U.N. plans to bring together 1,000 world religious leaders

By Larry Witham, THE WASHINGTON TIMES, July 14, 2000

A global summit bringing 1,000 religious leaders to the United Nations will disclose some participants next week, good news to U.N. officials eager to plan security and protocol for the unprecedented Aug. 28-29 event.  The "working list" to be issued Tuesday will not include personages such as Pope John Paul II and probably not the Dalai Lama, who reports no invitation.  But the Vatican's Cardinal Francis Arinze, a Nigerian, will make the trek to New York City as will spiritual leaders from countries such as Peru who have never before left their native soils. 

"The leaders we've met in Africa, and Europe and Asia and Russia understand the opportunity," said Dena Merriam, a vice chairman of the summit.  "The challenge is to have so many top leaders, and they all have something to say," she said.  Miss Merriam, who has traveled with the summit's Secretary-General Bawa Jain to enlist participants, noted that even heads of state are given no more than five minutes to make remarks at the United Nations.

The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders is organized by an "independent coalition" of interfaith leaders, and is being held in a year when nongovernmental organizations, or NGOs, are seeking use of the General Assembly chamber more than usual.
"We're hoping in the next two weeks that their program will begin to gel," a U.N. official said.
"Any event that takes place in the General Assembly room requires major concern for security, protocol, the political [aspects], and making sure the program is compatible with the work of the United Nations," he said.

NGO use of the chamber averages about four times a year, but this year it will be roughly 10 times.
The Millennium World Peace Summit of Religious and Spiritual Leaders opens Aug. 28 with an afternoon procession into the General Assembly and sessions all the next day.  It moves for two more days to the nearby Waldorf Astoria hotel.  The summit was announced last October after "conversations" between media mogul Ted Turner and U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who will address the session of "the world's pre-eminent" spiritual leaders.

One casualty of the inevitable political delicacies may be the Dalai Lama, spiritual leader of Tibet. China holds one of five permanent seats on the U.N. Security Council and long has opposed his speaking at the United Nations.  "His Holiness has not been invited to the summit," an Office of Tibet spokeswoman in New York said Thursday. 

The religious leaders are expected to issue a Declaration for World Peace and agree to some form of a permanent International Advisory Council of Religious and Spiritual Leaders.  Mr. Turner, the summit's honorary chairman, has promised full live coverage by CNN.  The chairman of the top advisory board is Canadian businessman Maurice Strong, who ran the U.N. Earth Summit in 1992, and a vice president of the summit's executive counsel is former Sen. Timothy Wirth, Colorado Democrat, who now heads Mr. Turner's grant-giving United Nations Foundation.

Other vice presidents are Gillian Sorenson, assistant to Mr. Annan, and the Rev. James Morton, an Episcopal priest with the Interfaith Center of New York.  A midtown Manhattan office near the United Nations has been the hub of the yearlong effort inviting notable people from 12 world traditions, from the monotheistic faiths to Zoroastrianism, indigenous religions and Confucianism.  Funding comes from 11 sponsors, which include the Better World Fund of Mr. Turner and the Templeton, Carnegie and Rockefeller Brothers foundations. Summit organizers would not yet disclose a budget.

SOURCE:  http://www.washingtontimes.com/

---