Catholic patriarchs of the Middle East denounced terrorism and called upon the international community to put an end to the "human drama" in Iraq.

The patriarchs addressed a number of issues affecting the region in their 15th annual congress Nov. 28-Dec. 2 in Amman, Jordan, where Nov. 9 terrorist attacks left 60 people dead.

In a concluding statement --- issued as the trial of deposed Iraqi President Saddam continued this week --- the patriarchs said that they prayed for Iraq and deplored its insecurity and assassinations on the national level, as well as its insecurity on religious, social and moral levels.

"The people of the Middle East region are suffering from repression, hunger, unemployment, occupation, exploitation and a lack of human rights. They also face the threat of losing their national identity in the face of foreign political, military and economic aggression," the patriarchs said.

They called upon the international community to help Iraq "put an end to this human drama by giving back to this country its sovereignty, its unity and its dignity."

Referring to the overall state of the Middle East, the patriarchs said: "Our people suffer from an absence of peace. They are sometimes deprived of the most elementary conditions and a dignified existence.

"Our people have waited for solutions from their governments or political leaders," they said. When leaders fail to offer solutions, and with the ensuing accumulation of crises, "religious extremists resort to acts of terrorism, which have spread in the East as well as in the West."

The patriarchs said "there is absolutely no justification" for terrorism, but at the same time they pointed out that they are looking into its underlying causes: the exploitation of the weak by the powerful, the absence of democracy and human rights, and the misunderstanding of basic principles of all the religions.

They pointed to "the blood shed in Iraq and in the Holy Land" and deplored the various conflicts in most of the Arab world. They also condemned the violence in tourist sites such as the recent attacks in Jordan.

The patriarchs called for a "definitive end to the cycle of violence" for Palestinians. They also called for an end to: military operations in Palestinian areas, the execution and imprisonment of Palestinians, destruction of housing, and the construction of the Israeli security wall that encloses Palestinians.

Christians must respect the pluralism of their churches and cooperate with organizations in civil society that demonstrate positive objectives, they said.

They called upon Catholic youths to initiate programs involving Christians in the region by organizing committees for justice and peace.

"I think what we need in the Middle East, before we can have democracy, is to have human rights and justice," said Father Khalil Alwan, secretary-general of the assembly of Catholic patriarchs in the Middle East. "We need to educate the people regarding democracy. It's a long process to change the mentality, but we can't establish democracy in any country in which the government does not respect human rights."

The assembly included the Eastern Catholic patriarchs of the Maronite, Coptic, Melkite, Syrian, Armenian and Chaldean churches and the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem.

---CNS