especially at risk. There are 2,000 international and 18,000 South Sudanese aid workers in the country, and many are “beaten,” “killed,” or “stopped” from aid work by fighters, Smith said.

There were more major attacks on aid workers in the South Sudan than in any other country in 2015, the group Humanitarian Outcomes has reported.

Recently, amid the civil war, South Sudanese soldiers entered the Terrain compound in the capital city of Juba and attacked international aid workers. “A woman in my own district” who worked with an aid organization “was raped when the Terrain compound was raided,” Smith said.

“A lot of foreign aid workers, U.S. and international workers were there. They killed a couple of people, and just beat people horribly, and they were South Sudanese soldiers,” he continued.

Despite calls for help, United Nations peacekeeping forces just up the road did not come to the aid of the victims, Smith added. Incidents like that have been a recurring problem among UN forces who are supposed to protect the innocent but are not, he said.  

Smith noted in a statement that he got commitments from the president and defense minister that a “zero-tolerance policy” against “rape, sexual violence and human trafficking” by all soldiers in the conflict would be implemented.

Although there have been money and supplies sent to the country, access remains the biggest obstacle to serving the more than 6 million citizens who need humanitarian assistance, Smith said. The geography of the region, the remoteness of certain areas of humanitarian need, and soldiers acting as obstacles to aid being delivered, have all combined to thwart the aid reaching the people who need it.

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