Sri Lanka peace plea
RELIEF agencies from all over Europe joined together this week in calling on the Sri Lankan government and the rebel Liberation Tigers of Tamil Eelam to think again before embarking on all-out confrontation. The charities, which included CAFOD, Christian Aid and Trocaire, told Sri Lanka's President Premadasa that prolonged conflict could be avoided through "a negotiated settlement". A state of civil war was declared in the north of the country last week.
THE government in Singapore this week released a Catholic lay activist imprisoned without trial or charge for the last three years. Vincent Cheng, former general secretary of the Justice and Peace Commission in Singapore. was among a group of 22 arrested in May and June 1987 for their alleged role in a plot to overthrow the government. Cheng was the last to be freed, a court rejecting a plea of habeas corpus made on his behalf by CAFOD lawyer Gerry Martin last September.
NELSON Mandela, deputy president of the African National Congress, this week thanked religious leaders in the United States for their support over the years in the struggle against apartheid. Mr Mandela told a 3,000 strong crowd at an ecumenical prayer meeting at New York's Riverside church "you are our comrades-in
arms".
PATRIARCH Alexsi 11, the newly elected leader of the Russian Orthodox church, is preparing for the canonisation of victims of religious persecution in the Soviet Union. Those being considered include two metropolitans executed during the 1917 revolution.
SEVENTEEN Catholic bishops in Kenya this week warned that the "philosophy of national security" was taking hold of the country, and that President Daniel Mors ruling Zanu party was moving towards dictatorship. "Whoever raises any particular criticism against some particular measures taken by the party is considered to be attacking the government of Kenya," the bishops said.