National Conference of Viet Nam Veteran Ministers

Listen to Those who Pay the Price
A Peace and Justice Statement
October 20, 1996

The National Conference of Viet Nam Veteran Ministers meeting in annual conference on October 15th to 20th, 1996, at the LaSalette Center for Christian Living in Attleboro, Massachusetts, issued the following statement:

The continued manifestations of war within the world community extract a terrible human price as well as economically and socially. Conflicts are often organized and carried on by those most isolated from those "paying the price."

The Government of the United States has the greatest investment in the ongoing conflict in the Mid-East; therefore, we, the National Conference of Viet Nam Veteran Ministers, a group composed of veterans who are ordained clergy who work constantly with those whose voices are forgotten, call upon our government, the President and those responsible for our foreign policy, to demonstrate and model to all nations a true commitment to making peace by intentionally listening to the voices of those who are "paying the price" by:

• working with the leaders of Israel and Palestine, using whatever influence and leverage available, to facilitate and convene meetings between children representing all sides of the conflict, and between mothers representing all sides of the conflict who have lost children in the ongoing conflict; and,
  
• ensuring that representatives of both countries at the very highest level are present at those gatherings solely for the purpose of listening to those who are gathered, who have paid the price for the continued policies of their own national leaders.