c. 1996 Religion News Service
Catholic bishops urge intervention in East African crisis
(RNS) Despite the ambiguities of the situation, the international community should mount a swift and urgent response to the on-going humanitarian crisis in Africa’s Great Lakes region, U.S. Roman Catholic bishops said Wednesday (Dec. 11).”In light of the continuing humanitarian crisis, we strongly recommend that the 20-country multinational force move promptly and urgently to seek means by which it can pursue, in cooperation with the local authorities, the life-saving measures for which it has been created,”said Monsignor Dennis M. Schnurr, general secretary of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops.”The ambiguous and opaque nature of the situation in eastern Zaire should not be used as an excuse for the international community’s inaction,”he said.
The statement by Schnurr, the top day-to-day official at the bishops’ conference, was prompted by the failure of the international community to implement plans for dealing with the refugee crisis in the Africa region that includes Zaire, Burundi, Rwanda, and Tanzania, where recent fighting has displaced hundreds of thousands of mostly Hutu refugees.
The crisis erupted in late October when fighting between Zairean rebels, mostly Tutsis, and Zairean government troops threatened to engulf refugee camps along the border between Zaire and Rwanda, where an estimated 1.2 million refugees from Rwanda have been encamped since 1994. An estimated 640,000 Rwandese have returned to Rwanda in the face of the fighting but remain in need of aid. The fate of others who fled the camps remains unknown.
At the beginning of the crisis, Canada offered to lead an international force that would ensure the delivery of aid to the refugees but the exodus from Zaire led many governments to believe intervention was unnecessary and the plan has stalled.”After five weeks without aid and separated from humanitarian workers by miles of conflict zone, it is clear that many have died and many more innocent people could lose their lives because they are too weak to make the return journey without assistance,”Schnurr’s statement on behalf of the bishops’ conference said.
The bishops called on the U.S. government to”use all diplomatic means”to ensure that necessary steps are taken to give humanitarian agencies access to the hundreds of thousands of refugees still in need of assistance.
Schnurr also voiced concern that the government of Tanzania and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees have agreed to the return of 500,000 refugees camped in Tanzania to Rwanda by the end of the year.”Such a return should be encouraged but it should be voluntary and, to the extent possible, it should be a more gradual and orderly flow than the massive return through Goma (Zaire),”he said.
On Wednesday, the Reuter news agency reported that some 23,000 of the Rwandans in Tanzania, intimidated by Rwandese Hutu extremists believed responsible for the genocide of Tutsis that swept Rwanda in 1994, have fled the Tanzanian camps for the bush country rather than return to Rwanda.”Between Friday and Saturday, the intimidators went house to house, door to door, telling people to leave,”Anne Willem Byleveld, a senior UNHCR official told Reuters.”It is very sad, the people are simply confused and lost.”
As homelessness grows, cities crack down on the poor
(RNS) City officials across the United States are making it more difficult for the growing number of homeless people to survive on the street, according to a report released in Washington Wednesday (Dec. 11) by the National Law Center on Homelessness and Poverty.
New laws against panhandling and camping in city parks are on the rise, a”dangerous trend”that must be reversed, said Maria Foscarinis, director of the center.”The bottom line is that people are being punished for being homeless. It’s cruel, and it won’t achieve the goal,”she said, according to the Associated Press.
An analysis of new laws in the nation’s 50 largest cities indicated that three out of four municipalities now have anti-panhandling laws, which represent a 62 percent rise in the past two years, according to the report.
The report also described Atlanta, San Francisco, New York, Dallas and San Diego as cities with the”meanest streets”in the nation because of so-called”quality of life”laws that crack down on the poor.
The City of Seattle, however, was praised for its offer to provide a free public hygiene center, giving homeless people access to toilets, showers and laundry facilities. Dade County, Fla., also won praise for a 1 percent tax on restaurant meals to pay for facilities and services for the homeless.
Lugo named director of Pew religion program
(RNS) The Pew Charitable Trusts have appointed political scientist Luis E. Lugo to head the Philadelphia-based charity’s religion program. Lugo, 45, will oversee a $12-million program that focuses on religious scholarship, urban and Hispanic ministry and the role of religion in public life.
Lugo most recently served as associate director of the Center for Public Justice. Based in Annapolis, Md., the center is a Christian public policy think tank dealing with the role of religion in public life and such issues as welfare, school choice, religious liberty and electoral and political reform.”Luis’ background and broad exposure within religious communities uniquely suits him to continue the Trusts’ current commitments and to lead the exploration of religious influence on the issues of the day,”said Rebecca Rimel, president of the Pew Trusts.”Religion can play a vital role in rebuilding public trust and revitalizing American democracy,”Lugo said.”When it respects the diverse nature of public life, vibrant religious expression truly nurtures and enriches our shared civic community.” The Pew Charitable Trusts support nonprofit activities in areas of culture, education, environment, health and human services, public policy and religion. The charity describes its religion program as seeking to”help people of faith make a positive contribution to public life and aims to promote religion’s role in shaping ideas, beliefs, morals and institutions within American culture.”
Cuban officials attend historic Mass
(RNS) In an apparent reversal of decades of negative attitudes toward religion, officials of Cuba’s Communist government attended an historic Mass Sunday (Dec. 8) at Havana’s Roman Catholic cathedral.
Officiating at the solemn”Misa Cubana,”or Cuban Mass, was Cardinal Jaime Ortega, who had served time in a labor camp in the 1960s after Fidel Castro’s Communist revolution.”People of differing ideas have come to this artistic gathering,”said Cuban Culture Minister Armando Hart, according to the Associated Press.
Music for the liturgy was composed by Jose Maria Vitier, featuring a formal chorus and folksingers, who sang in Latin and Spanish, accompanied by a string orchestra, organ, piano and percussion section. Vitier, composer of the score for the acclaimed Cuban film”Strawberries and Chocolate,”told Presna Latina news agency that he was inspired by Cuban folk music and traditional sacred music.
Cuba was officially atheist from the early 1960s until 1992; religious believers were banned from the Communist Party, the military and other professions. No new churches have been built since 1959.
But religious freedom has increased in the wake of the Cold War. And Castro recently met with Pope John Paul II in Rome; the pope is expected to visit Cuba in 1997.
Mandela signs South Africa abortion law
(RNS) President Nelson Mandela signed South Africa’s new abortion bill into law Wednesday (Dec. 11), marking a historic reversal in which one of the world’s most restrictive abortion laws was replaced by one of the most permissive.
Under the old law, abortion was allowed only in early pregnancies resulting from rape or incest and those that posed immediate danger to the life of the mother. Under the new law, women and girls are entitled to state-funded abortion on demand during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy and, subject to certain conditions, for eight weeks thereafter.
Department of Health official Eddie Mhlanga said the law would be implemented on Feb. 1, 1997, the Associated Press reported.
Quote of the day: Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn
(RNS) At a news conference on Tuesday (Dec. 10), Sen. Joseph Lieberman, D-Conn., conservative activist William Bennett, and C. DeLores Tucker, chairwoman of the National Political Congress of Black Women, accused music companies of continuing to distribute vulgar music by pop stars despite pledges not to sell offensive music. After playing examples of songs they found offensive, Lieberman commented:”While most of us are trying to spread the seasonal spirit of peace, hope and goodwill, these records and their corporate sponsors are telling our children it’s the season of senseless violence, hopelessness and the most awful ill-will toward each other, particularly women.”
MJP END RNS
