Vatican hints pope will raise rights with Haider

Demonstrators hold a banner reading "Friends of SS are not friends of Rome" during a protest march

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) -- The Vatican said on Thursday Pope John Paul's meeting with Austria's Joerg Haider was not meant as a political blessing and hinted the pontiff would use the occasion to air his views on human rights.

Haider, a dominant force in Austria's ruling far-right Freedom Party, is to meet the Pope on Saturday when a delegation from the Austrian province of Carinthia presents him with the traditional Christmas tree for St Peter's Square. Haider is governor of the province.

Israel, Italian Jewish groups and World War II partisans have said the meeting legitimizes a man condemned for remarks he made about the Nazi era -- although he has apologized for them.

About three thousand people, including Italy's Labor Minister, marched through ancient Rome on Thursday night in protest against the visit.

Chief Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement that "pontifical audiences cannot be seen as the same thing as meetings between heads of state and politicians."

He made a point of adding that audiences "allow the pontiff to speak freely to remind those he meets about respect for human and Christian values...in a open and constructive dialogue."

The comment was understood to mean that the pope, who lived through the Nazi era in his native Poland, may refer to issues such as minority and racial rights over which Haider and his anti-immigrant Freedom Party have been criticized.

The New York-based World Jewish Congress was not satisfied.

"Their suggestion that general human rights concerns will be addressed is a smokescreen masking their moral failure to denounce the racist attitude of Haider specifically," Elan Steinberg, executive director of the WJC, told Reuters by phone.

"It is clear that the pope will not specifically denounce Mr Haider's racist attitudes but just make general comments. The meeting between the two represents a moral and historical failure on the part of the Vatican."

In the early 1980s, Jewish groups protested that the pope should not meet Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat to avoid legitimizing a person they considered a terrorist at the time.

Similarly, anti-apartheid groups objected before the pope met South African president P.W. Botha in the 1980s.

In both cases, the pope went ahead but used the meetings respectively to denounce political violence and apartheid.

But Israel's ambassador to the Holy See said Jerusalem was still not comfortable with Haider's visit.

"It is not for the government of Israel to define the nature of papal audiences. We are concerned the world at large does not appreciate these subtleties," Yosef Lamdan told Reuters.

"If indeed the pope receives Mr Haider, it will send a certain message, and in our minds that message will not be one of support for the fight against racism and xenophobia."

Haider is to be received in audience as civil head of the Carinthian delegation, which will also include a religious figure, the Bishop of Gurk. The pope received Haider, a Roman Catholic, in 1993 but that was in a private audience.

The audience is scheduled for Saturday morning and in the afternoon the delegation will attend the lighting of the tree, currently under 24-hour armed guard in St Peter's Square.

Thursday night's candle-lit march was the first of a number of planned protests.

A stream of people walked past some of the most famous ancient sights of Rome, including the Colosseum, holding banners denouncing Haider and playing songs sung by the resistance during World War II.

The march ended at the Capitoline Hill where there was a minutes's silence in protest against all forms of racism.

Labor Minister Cesare Salvi, a member of the ruling coalition's biggest party, the Democrats of the Left, was the first government minister to announce his participation.

Center-right opposition leader Silvio Berlusconi distanced his bloc from Haider, saying: "He has nothing to do with us."

Wartime partisans, leftists and gay and Jewish groups plan to demonstrate against Haider on Saturday. The extreme-right MS-Fiamma Tricolore is reported to be planning counter-demonstrations.

Despite stepping down as leader in May, Haider remains the most influential figure in the Freedom Party, which is the junior member of the Austrian coalition government.

Copyright 2000 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

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