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Playing Pontius Pilate? VILNIUS, Lithuania (CNS): A Lithuanian archbishop said Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev acted like Pontius Pilate when he 4isclaimed responsibility for a bloody Soviet army crackdown in the Baltic republic. "The answers given by Soviet authorities about the bloodshed in Vilnius are very evasive. The defence minister says he never gave the order to fire on the crowd, and Gorbachev even claims he knew
nothing about it," said Archbishop Julijonas Steponavicius of Vilnius. Gorbachev and the others are like Pontius Pilate, he said, because "we are mourning our dead and they are washing their hands of it". The archbishop's comments came a week after a Soviet army assault on a broadcasting station in Vilnius left 14 people dead. Archbishop Steponavicius said he thought the recent
Baltic events showed the Soviet Union was toward "headed dictatorship". He said Lithuania had shown flexibility in suspending its declaration of independence so that talks with Moscow could begin last year. But the Kremlin only wanted to deal with "a committee composed of communists and Russians", and not with the legitimately elected Lithuanian leaders, he said. "The Church stands with the nation and
with the democratically elected Parliament that is now with threatened aggression," the archbishop said. He was not optimistic for Lithuania's short-term prospects, however. The republic's push for independence will probably end like that of Hungary in 1956 and Czechoslovakia in 1968, he said. In both countries, Soviet troops put down the revolt and installed friendly regimes.
In Lithuania, Moscow now "needs only to decide how to take power. The blood of innocents has already been spilled. We are praying that there be no more victims", he said. "Unfortunately, the West notices us only after a massacre, when it's too late," he added. Archbishop Steponavicius said he was sure that eventually. however, Lithuania — like Hungary and Czechoslovakia — will be free.
War condemned
STOP IT AS SOON AS POSSIBLE, SAYS THE PONTIFF VATICAN CITY (CNS): Pope John Paul ll has warned against expanding the Persian Gulf war to include the entire Middle East and has urged the warring sides to spare the lives of civilians. The fighting must end "as soon as possible" so that the causes of the war can be removed, he said last Sunday. During his midday Angelus talk, the pope also criticised the war's "deplorable bombardments". "All civilian populations, on one side or the other, have the right to be respected and not to become involved in military actions," the pope said. "It is the terrible logic of war, which tends to involve other states in the conflict and discriminately threatens even the civilian populations," he said to about 25,000 people in St Peter's Square. "Weapons do not resolve problems but only creates new and worse tensions among people," the pope said. The pontiff appealed to the warring countries "to stop the conflict as soon as possible, and then to begin searching to remove the causes which have provoked it".
"I did everythingIcould the grime and the ments "have contributed so that such a tragic mangled bodies on the to the present situation experience would be ground," he said. by policies dictated more avoided," he said. by opportunities and "Everyone is a loser." economic advantage Prior to the start of the fighting, the pope asked In London, Cardinal than prudence and principle". Saddam to leave Kuwait Hume called the and asked Bush not to use military force to attempt dislodging Iraqi forces. In Belfast, Ireland's primate said rare political unity at the United Nations was an opporSADDAM HUSSEIN, tunity missed for preI raq's President venting war in the Persian Gulf. "For the first time almost in the post-war period we have complete GEORGE BUSH, solidarity at the level of US President the United Nations," Archbishop Cahal Daly of Armagh said. "This was an opportunity for letting sanctions war "a tragic necessity". He said the first job of really operate and really Christians is to provide noted work and do their effect." However, he also relief and comfort. The Irish archbishop that the decision to go to said that modem warfare war followed UN resolu"Like the Good Samarpractically eliminates the tions and warnings to itan, the Church must be possibility of having a Iraq to leave Kuwait. in healing and i nvolved just war, as the Catholic Cardinal Hume of West- rescuing the victims of it. defines hurch C minster said Saddam war," he said, "making no Modem weaponry with Hussein, who ordered its appalling, unimagina- the invasion of Kuwait, distinction between ble destructive power, bears the ultimate blame friend and foe". simply make it impossi- for the conflict. But he In Palermo, Cardinal ble to apply the criteria of added that other governsaid: Pappalardo Archbithe just war," shop Daly said. "In a war we begin to use anaesthetised language to talk about surgical strike, and we • Pages 7 and 10 forget about the gore and
Gulf
"Recourse to war is "Perhaps we thought that it was no longer always a defeat. necessary to humiliate -That which has hap- ourselves by asking God pened was not a triump for the gift of peace once of justice nor a victory of the antagonisms of East and West were removed," the human spirit." he said. In Florence, Cardinal Piovanelli said the outbreak of war was "a failure of international policy". In Naples, Carindal Giordana said that -peace is not built with explosive devices but through dialogue and loyal confrontation". In Prato, Bishop Fiordelli said "nefarious dictators must disappear", but this should be done through -peaceful co-operation to assure freedom, justice and bread for all peoples". In Milan, Cardinal "War is always a misadMartini said diplomacy venture in itself, a failure should have been used to of humanity," he said. solve the problem, even if In Molfetta, Bishop this took "a long time". Antonio Bello criticised Iraq's launching of using UN resolutions to missiles against Israel justify military force to was a "treacherous oust Iraq from Kuwait. attack", he said. In Los Angeles, ArchIn Bologna, Cardinal bishop Mahony said Biffi linked the Gulf war "there are no real with the problems in winners in war". Lebanon and Israelitie cauea me rersian occupied territories. Gulf war " one more failure to achieve alternatives to armed conflict". Describing the war as a result of years of policy mistakes, he said, "it is paradoxical that the
More Gulf war reactions
allied fortes now attacking Iraq's military installations are being fired upon by the missiles and weapons which those very allied forces supplied the Iraqis." extensive "While human rights abuses unfolded in Iraq year after year," he said, "and while Iraq's leaders continued to accumulate ominous weapons which they were willing to use against their own citizens and their neighbours, we and the world community maintained a baffling silence — a silence which Iraq took to mean approval." He called for a solution to the Middle East's problems. "Each of those countries need secure and safe borders, together with the full recognition of each other's unqualified right to exist within those borders,"he said. -The Palestinian peoples need their own homeland with the right to choose and control their own destiny," he added. "Israel must be assured of its proper place in the region, with all threats halted. The peoples of Lebanon crave a return to normalcy in which their country can regain its former independence from outside forces and influences."