Religious leaders from each of the warring groups involved in the ethnic conflict in the former Yugoslavia concluded an unprecedented summit in Switzerland last week that was organized by Rabbi Arthur Schneier’s Appeal of Conscience Foundation.
In a joint statement, the leaders called for an immediate end to the “ethnic cleansing” going on in their country and for the release of all prisoners and detainees.
The heads of the Islamic, Serbian Orthodox and Croatian Roman Catholic populations called on “all countries and all people of good will” to “use all of their influence and all morally justifiable means in order to make further appeals like this one unnecessary.”
The three religious leaders plan to try to “mobilize and energize world opinion to end this terrible tragedy,” said Schneier.
Never before had leaders of all three religions met together, said Schneier, president of the New York-based Appeal of Conscience Foundation, in a telephone interview from Zurich.
Rev. Djuro Koksa, auxiliary bishop of Zagreb and a leader of the ethnic Croats, who are Roman Catholic, attended.
Koksa was joined by the Islamic community’s religious leader, al-Hajj-Jakub effendi Selimoski, and the head of the Serbian Orthodox community, Patriarch Pavle.
After meeting at a retreat in Switzerland on the German-Austrian border, they called on world religious leaders to devote December 23rd to common prayer for total solidarity with all groups in Bosnia-Herzegovina, as well as all other afflicted people in former Yugoslavia.
In a joint statement addressed to Serbs, Croats and Muslims, “all the faithful” in Bosnia-Herzegovina, and to all political leaders, they “unanimously and in total unison launch this appeal for peace, this cry to God and to men, this cry of suffering and hope from the bottom of our souls.
“We demand the immediate, unconditional, and irrevocable end of the war, the reestablishment of peace and the renewal of dialogue as the only method of solving existing national and political problems,” they said in their statement.
The three religious leaders formed a standing committee called Conscience in Action, according to Schneier, which will try and focus world attention on the war and devote itself to humanitarian relief issues.
They “emphatically” stated that the conflict is not a religious war, and said that “crime in the name of religion is the greatest crime against religion.”
Their meeting was held at the Wolfsberg Conference Center, in Ermatingen-am- Untersee, Switzerland.
After gathering, they pledged to distribute the food and medicine donated by Jewish and other groups from around the world through religious communities and humanitarian organizations. Much of what has been donated so far has not reached those need in need.
The religious leaders received messages of support from President Bush, United Nations Secretary-General Boutros-Boutros Ghali, and the president of the Swiss Confederation, Rene Felber.
According to Schneier, the idea for the summit came out of a meeting he had with Patriarch Pavie during a visit the Serbian Orthodox leader made to New York, on the eve of Yom Kippur, October 6.
As he explained the meaning of Yom Kippur to the patriarch, and they discussed steps for religious leaders to take in an effort to end the conflict, Schneier realized that the heads of the three communities had never before met, and they agreed on the date.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
