CHURCH leaders handed in a letter of protest at continued United States funding of the "contra" rebels in Nicaragua to the Foreign Office on Tuesday.
The delegation, which included Bishop James O'Brien, Chairman of the International Affairs Committee of the Catholic bishops' conference, argued that "covert and disreputable" financing of the "contras" as exposed by the current "Irangate" scandal in Washington, exposed, on the part of' the United States, "a bad conscience and a lack of confidence in its ability to convince either domestic or world opinion of its case".
Letter from Nicaragua page two While making no judgment on the democratically-elected Sandinista government in Managua, the churchmen, in their letter to Sir Geoffrey Howe, emphasised that "support for armed insurrection can only work against the hope which we all have of progress towards a just and democratic society".