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99-139

Presiding Bishop's Statement on East Timor

     The unfolding tragedy in East Timor is yet another sad and 
agonizing example of the human family's inability to live in 
harmony.  So much divides us.  The killing includes among its 
many victims the Reverend Francisco de Vasconcelos Ximenes, 
General Secretary of the Christian Church in East Timor, which is 
a partner of the Uniting Church in Australia.  Please join me in 
prayer and take such action as your conscience dictates in 
response to this latest act of inhumanity. The Presiding Bishop's 
Fund will gratefully receive offerings for the relief of the 
Timorese people.

     I have received a letter from the Anglican Primate of 
Australia asking me to urge U.S. support and participation in a 
peacekeeping force.  By way of this public comment, I join my 
voice, decisively so, to the call for our country and the 
international community to rush peacekeeping forces and aid into 
the midst of the genocide.  I do so as I express gratitude to the 
Administration for its urgent attention to this matter.  I 
personally heard our ambassador to the United Nations last week 
express his own agony over this latest crisis and he assured 
those of us present that his office as well as those at the White 
House and State Department were fully engaged.  Action and 
commitment by our government and the international community 
cannot move swiftly enough.

     There will need to be reflection on this latest episode of 
genocide and the ways it might have been prevented.  Also, the 
call by Roman Catholic Bishop Belo of East Timor for a tribunal 
to punish those responsible should be supported. But for this 
moment, all attention must be on providing protection and relief 
for the citizens of East Timor.  

     I grieve for the loss of life and incredible suffering from 
this latest act of loathsome brutality even as I proclaim Jesus 
as Lord who offers us all another way that calls us to be one
as he and the Father are One.
   
 Sincerely yours,
      
Frank T. Griswold
Presiding Bishop and Primate
September 14, 1999