The World - News from Dec. 25, 1987

Eight of Haiti’s Roman Catholic bishops, reversing their stance taken before the aborted Nov. 29 elections, said they will not encourage Haitians to vote in new elections that the country’s provisional military government has scheduled for Jan. 17. In a statement on privately run television, the bishops also accused Haiti’s state-run news media of vilifying the church with a “campaign of denigration” that attempts to shift the blame for “all the ills suffered by the population.” The four leading presidential candidates from the November election, Haiti’s first in 30 years, already have said they will boycott the January elections.