Argentina
On March 24 1976 General Jorge Videla seized power in Argentina, in a coup euphemized as a "process of national reorganization". The military proceeded to abduct, torture and murder thousands of people in what became known as the "dirty war". The terror ended only when the fiasco of the Falklands war forced them to resign and to return the country to civilian rule.
To mark the 25th anniversary of the coup, the Evangelical Church of the River Plate issued a pastoral letter in which it acknowledged that, despite a clear option in defence of human rights, it had not always spoken out clearly or strongly enough to move the conscience of society or its own congregations.
Twenty-five years ago, thousands died in exchange for scraps of economic stability and language was perverted so that the dead became the "disappeared", the letter says. Argentina, it suggests, is still living with the consequences: a country where the social gap every day grows wider; a state without the resources to meet people's most elementary needs; an economic model in which raw materials are exported and goods and speculative capital imported insatiably; an ideology in which capital is better than production, finances more important than work, and figures determine human lives; a culture in which everyone looks after themselves and solidarity is out of place. What is lacking even today, the pastoral letter concludes, is a decisive gesture by the state in favour of a fair distribution of income.
Australia
The Uniting Church in Australia (UCA) plans to set up the nation's first legal heroin-injecting room in the red light district of Sydney, New South Wales (NSW). Under the church-sponsored programme, addicts would not be given heroin, but would be provided with clean needles and allowed to inject under medical supervision.
A UCA report estimates that the room could save at least eight lives every year. Hazards from discarded needles would also be reduced, and addicts would be offered help to overcome their addiction. Rev Harry Herbert, NSW executive director of the Uniting Church's board for social responsibility, expects the room, located in a former pinball parlour, to service 200 addicts a day.
Polls of Kings Cross residents consistently show up to 70 per cent support for the injecting room. But the plan has been vigorously opposed by local business leaders, including owners of sex shops and brothels. They claim that the location is inappropriate because of the area's tourism trade.
The UCA was formed in 1977 as a union of Congregational, Methodist and Presbyterian churches. It is the country's third-biggest Christian denomination, with 300,000 members and a total of 1.3 million Australians associated with it. (ENI)
Canada
The Supreme Court has forbidden the extradition of two alleged killers to the USA unless the United States authorities give assurances that Canadians Glen Sebastian Burns and Atif Ahmad Rafay will not face the death penalty if convicted. Burns and Rafay are charged with the brutal murder of the latter's parents and sister at their home in Seattle, Washington. Under its extradition treaty with the USA, Canada has the right to seek such assurances.
The February decision was welcomed by the Canadian Council on Justice and Corrections (CCJC), a coalition of 11 churches which includes the Presbyterian Church in Canada and the United Church of Canada. "Our extradition policy must affirm rather than undermine our country's official policy against the death penalty," the CCJC says.
Lois Wilson, a former moderator of the United Church of Canada and now a member of Canada's Senate, told ENI: "My stance is taken, not only from... the Christian perspective, but also in terms of the United Nations' covenants against torture and inhumane punishment which Canada has signed - including the right to life. I think to do one thing at home and another abroad, as we quite often do, is hypocritical."
Canada last executed a criminal in 1962 and abolished the death penalty in 1976. "Killing people who kill people to show people that killing people is wrong makes no sense," the CCJC says.
Germany
Christiane Nolting has been elected moderator (Superintendentin) of the Bad Salzuflen presbytery (Klasse) of the Church of Lippe. Her election means that two of the eight superintendents in the Church of Lippe will now be women. Nolting, who served on the WARC staff in Geneva from 1987-1988, has since then served as a minister in the village of Lockhausen. The Lockhausen congregation was predominantly Reformed, with a smaller Lutheran element. In practice, these two groups functioned as one, but until recently they were legally separate. Nolting played a leading role in the negotiations leading to their formal union at the beginning of this year.
Ghana
Rev Dr Livingstone Komla Buama was installed as moderator of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church, Ghana, on January 14. An ordained minister for more than twenty-five years, Dr Buama was teaching in Trinity Theological College, the main ecumenical theological institute in Ghana. He replaces Rt Rev Japhet Ledo, who served as moderator from January 1983. In the same service, Rev Frank Kwame Anku was inducted as the church's new synod clerk.
Livingstone Komla Buama (left), with Japhet Ledo (middle) and Rt Rev Dr Sam Prempeh, moderator of the Presbyterian Church of Ghana, pictured in Geneva in April 2000 at the service installing Setri Nyomi as WARC general secretary.
India
"Untouchability is a crime against humanity," according to an international conference hosted by the National Campaign for Dalit Human Rights in New Delhi at the beginning of March. "Caste - as a basis for the segregation and oppression of peoples in terms of their descent and occupation - is a form of apartheid and a distinct form of racism affecting victims equally irrespective of religion."
The conference condemned India's efforts to keep caste-based discrimination off the agenda of the UN world conference against racism - racial discrimination, xenophobia and related intolerance which will take place in South Africa at the end of August. It criticized India's refusal to comply with the finding of the UN committee on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination "that the situation of scheduled castes and scheduled tribes falls within the scope of the convention on the elimination of all forms of racial discrimination" to which India is a signatory. (ENI)
Christian participants in the conference emphasized that the campaign against caste-based discrimination is a secular campaign, not tied to any one faith.
Indian churches fiercely criticized the government for distorting the national census which took place in February by failing to acknowledge that among the total population of 250 million Dalits (low-caste Indians), there are about 14 million Christians. Muslim Dalits, who account for most of India's 130 million Muslims, were also ignored in the census questions.
Critics described the government's "manipulation" of the census as part of an ongoing refusal to grant to Christian and Muslim Dalits privileges long ago accorded to Dalits who belong to the country's Hindu, Sikh and Buddhist faiths.
Italy
Relations between the Alliance and the Vatican have been troubled of late by such events as the jubilee year, the note on the expression "sister churches", and Dominus Iesus. But WARC's commitment to continue its common faith journey with Rome "in love and truth" is undiminished. A recent sign of this was Setri Nyomi's participation in the January 25 prayer service in Rome to open the week of prayer for Christian unity.
