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For Immediate Release
Contact: Tim Vining 412-361-3022
December 14, 2001
Thomas Merton
Center Issues New Statement on War on Terrorism:
Calls for
International Response to Humanitarian Crisis in Afghanistan
The Thomas Merton Center of Pittsburgh
has issued a public statement on the humanitarian crisis in Afghanistan caused
by the continued U.S. bombing of the region. “Although
some are claiming victory in Afghanistan, this is no victory for humanity… The
military response in Afghanistan has ended or maimed uncounted innocent lives,
and cruelly increased the number of civilians jeopardized by starvation and
exposure,” according to the “Thomas Merton Center Updated
Statement on America’s Response to Crisis of September 11.”
The Merton Center supports as
a solution to the crisis the recommendations of the Revolutionary Association
of the Women of Afghanistan (RAWA), including:
- Self-determination for the Afghan people, with a
secular, broad-based, democratic government that includes full and equal
participation of women
- The exclusion of Taliban and other criminal Jehadi
factions from political power due to the crimes they have committed on the
Afghan people
- Prosecution of terrorists under international law
(A representative of RAWA spoke on December 6th
to a Pittsburgh audience at Chatham College about the crisis facing her
country.)
The Merton Center is
particularly concerned about the death of innocent civilians in the United
States’ “war on terrorism”: “The shameful
euphemism ‘collateral damage’ is meant to convince us that the deaths of
innocents are necessary and acceptable concomitants of war. The Thomas Merton Center asserts that the
deaths of innocents are precisely why war should never be a first option. War
does indeed kill innocent people. It always has. It always will. It also
engenders hatred and provides the basis for future killing. If war brought
peace, we would have had peace on Earth long ago.”
The Merton Center statement
also expresses strong reservations about proposed legislation to restrict civil
liberties in the United States. “In our
rush to protect our freedoms from outside attack, we have assailed them from
within.” In addition, the Merton Center condemns
the American mass media’s complicity in keeping the American public in the dark
by putting a veil on the impact of American military policies and actions. “We cannot truly become global citizens when we lack vital information on
matters of international consequence.”
A full copy of the Thomas Merton Center statement
is available at
www.thomasmertoncenter.org
or by calling the Center at 412-361-3022.
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