12 January: The WCC calls on the Indonesian government to end impunity of some leaders of the security forces who are either responsible for or have directly committed grave abuses of human rights in the past, adversely affecting the credibility of these forces.
8 February: Addressing participants at an International Military Chiefs of Chaplains Conference taking place in Geneva, WCC general secretary Konrad Raiser calls for an "early warning system" to identify potential mass violations of human rights. He criticizes a growing tendency to legitimize the use of military means in humanitarian interventions and urges that these "remain an exception, for which clear and binding rules and criteria must be established under international law". He announces a WCC study on the ethical issues surrounding humanitarian intervention, to be prepared in cooperation with church aid agencies, humanitarian organizations and research institutes, and submitted to the WCC's central committee at its next meeting in January 2001.
3 March: The executive committee lifts up the WCC's continuing concern about the situation in Indonesia and appeals to member churches to offer generous assistance to the victims of violence and to support the rebuilding of their communities and places of worship. It calls on Indonesian Muslim and Christian leaders to "redouble their efforts to mediate in this dispute and to restore harmonious intercommunal relations".
3 March: Based on a report of an ecumenical delegation to the Turkish-occupied northern part of the island in October last year, the executive committee requests WCC staff and member churches "to continue to monitor closely developments in Cyprus and to encourage the Church of Cyprus and all members of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot civil society in their efforts for justice, peace and reconciliation".
3 March: The WCC executive committee calls on the government of the Russian Federation to establish firm guarantees for the human rights and the humanitarian needs of people affected by the war in Chechnya. It further requests "provision of adequate assistance, the establishment of humanitarian corridors... and access to the region by responsible international humanitarian agencies".
14 March: The WCC announces plans to raise thematic as well as country-specific concerns at the forthcoming 56th session of the UN High Commission on Human Rights (UNHCHR). The WCC says its involvement will be marked by a greater emphasis on "work outside the official Commission session", including arranging parallel meetings such as a meeting on the situation in Indonesia and East Timor organized with national and international non-governmental organizations. The WCC reports that it has filed written statements on the situation in Indonesia, on religious intolerance and violence, and on the discrimination of Dalits in India.
21 March: The issue of communal violence plaguing Indonesia since its return to democracy is repeatedly brought to Konrad Raiser's attention in discussions with church and community leaders during a visit there in March. The general secretary cites the WCC's commitment to inter-religious dialogue to promote peace and harmony. Human life is precious irrespective of whether a person is Christian or Muslim; the two communities must learn to live together to meet the challenges Indonesia faces in the new millennium, he says. The WCC is preparing to launch a Decade to Overcome Violence (DOV) in 2001 precisely to respond to situations like that prevailing in Indonesia, Raiser adds.
16 April: Some 35 people from all regions and many disciplines - international lawyers, ethicists, theologians, representatives of churches and other faith communities, staff of the WCC, Lutheran World Federation and Geneva-based humanitarian organizations, as well as people from Sierra Leone, Haiti and Kosovo - are meeting at the Bossey Ecumenical Institute outside Geneva at the invitation of the WCC International Relations Team to reflect on the topic of "humanitarian intervention". This is to prepare a report to the next, January 2001, meeting of the central committee to help it adopt ethical guidelines on such intervention. End June: Representatives from the WCC's Urban and Rural Mission (URM) network, representing grassroots movements, are meeting in London with their main supporting partners in the North, mainly church-related development agencies, to exchange views and information on their respective needs and expectations, in what both sides qualify as "an urgently needed dialogue".
12 July: The WCC calls for UN action "in support of decolonization of Puerto Rico". A statement delivered on behalf of the WCC's Commission of the Churches on International Affairs (CCIA) to the UN Committee on Granting of Independence to Colonial Countries and Peoples also asks for assistance to Puerto Ricans in securing justice for residents of Vieques.
14 July: The WCC appeals to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Mary Robinson to undertake an "immediate visit to Indonesia to urge the government to stop the human-rights violations and atrocities being committed in the Malukus, by intruders backed and supported by the Indonesian army".
Indigenous Peoples and identity
2 April: The WCC notes an "amazing contemporary renaissance of Indigenous spiritual teachings, practices and rituals" but also the danger of these being "domesticated, colonized, commodified". How can art and traditional cultural forms enable Indigenous People to preserve their knowledge and identity? Twenty-five Indigenous artists and representatives of Indigenous communities and churches in Central and South America are meeting in Bolivia to explore that question. One finding of the 2-10 April workshop on Indigenous Peoples' identity, culture, arts and symbols is that "without context, without participation, there is no meaning". The workshop is being organized by the WCC with the Latin American Council of Churches (CLAI) and two Indigenous organizations.
12 April: Specialists in biblical studies, theology, church history, social, political and cultural sciences are meeting in Cartigny, Switzerland, to plan the interdisciplinary dimension of a WCC Faith and Order study on "Ethnic Identity, National Identity and the Search for the Unity of the Church". The study is intended to help churches understand the role of ethnic and national identity in their own lives, their relationships as churches and their societies. The notion of identity and boundaries is emerging as a central theme in the meeting.
13 September: Participants in a September workshop on Indigenous Peoples' struggle for land and identity in the Pacific say that without a theology of land, Indigenous People are "like a coconut floating in the sea". Over 20 church representatives from around the Pacific are attending the 11-14 September workshop in Suva, Fiji, only weeks after a constitutional crisis there and ethnic conflict in the Solomon Islands. Convened by the WCC Indigenous Peoples' Programme and the Pacific Conference of Churches, the workshop is calling on the region's churches to include issues of Indigenous spirituality and empowerment, land tenure and self-determination in their programme work. Participants are asking the Pacific churches to support the struggle for self-determination of West Papua.
1 October: Representatives of Indigenous Peoples from around Asia are meeting in Chiang Mai, Thailand, to share their common longing for the sacred. With globalization threatening their subsistence economies, ecologically sustainable agriculture and free expression of their spiritualities, they want the nation-state concept expanded to allow for more diversity among a nation's peoples, Indigenous Peoples to participate in international standard-setting about their concerns, proselytism and coercive mission to cease, and the dialogue begun at this meeting to continue. The workshop is being organized jointly by the WCC's Indigenous Peoples' Programme and the Council's Inter-religious Relations team.
22 September: Racism and xenophobia, and globalization and migration will be the special focus of a 24-26 September meeting of the WCC Global Ecumenical Network for Uprooted People to be held at the Ecumenical Institute at Bossey, near Geneva, Switzerland. Observers from the UN High Commission for Refugees, Roman Catholic refugee-serving agencies and other non-governmental and church organizations will also be present.
26 September: Mobilizing churches to become more effective advocates for uprooted people, and trafficking of people are its priority issues in the coming year say members of the WCC Global Ecumenical Network for Uprooted People meeting in Bossey. Since the numbers of uprooted people are increasing, government policies becoming harsher and racism and xenophobia growing, "the small poorly-resourced ecumenical organizations can't do it alone", explains Elizabeth Ferris of the WCC International Relations team. Thus, "the churches - from leaders to grassroots members - are the only hope for change".
29 September: "If the churches don't help refugees, nobody else will," says José Pires of the International Organization for Migration (IOM) about the work of the Egyptian churches. Unlike other countries with large refugee populations, there are practically no other non-governmental organizations working with refugees in Egypt. Pires is speaking at an annual meeting of the Middle East Council of Churches' (MECC) Working Group on Refugees, Displaced People and Migrants in Cairo in mid-September. The Group is visiting some of the Egyptian churches' outreach work that is supported by the WCC.
11 November: A Bucharest meeting of a European Working Group on church involvement with refugees, migrants and displaced people is focusing on how churches can become more actively engaged with the victims of trafficking. Participants - all of whom are representatives of European churches - agree to collect information about how churches are responding to undocumented migrants, and their experiences with national amnesty programmes for undocumented workers. The Group is a part of the Churches Commission on Migrants in Europe (CCME), working in close collaboration with the WCC International Relations team's programme on uprooted people.
24 November: The WCC and the International Catholic Migration Commission (ICMC) have jointly called on the UN to examine the "many reports" of serious abuses, including murder, of migrant workers in Persian Gulf countries. In a letter to Gabriela Rodriguez, UN special rapporteur on the Human Rights of Migrants, WCC and ICMC call for an on-the-spot UN investigation in the Gulf, which is home to around 12 million migrants, mainly from South Asia and Egypt.