wfn.org | SOUTH AFRICA: ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU PRAYS AT POLICE PRAYER DAY

[a.whitefield@quest.org.uk]

Title:ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU PRAYS AT POLICE PRAYER DAY
April 18, 1997
ANGLICAN COMMUNION NEWS SERVICE
Canon Jim Rosenthal, Director of Communications
Anglican Communion Office
London, UK

[97.4.3.4] ACNS

SOUTH AFRICA: ARCHBISHOP DESMOND TUTU PRAYS AT POLICE PRAYER DAY
(Edited from ENI) Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Nobel Peace Prize laureate
and former Anglican Archbishop of the Province of Southern Africa, gave
the opening prayer at a public Day of Prayer against Crime on 13 April.
The day was organised by the police. The Archbishop said that  South
Africans were glad that under the government of President Nelson Mandela
the police were now regarded as friends, no longer as the enemy of the
people.   The police service was now representative of, and there for
all the people.

The South African Police Service (SAPS), hard-pressed to contain the
country's rampant crime,  organised the national prayer day against
crime. South Africa is regarded as one of the most violent countries in
the world. A newspaper report last year said the country had the highest
homicide rate of the 55 countries which supply homicide statistics to
the World Health Organisation.

The aim of Day of Prayer against Crime was to pray to God for protection
and blessing in the fight against crime and to call on churches to unite
against crime, Senior Superintendent Johan Smal, spokesperson of the
Human Resource Management of SAPS, said today.

About 2000 people attended the day of prayer, song and testimonies held
in the Loftus Versfeld rugby stadium in  Pretoria, 60 kilometres north
of Johannesburg.