c. 1998 Religion News Service

Baptist World Alliance General Council affirms reconciliation efforts

(RNS) The Baptist World Alliance, which recently concluded its General Council meeting in South Africa, has passed a resolution praising that country’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission and its Baptist groups for efforts to improve race relations since the end of apartheid.

The commission has worked to bring healing among groups that were harsh opponents during the apartheid regime of racial segregation. Representatives of predominantly black and mostly white Baptist bodies also were affirmed for their efforts toward reconciliation.

The council also expressed”its profound hope that similar efforts can be effective in restoring relationships between and among the people of Burundi and Rwanda.” Council members, meeting in Durban from July 5-11, voiced regret about the recent nuclear tests by India and Pakistan.

In the resolution, the council urged”all nuclear powers to ratify the comprehensive nuclear test ban treaty, establish a no-first-use policy and vigorously pursue efforts to reduce and eventually eliminate all nuclear weapons.” The Baptist leaders also urged leaders of Nagaland, in northeast India, to continue efforts toward peace. The region has been engulfed in civil war and conflict for 50 years and is now divided into many factions, some of which have fought with the Indian army.

During the weeklong meeting, the council accepted into membership the Baptist Community of the Democratic Republic of the Congo North, which was founded in 1960 and has 333 churches and 25,000 members. The alliance now serves more than 42 million baptized Christians in close to 160,000 churches.

German authorities criticized for refusing to hire Muslim teacher

(RNS) Authorities in the German state of Baden-Wuerttemberg have come under fire from a German Muslim group for its decision not to employ a Muslim teacher who wears a head scarf.

The Central Council of Muslims in Germany said Wednesday (July 15) the state had missed an opportunity to set an example of tolerance in the nation, Reuters reported.

The state’s refusal to hire Fereshta Ludin, 25, is a serious case of religious discrimination, the council said, and tantamount to banning all practicing Muslim women from teaching in Germany.

Germany, a nation of some 82 million, has about 3 million Muslims, whose integration into society has been a recurring political issue. Devout Muslim women wear head scarves to maintain religiously mandated modesty.

But Juergen Ruettgers, the German education and research minister, defended the state’s decision, saying Muslim head scarves are a religious expression that cannot be reconciled with the constitution’s principles of tolerance.”A democratic nation must expect that education in our schools communicates the norms that are indispensable for a successful integration in our society,”Ruettgers said.

Guatemalan bishop’s aide accuses army officials of murder

(RNS) An aide to Roman Catholic Bishop Juan Gerardi Conedera, the Guatemalan prelate who was murdered in April, has accused two Guatemala army officials with the assassination. The army, however, quickly denied the charge.

Ronalth Ochaeta, who worked at the Archbishop’s Office of Human Rights, made the accusation Monday (July 13) while in Madrid to present a human rights report, the Associated Press reported.

Ochaeta said he had given Guatemalan officials the license number of a military car that was spotted near the bishop’s residence on the night of the murder. However, he neither named the two officers involved, nor would say how they were involved.

But in a statement released by the Guatemala army Tuesday, the military said it never received the information and called it”strange”that Ochaeta”hasn’t given the information he has made public abroad to national news media.” Gerardi was beaten to death with a cement block in the garage of his home on April 26, two days after denouncing human rights violations by the army and paramilitary groups during the Central American nation’s 36-year civil war, which ended in December 1996. There has been one arrest in the case, but the accused, Juan Carlos Vielman, maintains his innocence.

Poll: Voters want Washington to do more to intercept drugs

(RNS) A Washington lobbying group with ties to the religious right says survey results show Americans want the federal government to do more to stop the flow of illegal drugs into the United States.

A third of the 1,000 voters polled by the Family Research Council said Washington should make interdiction its top anti-drug priority, according to the survey released Wednesday (July 15). A quarter of those polled said drug use prevention should be the top priority, while 15 percent said treatment of drug users should be the prime concern.

Gary Bauer, the council’s president, said his organization would”do everything we can to pressure the White House and Congress to step up interdiction.” Despite wanting the federal government to do more, 78 percent of those polled said parents are primarily responsible for keeping young people drug-free. Almost half also said drugs are a greater health threat to teenagers than tobacco.

In addition, 64 percent said drug tests should be given to those seeking drivers licenses and 52 percent said public school students suspected of drug use should be tested. Bauer said the results of such testing would”empower”parents in their effort to monitor drug use among young people.

Fifty-three percent said media attention surrounding needle exchange programs and the medicinal use of marijuana has to some degree encouraged teens to try illegal drugs.

The survey had a margin of error of 3.1 percent and was conducted in May.

Youth to make next effort for a million-member march

(RNS) First there was the Million Man March. Then came the Million Woman March.

Now, it appears, it is the young people’s turn.

Dennis Rogers, national chairman of the Million Youth Movement, hopes throngs of young blacks will march in Atlanta as part of a four-day event over Labor Day weekend.”This is a continuation of a movement,”Rogers told reporters at the annual conference of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People.”Young people are architects of the new millennium because they’ll decide what the new millennium looks like, with the wisdom and guidance of our elders.” The event is scheduled to include panel discussions, worship services, a town hall meeting and entertainment, Reuters reported. It will culminate with a major gathering on Labor Day (Sept. 7) on Auburn Avenue, a place where the late Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. was born and preached.

NAACP President Kweisi Mfume said his group’s board has approved plans for the event. He hopes it will”inspire other people in mass to do what many of us saw come out of the Million Man March _ create an opportunity to bring about change.” The movement also has been supported by the Rainbow-Push Coalition led by the Rev. Jesse Jackson.

German Catholic bishops seek to mediate Colombian civil war

(RNS) The German Roman Catholic bishops conference is emerging as a key player in efforts to bring to an end the 34-year-old civil war in Colombia.

On Wednesday (July 15), Hans Langendoerfer, general secretary of the German bishops’ organization, announced that Colombia’s second largest guerrilla group, the National Liberation Army, or ELN, had agreed to renounce the kidnappings of the elderly, children and pregnant women and to stop other kidnappings if other sources of income were available.

Langendoerfer said the agreement was hammered out in talks that began Sunday at a 13th-century monastery near the German city of Wuerzburg. Officials from union, business and civic organizations in Colombia as well as Colombian and German church representatives also participated in the talks, Reuters reported.

Although neither the government nor the largest rebel organization, the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia, took part in the church-hosted talks, Langendoerfer said both the Colombian and German governments have been informed of their outcomes.

He said the ELN had also agreed not to use anti-personnel mines in conflict zones and to back several concrete proposals aimed protecting human rights, including putting schools, hospitals and the water supply off limits.”The end of this war is not the end of the conflict,”the German churchman told reporters Wednesday.”For this, political reforms are needed.” The Wuerzburg agreement comes on the heels of a historic meeting last week between Colombian President-elect Andres Pastrana and leaders of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia.

Following that meeting, Pastrana said peace talks could begin within 90 days of his taking office in August.

Quote of the day: Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber

(RNS)”I can tell you as a physician with over 15 years of primary care experience that this (legislation) will have a chilling effect. Don’t intimidate and put at risk physicians when your true objective is altering the choices available to terminally ill patients.” _ Oregon Gov. John Kitzhaber, testifying Tuesday (July 14) before a House Judiciary subcommittee on a proposed legislation that would bar doctors from prescribing lethal amounts of drugs to terminally ill patients that want to commit suicide.

DEA END RNS