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justice T

Standing for

he BWA engaged in a number of activities that seek to enhance the work and profile of the organization in regards to

JUSTICE ISSUES.

This included peace conferences, such

as in Yangon, Myanmar, in January 2014, with some 150 participants divided evenly between theological teachers and peace builders from the Asia Pacific region. A peace conference, organized by the Union of Baptists in Latin America (UBLA) with support from the BWA, the first among Latin American Baptists, was held in Rio de Janeiro in April 2014. The conference produced the Baptist Declaration of Rio de Janeiro, 2014, and gave birth to

the Latin American Baptist Peace

Community (Fellowship). An ecumenical peace conference in Chiapas, Mexico, was organized by Baptists and gave birth to a network of peace churches in the Caribbean, as well as Central and South America.

HUMAN RIGHTS VISITS On a visit to Thailand, in September

2010, a BWA delegation met with leaders and representatives of the Karen National Union, Karen Refugee Committee, Centre for Internally Displaced Karen People and the Karen Women’s Organization to discuss the plight of the roughly 300,000 Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) and refugees living along the Thai-Myanmar border. They also visited one of these refugee camps, Mae La, which houses up to 50,000 refugees from Myanmar. BWA shared the concerns with the United Nations Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights (UNOHCHR) in Bangkok and at other fora, as well.

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The BWA visited Uzbekistan in September 2012 to promote religious freedom and to strengthen the relationship between Baptists in the Central Asian country and the larger Baptist family. A BWA delegation visited the cities of Bogota, Cali and Buenaventura in Colombia, in June 2013, to observe the peace work of Protestant and evangelical churches in the country, and to explore ways to support this work. A delegation from the BWA and the European Baptist Federation (EBF) visited

Azerbaijan in September 2013 to asses the human rights and religious freedom situation; express love and solidarity to Azerbaijani Baptist Christians on behalf of the worldwide Baptist family; and to strengthen partnerships with Baptist churches in the country. In response to widespread violence

in the West African country, a BWA-led delegation visited Nigeria in December 2013. The team visited churches in the cities of Kaduna, Jos and Kafanchan that were affected by the violence, offering encouragement on behalf of the worldwide Baptist family. A letter to Goodluck Jonathan, the president of Nigeria, was presented during a meeting at the offices of the president in Abuja, Nigeria’s capital.

DELEGATIONS RECEIVED BY THE BWA

The BWA received a number of delegations at its offices. In April 2013, a delegation from the Chin Human Rights Organization (CHRO) visited BWA to discuss religious freedom violations in Chin State

in Myanmar. BWA helped

facilitate the visit of the delegation to the US to share its report as well as a visit of a Kachin/Karen delegation to the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights at the United Nations in New York. The BWA hosted a Karen in August 2013 to

delegation

discuss issues related to conflicts and displaced persons in and outside of Myanmar, and assisted the delegation to meet with various groups at the UN headquarters in New York City, including with the UNOHCHR and the UN missions for Japan and Sweden. Representatives of the Kachin

Alliance visited the offices of the BWA in October 2013 and gave details of the ongoing conflict in Myanmar. The Kachin group, accompanied by representatives of the BWA and ABC USA, traveled

APRIL/JUNE 2015 9

to the UN offices in New York in February and met with a representative of OHCHR.

HUMAN RIGHTS AWARDS

The BWA Denton and Janice Lotz Human Rights Award is given at each Annual Gathering and is distinguished from the five-year Congress Human Rights Award. Recipients of the Denton and Janice Lotz Human Rights Award for the quinquennium include Wati Aier (2011), of India, who helped to broker the signing of a peace accord between three nationalist groups in Nagaland, India, in September 2010; Edgar Palacios (2012), of El Salvador, who helped to negotiate peace in El Salvador, during the civil war of 1980-92; Glen Stassen (2013), of the United States, for being longtime peace activist and proponent of the globally recognized Just Peacemaking Theory in matters of war and conflict; and Ilie Coada (2014), of Moldova, who worked tirelessly against human trafficking and the sex trade in his country. During the congress in Durban, the

BWA Congress Human Rights Award will be presented to Corneille Gato Munyamasoko, general

secretary of

the Association of Baptist Churches in Rwanda.

Facing page above: A Chin delegation from Myanmar discussing with the BWA issues of concern in their country

Below: Edgar Palacios of El Salvador, winner of the Denton and Janice Lotz Human Rights Award in 2012. Palacios helped to negotiate peace in El Salvador during the civil war of 1980-92.