Vatican considering further moves on Mozambique

From A Special Correspondent
The Portuguese Government has said that an official enquiry had so far shown no evidence to support allegations of a massacre of civilians by Portuguese troops in Mozambique.
But it did admit that on at least one occasion troops in another part of the Tete region had practised "reprehensible acts" and the offenders would be duly punished.
The allegations about the massacre were first made by Fr. Adrian Hastings, in an article in The Times.
In the article, in July, Fr. Hastings alleged that Portuguese troops had massacred about 400 civilians at the village of Wiriyamu near Tete, in December, 1972.
The Portuguese said they could find no village of that name.
The article was published just as Portuguese Premier Marcell° Caetano was paying an official visit to Britain.
In a further development, the Vatican has told the Dutch bishops that it is considering possible steps concerning the situation on Portugal's African territories. In its response to the Dutch bishops' letter, the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace said that the letter had been forwarded to higher Vatican authorities.
In the letter to Cardinal Maurice Roy of Quebec, president of the pontifical commission, Cardinal Bernard Alfrink of Utrecht, on behalf of the Dutch bishops, had urged the Vatican to support the efforts of missionaries aiding black Africans in Portugal's East African territory of Mozambique.
The Vatican has already revealed that it has been protesting to the Portuguese Government about the situation.
The Vatican press officer, Federico Alessandrini said that the Vatican's representative in Lisbon had made several approaches for information and to express anguish at the reports.
The secretary of the Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace, Mgr. Joseph Gremillion told Cardinal Alfrink in a letter that the bishops of Portuguese African territories had repeatedly expressed their disapproval of violence. According to other reports, the Portuguese authorities are now considering the expulsion from their African territories of the Burgos Fathers who first reported the alleged massacres to Fr. Hastings.
The two members of the missionary society Fr. Vincent Berenguer and Fr. Julio Moue cut short a press conference tour of European countries earlier this month.
A spokesman for their society said they had not been ordered to return to Spain but had gone back because they were tired.
Portuguese security forces are ready to launch a full scale dragnet operation in the Tete district of :Mozambique, the South African Press Association reported from Beira. The report quoted reliable sources in Tete as saying that an unusually heavy movement of troops passed through the town yesterday on their way to areas where Prelim° (Movement for the Liberation of Mozamhiouel guerrillas are believed to have their hush camps.
The report said it was understood that large forces would seek out and destroy guerrilla camps and other forces would cut off supply routes from Zambia. It also said an African special group had killed five guerrillas and removed a quantity of arms in the north eastern part of Mozambique. A three-man Freiimo delegation. led by the organisation's rice-president Marcelino Dos Santos, visited Bonn last week at the SDP's invitation for talks with Church and political figures. During the discussions, the delegation secured the support of Chancellor Willy Brandt's Social Democratic Party, and an assurance that West German arms deliveries to Portugal would stop. The Portuguese Embassy in Bonn commented after the visit "Invitations of this kind do not
help the cause of peace and completely ignore Portugal's
legitimate fight in :Mozambique for political, economic and social progress of the population there."