Religious Leaders Protest Contra Aid

WASHINGTON — In the strongest protest yet by top religious figures against U.S. aid to the contra rebels in Nicaragua, 300 Protestant, Roman Catholic and Jewish leaders called such aid “terrorism.”

“The United States is using the contras to wage a war of state-sponsored terrorism against the people of Nicaragua,” the statement said. It said that since 1982, U.S.-backed contras have “wounded, kidnaped or killed more than 10,000 civilians in Nicaragua.”

After reading the statement publicly in a park across from the Capitol, United Methodist Bishop William B. Grove of Charleston, W.Va., added a personal footnote:

He called U.S. policy on Central America “bankrupt, obscene” and “politically pornographic. . . . In the name of God, stop it.”