ASIA/IRAQ - CHALDEAN CATHOLIC BISHOPS CALL FOR RECOGNITION AND REPRESENTATION IN THE BUILDING OF NEW DEMOCRATIC IRAQ

Tuesday, 16 September 2003

Baghdad (Fides Service) – The Chaldean Bishops of Iraq sent a declaration on “the role of Chaldeans in the new Iraq” to the Civil Administrator of Iraq Mr Paul Bremer.
In their statement signed by 19 Chaldean Bishops, a copy was sent to Fides Service by the Chaldean Patriarchate in Baghdad, the Prelates ask for the administration to “guarantee of rights of all Christians of Iraq – religious, civil, social and political – first among them our Chaldean people”. The Bishops recall that Christian Chaldeans are the descendants of the ancient inhabitants of Iraq. Their ancestors embraced Christianity and filled the plains and mountains of this country with their towns and villages, monasteries and churches. In recent decades thousands had to leave their land, willingly or forcefully as their culture was suppressed.
Chaldeans are the third ethnic community in Iraq, after the Arabs and Kurds and among the Christians, Assyrians, Syriacs, Armenians, Chaldeans are about 75-80% of the total. Their presence in the social professional and administrative fields is evident all over Iraq and especially in the formation of the State. This is why the Bishops ask for a Chaldean representative in the new government and respect for the important of role of the Chaldean community in the building of a new Iraq.
They affirm: “We declare here our solidarity with all Iraqi citizens, Arabs. Kurds and Tremens and all ethnic and religious groups living in peaceful brotherhood, especially with our Christian brethren: the Assyrieans, the Syriacs the Armenians and the Latins, for the sale of building a new democratic free and prosperous Iraq." PA (Fides Service 16/9/2003 EM lines 28 Words: 250)


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