[Episcopal News Service]
As India and Pakistan continue their military stand-off over Kashmir, church leaders from South Asia have issued a warning about the build up of weapons across the sub-continent amid growing poverty and deprivation.
The church leaders, meeting in Sri Lanka's capital, Colombo, warned of the danger of military conflict between India and Pakistan and criticized the money spent on armaments rather than on tackling the region's social needs. 'The colossal magnitude of human insecurity and deprivations make South Asia the most vulnerable space on the globe today,' they said in a statement issued at the end of the gathering that took place July 24-26. The meeting was organized by the Christian Conference of Asia (CCA) and the World Council of Churches (WCC).
'The situation here is alarming. Development activities are ignored in the name of national defense,' said Metropolitan Joseph Mar Irenaeus, from India, one of the CCA's presidents. But the churches' attempt to draw attention to the 'wasteful' military expenditure had led only to their being branded by nationalist groups as 'anti-national and unpatriotic' for questioning the arms race, he said.
Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches in Pakistan, said that according to unconfirmed sources, the actual defense allocation in Pakistan was far above the 30 percent of the annual budget officially acknowledged. The strengthening of Pakistan's defense forces to match Indian military power was having a serious impact on the country's economy and the poor, he added.
Mathews George Chunakkara, the WCC's Asia secretary, said at the Colombo gathering that border disputes such as that in Kashmir and internal conflicts in South Asia were responsible for the increase in defense spending in the region. He pointed out that even smaller countries such as Bangladesh were now increasing their military expenditure. The tension between India and Pakistan made South Asia the only region in the world where a nuclear war was 'a clear possibility', he said.
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