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Liberian information minister Lawrence K. Bropleh spoke Monday on behalf of his country's president, Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, in a keynote address to the ninth assembly of the All Africa Conference of Churches (AACC). He called on African churches to regain and reassert their vision of bold leadership against a backdrop of global financial meltdown and political instability.

"Please remind the world that we are no longer at war," a high-ranking government official from Sierra Leone told an international ecumenical team visiting churches and ecumenical organizations in Liberia and Sierra Leone from 2 to 8 November.

In Liberia, Sierra Leone and South Africa, churches have played a major role in reconciliation between groups who had been in violent conflict with each other for decades. Two international ecumenical teams sent by the World Council of Churches (WCC) will visit the three countries during the next two weeks.

By Hanna Smidt(*)

A memorable Central Committee meeting saw the election of the World Council of Churches' (WCC) first African general secretary, a commitment to explore new ways of configuring the whole ecumenical movement, and an in-depth examination of the place of disabled people in the life of the churches.

In a statement on Liberia, the World Council of Churches (WCC) Central Committee meeting in Geneva 26 August-2 September 2003 expressed its appreciation for the work of the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), its armed monitoring group ECOMOG, and the country's religious leaders in promoting a peace agreement and a transitional government.

World Council of Churches' (WCC) general secretary Rev. Dr Konrad Raiser has today sent a letter to United Nations' (UN) secretary-general Kofi Annan expressing serious concern at the escalation of fighting in Liberia between government forces and the rebel group, Liberians United For Reconciliation and Democracy. Citing the "gravity of the near-anarchy situation that has developed", Raiser calls on the UN to support current peace initiatives and encourage the parties to accept a "credible peacekeeping force", with the aim of securing a lasting ceasefire.