Shooting hangs over talks

Press, 8 December 1976, Page 8

Shooting hangs over talks

NZPA-Reuter Geneva Mutual recriminations over the shooting of three Roman Catholic missionaries in Rhodesia overshadowed the latest round of the Britishsponsored Geneva talks on Rhodesia. But the subject was not raised at the 90-minute meeting of delegation heads which was largely devoted to a proposal by Bishop Abel Muzorewa that the first black Prime Minister of an interim Administration be elected by referendum according to conference sources. Mr Ivor Richard, the conference’s British chairman, told reporters: “We have had a good working day.” He said the discussions were ‘‘workmanlike and sensible.” He later flew to London to report to Ministers of the British Government, as he has done every two weeks since the talks began on October 28. Outside the conference, African nationalists have blamed the forces of the white Prime Minister (Mr Smith) for the killing of a retired bishop, a priest, and

a nun near Bulawayo on Sunday. The Salisbury Government has said the killing was the yvork of African guerrillas. A report from Salisbury said a lone guerrilla killed them with a burst of machine-gun fire after stopping their car. Church leaders have bitterly attacked the killing of the missionaries. Dr Donal Lamont, Roman Cathloic Bishop of Umtali, said: “If this outrage was perpetrated in the name of African nationalism, then it has brought unspeakable shame to that cause.” Of the outspoken Bishop Adolf Schmitt, killed in the attack in the Lupane district, Bishop Lamont said he particularly remembered his “Christ-like gentleness.” Also killed were Father Possenti Weggarten, aged 65, principal of the Regina Mundi secondary school in Lupane, and Sister Maria Francis Van Den Berg, aged 40, of the same mission. Bishop Lamont said all African politicans now at the Geneva conference must at once denounce this and all other murders and activities and take positive steps to put an end to them.