Second, we are also aware of
the acute urgency of the issues of justice, and even of survival, in the midst of which we live.
It is when we recognize that the
issue and practice
of peace is an enduring, lasting,
acute theme, and that it is the seemingly permanent persistence
of the absence
of peace and reconciliation that impels us to seek to understand, analyse and debate about the facets
of peace, that this conference takes on an
urgency that is necessary and compelling.