Card. Sako: in Middle East 'weapons and disorder' win out over timid international mediation

The Chaldean Patriarch speaks to AsiaNews of a “worrying” situation especially for the civilian population, which pays “the highest price.” Mediations stagnate and the “economics of war” continue to prevail, triggering on other elements of crisis, such as demographics and climate. The role of Shiite militias in the Iraqi scenario and the “scandal” that hit the Chaldean Church recently.

Rome (AsiaNews) - “We are responsible in the search for peace, for dialogue: the international community, the countries of the Middle East are all involved. However, if we ourselves do not know how to personally put an end to this spiral, it will be others who must help us find the way to achieve it.” This is the warning issued by the Baghdad Patriarch of the Chaldeans, Card. Louis Raphael Sako, in the face of the spiral of violence that has engulfed the region, bloodied in the past year by conflicts of increasingly broader scope: from Gaza, with the war launched by Israel on Hamas in response to the Oct. 7, 2023 attack, to Lebanon with the “northern front” opened by the Jewish state in an attempt to eliminate the “threat” of Hezbollah; then there are the other actors in the area, from the Shiite Houthi in Yemen to Iran, with the prospect of a large-scale escalation. “The situation is worrying,” he warns, ”there is no listening to reason and responsibility, especially toward civilians who pay the highest price. And the international assembly is timid, there are appeals and mediations, but they are stagnant and fail to move forward.”

War Economy

We met with Card. Sako on the sidelines of the work of the synodal assembly taking place this October in the Vatican, and the picture drawn by Iraq's highest ecclesiastical authority is merciless and does not admit of any discounts toward those in positions and responsibilities. “More than weak, which has a pejorative note, the international community is timid in its work of mediation, because although it is trying to do something, it is not moved,” he warns, ”by that unity of purpose that is necessary today in order to be effective. “My conviction,” he explains to AsiaNews, ”is that there is no longer a global order as in the past. There are no longer values or principles, and what reigns is disorder, a chaos in which the strongest attacks the weakest. However, problems and confrontations must be resolved through dialogue, soft diplomacy, and nonviolent deterrence.”

Dictating the international agenda, at a time of multi-sector crisis, is the war economy in which “the arms trade prevails in a framework of limited resources, an ever-growing world population and an increasingly dramatic environmental crisis. Climate, ecology, and access to food all play a role in conditioning this theater of war.” The Middle East for too long has been a territory “without peace: we need international attention, a care for this suffering part of the world that needs stability. Even in the face of opposing or divergent interests between the West and the East, we should eliminate,” the cardinal warned, ”every source of violence, recourse to war and weapons.

The Iraqi scenario

As far as the Iraqi scenario is concerned, there is one critical element that has so far remained in the shadows and has not been involved, except in a marginal way, in the war scenario: the Shiite militias linked to Tehran, which unlike the Lebanese Hezbollah and the Yemeni Houthis have not directly intervened in the conflict by attacking Israel. “I think that so far,” comments the Chaldean Patriarch, ‘an attitude of wisdom has prevailed on the part of these groups, who do not want to enter into this proxy war’ in which the actors are multiplying. “We have seen the intervention of militias,” he continues, ‘that in various capacities and at different times have become involved’ while averting ”a war between states that would have devastating effects. This can be considered an element of wisdom in a landscape where the din of arms seems to prevail.” After all, the Hamas movement “is by nature a militia” that does not represent the entire Palestinian people and, in the past, has been at odds with the Palestinian Authority itself. And both face Israel, which “is a state with tanks, an army, the air force in an obvious imbalance on the ground.” “There cannot be parity of forces,” he continued, ”between Israel and Hamas; they are two too different realities. That is why the only way is through mediation, with the international community exerting just pressure for the birth of a state” that is capable of living by overcoming the logic of permanent conflict.

The Chaldean Patriarch recently met with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, from whom he received ample reassurances that he “does not want to be dragged into a regional war, although the unknown of the militias remains and the issue on the agenda is how to control.” The Iraqi executive is in an “awkward situation” because it rejects war and “is trying every possible avenue of mediation.” For that matter, part of these militias “would like to help Hezbollah, and Hamas, but the attitude of moderation prevails, waiting for developments. At the level of religious leaders, even Iraq's highest Shiite authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani has issued an unusual appeal in tone and content for an "end to the aggression ” and for humanitarian aid to be sent to the population, a sign of great concern about the crisis. Christians, Shiite and Sunni Muslims, and Jews “must all launch together,” the cardinal hoped, “a prophetic and strong appeal for peace, brotherhood, trying to defuse tensions. Pope Francis has done this several times, but he is one of the few voices of peace” in the face of those who ”try to use religion to achieve their own interests.”

The “scandal” of the Chaldean Church

For Card Sako, the presence of the militias is not only a source of concern for regional repercussions, because in the recent history of the Chaldean Church they have represented an element of internal tension that threatens to result in a devastating rift. The “scandal of the Chaldean Church” as the primate calls it, which denounces “the influences, even on the material level with concrete aid” to which some church communities are subjected. The reference is to one militia in particular: the Babylon Brigades of self-styled leader Rayan al-Kildani, which fomented divisions, maneuvered for the withdrawal of the presidential decree that resulted in the self-exile (who returned months later) of Card. Sako and prompted five bishops to boycott the last Chaldean Synod. Some realities, he denounced, “receive money and aid from a certain militia, they are not autonomous and this is a great wound: the Church does not need money, but faith, and the clergy must serve in a total way, with passion, and independent of certain politics or interests.”

The decision of the five bishops to snub the meeting in the capital, an occasion to also celebrate the patriarch's return to Baghdad, was cause for “deep shock.” A part of these “rebellious bishops, especially the younger ones, was manipulated,” accuses the cardinal, who has already sent a file to the Holy See for evaluations and possible measures. In the background is the still current fear of a real schism in the Chaldean Church, behind which is the hand of the same Shiite militias - active in northern Iraq and Kurdish territory - acting for money and power. “They wanted the Chaldean Synod to fail in order to have a personal success, instead it went very well, 17 bishops (out of the total 22) showed themselves very united,” Card. Sako, who closes by confiding his “primary concern for the future: what is important for me is to prepare the ground to leave the leadership of the Chaldean Church to the successor. For a patriarch,” he concludes without naming names but outlining priorities, ”who can unite and continue in the tradition.

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