c. 1996 Religion News Service

Archbishop sees lack of human rights threatening Bosnia peace

(RNS) _ The fragile peace in Bosnia is being undermined by a lack of basic human rights, including religious rights, says Archbishop Theodore McCarrick of Newark, N.J.”The future of religious minorities in Bosnia-Herzegovina remains bleak,”McCarrick said.”A year after the Dayton Accords, the lack of basic human rights, the inability of refugees to return home, and the continuation of `ethnic cleansing’ are undermining any hopes of restoring a multi-ethnic, multi-religious Bosnia-Herzegovina and building a just and lasting peace.” The Dayton Accords, signed in Dayton, Ohio, last year, brought an end to the fierce civil war in the former Yugoslavia between ethnic Serbs, Croats and Muslims that was marked by”ethnic cleansing”_ the killing or forced removal of ethnic and religious minorities so as to”purify”regions controlled by one or the other of the three groups.

McCarrick, chairman of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee to Aid the Church in Central and Eastern Europe, returned from a trip to the region on Oct. 22.

He said that in Serb-controlled areas of Bosnia, Croatians, who are largely Catholics, and Bosnians, who are largely Muslim, continued to be pressured by the Serbs, who are generally Orthodox Christians.

Anything that might encourage a former non-Serb resident to return to the area is destroyed, McCarrick said, adding that homes and public buildings have been looted and razed.

McCarrick said that Banja Luka, a city that was generally spared military fighting, witnessed some of the worst ethnically motivated atrocities of the war that began in 1991. The Catholic population, which he said was 120,000 people before the war, has shrunk to about 11,000. The reduction of the Muslim population is even greater, he said.

FBI: Race is motive in most hate crimes in 1995

(RNS) The FBI said Monday that there were nearly 8,000 hate crimes committed in the United States in 1995, including 20 hate-crime murders.

Citing preliminary data from 9,500 local and state law enforcement agencies covering 75 percent of the population, the FBI report said there were 7,947 hate crimes reported, but the FBI stressed that its figures were incomplete.

Figures for 1995 could not be compared with other years because the number of police agencies reporting hate crimes had grown substantially, according to the report.

In 1994, with reports from 7,200 police agencies covering 58 percent of the population, the FBI documented 5,852 hate crimes.

Race was the motivation in 4,831 of the crimes in 1995, or 60.8 percent. Of the racially motivated crimes, 2,988 incidents were directed at blacks, or 61.9 percent. White were targets of 1,226 of the racially motivated hate crimes, or 25.4 percent.

Religious bias was the second most frequent motivation, according to the FBI analysis, accounting for 1,277 incidents in 1995, or 16.1 percent of the hate crime totals. Jews were the most frequent target of religious hate crimes _ 1,058 instances, or 82.9 percent.

Sexual orientation motivated 1,019 crimes in 1995, or 12.8 percent of the total. Of those, 735 were attacks on gay men.

South African parliament approves liberal abortion law

(RNS) South Africa’s Senate gave its approval Tuesday (Nov. 5) to a new abortion law, replacing one of the most restrictive abortion laws in the world with one of the most permissive.

The law, the Choice of Termination of Pregnancy Bill, the most controversial moral issue yet tackled by South Africa’s first democratically elected parliament, was approved by a 49-21 vote in the Senate.

Twenty senators, including several from the ruling African National Congress (ANC), were not present for the vote. The ANC had imposed party discipline for the vote, ordering members to either support the measure or stay away.

On Oct. 30, the National Assembly, the lower chamber of the parliament, narrowly approved the law with nearly 100 of the 400-member parliament boycotting the vote.

Most prominent of the absentees in the assembly vote was the Rev. Smangaliso Mkhatshwa, a Roman Catholic priest who is also the deputy minister of education.

But another prominent Roman Catholic member of parliament, Sister Bernard Ncube, voted the ANC line and for the legislation.

So did Dr. Nkosazana Zuma, the Minister of Health and a Catholic who has been instrumental in pushing the eased abortion law.

In addition to the Catholics, a number of Muslim MPs were among those who boycotted the vote, according to news reports from South Africa.

On Tuesday, Reuters quoted Zuma as saying that it could be several months before the health department was able to implement the provisions of the new law.

Current law allows abortion only in the case of rape, incest or immediate danger to the mental or physical health of the mother. The new law will state-funded abortion on demand during the first 12 weeks of pregnancy if the woman has not private medical insurance. It also imposes various restrictions on abortions during the next eight weeks of a pregnancy.

Update: Catholic priests reported kidnapped in eastern Zaire

(RNS) Two Belgian Roman Catholic priests have reportedly been kidnapped in the war zone of eastern Zaire, diplomats based in Rwanda said Tuesday (Nov. 5).

Reuters reported that the priests were seized at Katana, about 18 miles north of the city of Bukavu, a town seized by Zairean rebel Tutsis last week. The area where the priests were reportedly seized is a stronghold of former Hutu fighters from Rwanda and militias opposed to the Tutsi rebels.

But Reuters said there was no firm information on who kidnapped the priests, the priests’ identity or their condition.

The kidnapping came as African leaders and others sought a means to end three weeks of fighting in eastern Zaire that spilled over from neighboring Rwanda and Burundi. Eastern Zaire is the site of refugee camps holding hundreds of thousands of mostly Hutu refugees.

On Monday (Nov. 4), the Rev. Ishmael Noko, general secretary of the Geneva-based Lutheran World Federation, called on African leaders to take a more active role in seeking to settle the crisis.”The time has come for President (Nelson) Mandela (of South Africa) and President (Robert) Mugabe (of Zimbabwe) to use their political clout and moral authority to bring peace to the region,”Noko said.”There has been a lack of political will,”Noko said of the whole of the international community as well as the African leaders. He criticized the United Nations for not taking decisive action such as sending peacekeeping forces or peace monitors to the region.

A summit meeting of six African leaders from the war-torn region convened on Tuesday (Nov. 5) urged the United Nations to deploy a”neutral force”in eastern Zaire to aid the estimated 1.2 million Hutu refugees and to create”safe corridors”that would allow the refugees to return home.

Evangelical group assists Israeli Ministry of Tourism

(RNS) An evangelical advisory group has been established to assist the Israeli Ministry of Tourism in encouraging Christians to travel to Israel.

Seventeen American Christian leaders attended the inaugural meeting of the Israel Christian Advisory Council (ICAC) during a tour of the Holy Land in late October, reported Baptist Press, the official news service of the Southern Baptist Convention.

The group included representatives of the National Religious Broadcasters, the Luis Palau Evangelistic Association and the Southern Baptist Convention.”Christians come to Israel for a spiritual experience,”said ICAC spokesman Don Argue, president of the National Association of Evangelicals.”They want to learn more about the Bible, to feel what Jesus felt, to see what he saw. But they want to worship God and to grow closer to him while they are in Israel, and they want to enjoy fellowship with other Christians.” The council recommended that the government help pastors and other Christian leaders make trips to Israel more meaningful for travelers. Argue said the group had a strong interest in incorporating travel to Israel as a part of ministerial training at colleges and seminaries.

Shabtai Shay, acting director of the Israeli Ministry of Tourism, stressed the importance of pilgrims to the country.”The story of our life is a problem of perception,”Shay said.”We are perceived to be a place of war and terrorist activity.” Shay said the reality is that”occasional outbreaks of violence”are reported widely in the news media, giving a sense that violence is constant.”We are asked again and again about safety,”Argue agreed.”I feel totally safe in Israel _ a lot safer than in a lot of American cities.”

Quote of the day: Lester Brown, Worldwatch Institute

(RNS) On Nov. 13, representatives from nations around the world will gather in Rome for the United Nations Food Summit, the first such parley in 22 years. Delegates will debate and vote on a plan of action aimed at ending world hunger. Lester Brown, president of the Washington-based Worldwatch Institute, a think tank dealing with environmental and social policy issues, addressed the link between hunger and population in a recent opinion piece published by the Institute:”We now face a moral question that we’ve not had to address before: Can couples justify having more than two surviving children in a world where both the grain harvest and the seafood catch per person are falling? Have we reached the point where couples everywhere should try to hold the line at two children, at replacement-level fertility?”Is it time for national political leaders to speak out, urging their constituents to limit their families to two surviving children, explaining why failure to do so could lead to economic decline, political instability, and social disintegration? The reality is we do not have many options left on a finite planet.” KC END ANDERSON