Cardinal Napier Meets Foreign Minister in Switzerland

Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference

Media Release

19 March 2003

Cardinal Napier Meets Foreign Minister in Switzerland

The President of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference (SACBC), Cardinal Wilfrid Napier, today met with the Swiss Foreign Minister, Ms Calmy-Rey, in Berne, Switzerland. The meeting addressed the current social, political, and economic situation in South Africa, including the campaign for apartheid debt cancellation and reparations from Swiss banks and businesses.

Cardinal Napier is currently on a two-week visit to Switzerland at the invitation of the Catholic Church development agency Fastenopfer for the annual Swiss Lenten Campaign organised by the Swiss churches.

The Cardinal will:

• Address several church and public gatherings;
• Meet civil society and government development agencies such as Fastenopfer, Swiss Inter-Church Aid, Bread for All, the Swiss Coalition of NGOs, the official Swiss Development Cooperation agency, and others;
• Meet members of the Swiss parliament;
• Meet church leaders from the Swiss Catholic Bishops'
• Conference and other churches, and church structures such as Justice & Peace;
• Meet government representatives from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and the State Secretariat for Foreign Economic Affairs; and
• Give several media interviews.

The Cardinal returns to South Africa on March 26th.

For more information please contact Rev Efrem Tresoldi, SACBC Information

Officer, or Neville Gabriel, at tel. +27 (0)12 323 6458.

Liz Johnstone

Coordinator Apartheid Debt and Reparations Task Team

Jubilee South Africa

Email: ljohnson@sacbc.org.za