[Speeches transcribed. Delegates include representatives from South African and international churches, ANC, PAC, Zimbabwe]

Transcription

1 [Speeches transcribed. Delegates include representatives from South African and international churches, ANC, PAC, Zimbabwe] Use of the Aluka digital library is subject to Aluka s Terms and Conditions, available at By using Aluka, you agree that you have read and will abide by the Terms and Conditions. Among other things, the Terms and Conditions provide that the content in the Aluka digital library is only for personal, non-commercial use by authorized users of Aluka in connection with research, scholarship, and education. The content in the Aluka digital library is subject to copyright, with the exception of certain governmental works and very old materials that may be in the public domain under applicable law. Permission must be sought from Aluka and/or the applicable copyright holder in connection with any duplication or distribution of these materials where required by applicable law. Aluka is a not-for-profit initiative dedicated to creating and preserving a digital archive of materials about and from the developing world. For more information about Aluka, please see

2 [Speeches transcribed. Delegates include representatives from South African and international churches, ANC, PAC, Zimbabwe] Author/Creator Harare meeting (Harare, Zimbabwe, December 4-6, 1985); World Council of Churches Date Resource type Language Subject Coverage (spatial) Transcripts English Coverage (temporal) 1985 Source Rights Format extent (length/size) South Africa, Zimbabwe World Council of Churches Library and Archives: Programme to Combat Racism; microfilm created by the Yale University Divinity Library with funding from the Kenneth Scott Latourette Initiative for the Documentation of World Christianity., Yale University Divinity Library, Programme to Combat Racism [microform], /1; mf. PCR 176 (from frame 607 to 958) By kind permission of the World Council of Churches (WCC). 98 pages

3 INTRODUCTION - Dr Castro INTRODUCTION - Dr Castro The liberation is a possibility that a new day in the life of our nations is not an impossible utopia but belong to the potential of our human capacities. The success of the Zimbabwe arrival to independence, to liberation, to the building of a new nation is for all of us a great encouragement looking to the future of South Africa and Southern Africa in general. We thank you that you wanted to confirm and to crown the welcomme and fellowship of your people by your presence with us this morning. We are sure that your worth to us will continue to encourage us in the church for an intelligent solidarity to our brothers and sisters inside South Africa. Your Eminence welcome, you are at home in all sense of the word. ADDRESS BY HIS EXCELLENCY THE PRESIDENT CANAAN S. BANANA... paper apart. Back to Dr Castro You indeed opened our meeting. You went into the substance on providing us material for our reflection, for our prayers and for our common decision. We know that the charges of your duty could not allow you to be with us for the rest of our programme. But if by any chance you have ten minutes free jump in because we might need your wisdom as we go along on our work. May God continue to bless you, your family and your country. STATEMENT MADE BY ARCHBISHOP JOHN HABGOOD I bring greetings from the churches in Britain which have had long associations with South Africa. We are at one in condemning apartheid and in looking for radical change in South Africa. Last week the British Council of Churches (BCC) accepted a report from a group which visited South Africa a few months ago, and endorsed its conclusion that a programme of specially targetted sanctions was the best means of promoting change. On p. 5 of the report "Whose Rubicon?" we read: "A total application of sanctions has elsewhere proved to be too blunt and faulty an instrument to achieve a calculated result. But a ban on anew investment, selective disinvestment especially in the field of high technology, a boycott of South African exports and, above all, a withdrawal of loan facilities by banks might achieve notable results if applied with the declared end of bringing the Government of the Republic to negotiate a radically new constitution with the authentic leadership of the various population groups." Note that this is an endorsement of particular sanctions in a means of bringing all parties to the conference table. Sanctions with a specific and attainable end are much less desirable.

4 Those of us in Britain are very aware of his criticisms which he has made of our Government. I therefore spent some time with Government representatives to make sure that I understood their position. This is based on two main considerations: 1. Our experience suggests that under external pressure Afrikaaners tend to become more obstinate. The sanctions policz if pushed too far might simply destroy the white liberal community while driving the hard-liners into an even more entrenched position Pressure needs to be continued with same positive policy for reconciliation. 2. The government recognises the capacity of black Africans to endure suffering, but wonders whether total economic disruption might not throw up a leadership among the black population which would go much further than the churches anticipate. I simply note these observations without endorsing them, but I am sure they deserve very serious thought. Those who plan revolutions must try to think ahead. In the meantime our Government pins its hopes on negotiation, at a time when the pressures are sufficiently strong to induce change. In this context I commend to your prayers the new Commonwealth Commission, which may seem a slender hope, but needs our support, not least because it is operating under a short timelimit. Zimbabwe W MMMMM itself is the proof that negotiated settlements are possible when the right moment has come. Manas Buthelezzi -Tape 2 A group that does not only consist of church leaders in the narrow sense of the word but also people who are involved in the whole situation in South Africa, because an impression can be created that all the people who are here are just those who are either bishops or presidents. We are here as participants as and South Africans and the second remark I would like to make is that in the manner of our presentation, within the limits of time available would be exactly as the General Secretary has said we come from various parts of South Africa where the current situation manifests itself in a very fashion. It is therefore properly so that we don't have one-presentation. There will be a number of presentations which will reflect the variety of how the one fundamental problem in South Africa manifests itself. May I also add to what we see happening at the present moment is in a sense not something new, the current state of emergency which is obtaining in such an area is in a sense not something new for the simple reason that there are always been laws which has created an effective state of emergency. Perhaps, the only difference at tne present moment is that it has been a formal declaration of that Eact and therefore the administration as such has been so structured as to reflect that formal declaration of this state of emergency. I just wanted to make these few remarks and then the members from the South African delegation will present as it has been explained.

5 Castro: I have a request from the S.A. delegation that they would like to have few minutes among themselves to organise themselves before coming back to the plenary. If that is the case please do as fast as you can. You were in another room so you go back over there and I am sorry we do not have coffee for the rest... We have divided ourselves in terms of the region where the current unrest is expressing itself. We will start with the Transvaal region. I will ask Bishop Tutu to start. My dear brothers and sisters. First of all I want to say a very Ow mm_ profound word of thanks to the WCC and to all our brothers and sisters in other parts of the world for the wonderful manifestation of caring and loving and solidarity with those of us who are in South Africa. We know just how much we depend on your love and prayers and we are able to survive at all only because we are upheld by that love and that. and by that caring and by that concern and those of our people who are victims of a vicious, immoral and unchristian policy such as apartheid are wonderfully strengthened by the knowledge of the concern of their sisters and brothers in other parts of the world. We hope very much that one of the thing that this meeting together here is going to do is to say that the world churches care enormously about South Africans. But yet it takes sides on behalf of the oppressed but when it is opposed to anything in S.A. it is not opposed to South Africans, it is opposed to injustice and oppression and our love, your love is for all the people of S.A. black and white and as we were sitting here and the President of this land was speaking, many of us, I am sure, South Africans were saying it is going to be like this in our country. But why must it come after unnecessary suffering, why mut is come at the cost of 4-year-old being killed by police bullets and when the police have to discover who is responsible, a magistrate is able to say without beating an eyelid that one is to be held responsible for the death of a 4-year-old who was playing in front of a home at a time when the police just shot. We come here, brothers and sisters, at a time when our people are being killed as if they were flies. Even we, I think, are getting used to something that it is wrong for human beings to get used to, that everyday you open a newspaper in S.A. they tell you two, three people have been shot. It is just statistics now. But I hope you will remember that those are not statistics, those are mothers of children, those are fathers, those are the children who when you pinch can cry, when you tickle them they laugh. Our situation is one way incredibly, it is impossible even to protest peacefully. The people who are killed in Mamelodi about which the President spoke were mothers and not stone-throwing children and there was no television there. As the South African government says it is the television crew that have provoked our children. There was no television crew there and it was not stone-throwing children, it was mothers, in fact, it was grandmothers. Archbishop Daniel of Pretoria says one of his precede you know as these peoplewere passing in front of his house he says those are mothers and grandmothers and they were Pr

6 - 5 - only trying to protest peacefully and they were killed. I just want to say three further things so that I can hear what Emilio has said about the spirit not moving us too much or moving us in the direction of being limited. Mr General Secretary and friends, I must say that I have never been more scared than I was on the occasion of a funeral in Davington when a number of young people about a thousand were gathered in a tent and the police said nobody according to the new regulations would be allowed to march, no pedestrians at all, everybody must travelon a bus and I went to the young people and said you have heard that no one can march and the young people said Bishop we have come here to bury our comrades who are shot coming from a funeral having done nothing. I went back to the police and I said please can you allow these children to go to the graveyard, even if you can let them go before the funeral actually starts because you will not be able to control these children. The police said no. I went back to the children and I said please let only those who can go on buses, or other means of transport go and the children said if the police think we are come here to be a disturbance let them accompany us with their guns drawn but Bishop we are going to march. And I went back to the police and I said please we are going to have troubles here, let those children go and the police say we have our instructions and we will obey our instructions and I said to the police you know that was exactly the kind of freeze that was used in Nazi Germany - We are carrying out only what we are told to do. Mercifully for us the man in charge of the contingent eventually got a number of passes but those children demonstrated something that is universal, those children, my brothers and sisters, most of them if not all, believe that they are going to die but what is even more frigthening is that those children in fact don't care. Now I think, I mean that all of us who have any dealing with those children who were involved would be aware of this. The second point I want to refer to is that the system has gone mad, the system has gone crazy, the system that believes you can enforce security and peace and order at the end of a gun barrel and we say to them yes you may be able to do so but it will be only a brittle, only a superficial piece because you would not have dealt with the root cause.you can force the children to go back to school but one day they will again boycott schools because you are giving them the thing which even we our parents reject - an inferior education. And the system arrested in Soweto over 800 children including 7-year olds and these were children who were made to go and sleep in jail. And we again try to go and intervene with the police and we say: You can keep children of seven I mean, what you mean7-year-old, 9-year-old and the district commissioner police said Bishop Tutu, as I told him I said outside Morocco police station the situation is becoming very ugly because mothers came last night to look for their children and did not find them and they have come again this morning, please do something. The police officer said to me Bishop Tutu it is your business to calm those women if you don't I will call the men who will deal with them. Now I want you to know

7 my brothers and sisters that when went to the police station we found soldiers with rifles pointing at the bellies of our mothers, of our wives, women defenceless women whose only concern was for the welfare of their children. What we are talking about is an incredible thing actually, I mean that you could have a massacre when some of us say S.A. is on the verge of a catastrophe and only the intervention of either a miracle or the international community will move us from the brink of that catastrophe. It is not figure of speech we are using. We are talking about so-called ordinary people who are been politicised, ordinary mothers if there are things like that and may I finish by saying we who are still trying to advocate a reasonably peaceful resolution to the crisis of our land are rapidly becoming an irrelevance in S.A. We have our credibility being eroded because quite rightly the young people say what do you have to show? I have said for myself if I were young I would have rejected Bishop Tutu long ago because when we speak peace they speak rubber bullets, life bullets, tear gas, police dogs, detention and death and you are involved inasmuch as we are they. You are involved also because your countries through your governments are involved and we pray that you will help us while there is still time. On the problem of the role of the churches in the current situation and then Archbishop Daniel will come to add some words. What one can say is that there is a crisis of the relevance of traditional theological concepts. In other words, concepts which have been taken for granted over centuries are all of a sudden being questioned. It is not so much a matter of whether we should abandon those concepts or not because we cannot abandon them but how we can bring in a fresh understanding of those concepts in relation to the current situation. One of those relates to the fact that the church, at the moment, is 1W MEN== finding difficult to preach the gospel of love and particularly among people who have never experienced fellowship with people other than those of their own race. Some of us, that is those who are a little older may have had a little bit of that experience albeit inadequate but some of our young people, our children have never had it. They were raised in the system of banned education which segregate them so that they have no content with the white person unless there is a police officer, unless he is a member of the defence force. Their all problem is how do you encourage love, how do you interpret the essence of what christian love means in the current situation. We are still wrestling with that problem, maybe we are still very far from the situation. Anyway, there is a crisis. The other crisis related to the notion of reconciliation. There has been an outright rejection when it comes to the relevance of reconciliation because people say reconciliation has not helped. Why keep on preaching to us about reconci].iation while the whole policy seems to be tearing us apart. This is a great challenge to the church because the all meaning and essence of the gospel send us around the reconciling work of Christ if this is abandoned then it will mean that the church should close shop. We should stop preaching. All I am saying is that we are being challenged to interpret in a new and relevant way what reconciliation means in the face of forces that

8 make it unworkable, unattainable. The second point I would like to make in relation to the challenges facing the church is that at present it is no longer a question as whether the church should be involved or not, that is not the issue because the geographical realities are particularly in the area where I am that we are in the situation, we are right in Soweto. When there is tear gas all of us sniff tear gas. When people run for sanctuary. the church is one of those areas to which people ran to with adverse consequences. There are churches in Soweto which have been broken into simply because they are in the situation not out of any deliberate choice but because of force of circumstances and also we have learnt that the church building against our desire sometimes, deliberate plans that the church building is more than a house of worship. Many churches in Soweto have become also venues of all kinds of meetings which have created problems to some of our pastors. They may find it difficult to interpret to the elders why a group, a political group or a councillar group to be allowed to hold his meeting in the church. Again as far as the church is concerned it is not a matter of whether it wants or not; by virtue of geographical circumstances, you have to open your church otherwise you will not have it so you have to choose whether the church building will keep on standing or whether you will miss at all. Those are the realities, therefore the church is learning a very tough lesson at the present moment and before I came here one of our pastors shared with me his agony in relation to this matter because the pastor is in the middle. There maybe a threat that if you open up your church such and such is going to happen on the part of the authorities and yet the members of the community include our own children may like to use the church as they know and therefore the pastor is in the middle, he has to try to reconcile these two forces. What I am driving at is that we are learning a new lesson whether you wanted it or not, the situation forces us to do so. Bishop Tutu has said something about the area of education. What I would like to add is that our young people who are our children are saying that education at the present moment, under the present circumstances is no longer a priority issue. They are prepared to sacrifice it and not learn. What is the priority is liberation, is political liberation. That is reality and as a result of that the schools have not been functioning, the exams have not been written because the situation dictates that at the moment whatever you do, as long as the political climate is not conducive to have the education, is not conducive to good race relations, it does not have to start with those points so the political priority is one which has to be attended to. I would therefore call Archbishop Daniel who is in the area of Pretoria, the headquarters. Although I have already been introduced I am the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Pretoria. This year, the Regional Council of Churches was reestablished in Pretoria. It has been defunct for sometime unfortunately but with the leadership of Deacony(?) Dr Nichols Smith and the full support of the major churches including the catholic church in Pretoria we see the Regional Council of Churches as being a very important instrument at this time. The Catholic Church is a full member. One of the task that has been looked into by the Regional Council has been the

9 situation in the homelands around Pretoria particularly in Winterveld. Winterveld is a part of the Bophutatswana wit 90% of the people are not Tswana and they do not want to take the Bophutatswana citizenship because by doing so they loose South African citizenship for that its worth and so the sub-committee the Winterveld subcommittee which is oecumenical has been operative for some time even during the period the Regional Council of Churches was not itself functioning. The second area concerned is Kwa Ndebele where the last five years or so, approximately Ndebele people have been removed and resettled or rather unsettled on the Highveld about 100 kilometers North-East of Pretoria. I was part of the delegation last year which went to North America and countries in Europe. A joint delegation of the South African Council of Churches and the Catholic Bishop Conference to make known a report which we had jointly prepared on removals and resettlements. I am glad to say that the interest which that engedered the international community has, I believe slowed down the process of resettlement. It has not yet stopped completely at the moment. Townships outside Britts (?) in Pretoria is being removed. People are going to about 20 kilometers North of that, in an area where at the moment there are only 10 toilets and tents. Because Mamelodi is in the Pretoria area, naturally Mamelodi is number one on our agenda at the moment and Domeini (?) Nichols Smith is a member of the Dutch Reformed church and he is a pastor in Mamelodi. He has been very concerned naturally about the recent happenings on the 21st of November. The children persuaded their parents, we were told there was a good deal of pressurising but apparently there was not all that amount of pressure, the parents were willing enough to go and Bishop Tutu has already mentioned that one of our priest said that as they passed the church "but these are mothers and grannies" and an helicopter flew over and sprayed tear gas on the very large gathering, some say about , it is hard to assess and of course in the rush to get away they trampled one another and also as you know they were shot as they fled and if you see the ages reported in the newspaper, ages of people killed. It is obvious that they were senior citizens and they had gathered to protest against the rise in rents at a time where there is so much unemployment, to protest the police, the SADF, the defence forces present in the township as well as the restrictions on funerals. Anyone who knows African customs would know that funerals is a very important event and to say that only 50 people may attend a funeral is really making things very difficult. They also protested of course the presence of police of funeral which seem to antagonise the people. They wonder why they should be there at all. The funeral, you may have read about in the Harare Herald this morning was well attended. Thanks to Dr N. Smith who went about and asked the ambassadors and white catholics and white christians of all denominations in Pretoria to attend the funeral. They were, I think about 11 ambassadors present, at least representatives of various international

10 communities. The police as a result kept a low profile so there was not the usual violence in scene. The Regional Council of Churches is setting in motion a board of enquiry, similar to the one which was launched by the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops Conference last year on police action in Cimboking in the Vaal Triangle when a booklet was produced showing something of the atrocities that were committed by the police. We are particularly concerned on what has already been said about the school situation, the slogan is Liberation then education. Personally I think liberation and education go together but how one can persuade the children of that at the moment is very difficult to know. So these are the areas of concern. The Regional Council of Churches is new, probably they will come along to ask you for help sooner or later. Thank you very much. The next will Martin Busi, Moravian church Mr Chairman, Brothers and sisters. Thank you for the opportunity to share with you something of the events within the Western part of our country called the Western Cap. Now when I speak about the Western Cap I have to say that this is an area covered by the Western Province Council of Churches. You know the council of the SACC and all the major churches work together except the socalled white Reformed Churches. The year 1985 was supposed to be an important year in the history of our country with the inauguration of a new political dispensation but I think when we look back on the events of past year it has been a very important year in this way the interest of the world community was focussed on our country because of the events that took place not within the confines of the algo parliament (?) but in the homes and in the areas where we love and work. I think I knew dispensation was born in 1985 not on the level of "South African politics" but in the struggle for liberation for our people. Now I might have to use terms that I don't like using, I don't like using the term of coloured, or white or black or indian. They have been given to us by other people but for the sake of giving you a picture of the Western Cap I am forced to use them. Now the Western Cap is perhaps a crosssection of South Africa because in the Western Cap we find it is the home mainly of the so-called coloured people, people of colour like myself, it is the home of so-called white liberalism. They say that the whites in the Western Cap buy more liberal than the whites in other parts of the country and that many of the Afrikaaners to the North have left the Cap because of the liberal English influence. Then we have portion (?) Western Cap so-called blacks living there on their farmettes, others coming there to sell their labour on the labour market. It is also the home of the Muslim community, a great part of the so-called coloured community, which come first before Indians living in the Western Cape. So You have a real.cross section. In some way the Council of Churches has bind together the life and witness of the varied community. The Western Cape was an area of perhaps settled communities although we know that our people, the so-called coloured were removed forcibly to other areas, we know that the many black brothers and sisters had been moved to areas squatter camps, the latest now is

11 Kwayelitsha on the sand of the Cape Flats but in anyway it was a settled community many whites and so-called coloured people grew up happily not being concerned with the welfare of other people. A good home, a good job was perhaps the end of the world. But the events of this year has changed that in many ways. Many of the so-called whites have to rethink their christian commitment within the confines of the Western Cape. Many of the so-called coloured who are perhaps well off realise when Peter Marais says," no schools, no examinations" but how can this be. We are such good people. They have to rethink their attitudes about the child and parent relationship. We know that within our black communities for many years there has been a very keen and active political consciousness born out of the fact of the many things that militate against our black brothers and sisters. In many coloured areas in the last few weeks and months the police and the army moved in many of the very stable coloured people were shocked, ""What is happening?" but when students and young people start to explain events not only in the Western Cape but in the rest of the country, we saw this movement amongst our young people students as a very clear sign of solidarity with the struggling and suffering in other parts of the country. And when people at one morning, the whole school of 500 students were loaded in the police vans and taken to the police station again people so-called coloured were wondering but "what is happening?" and when people, church leaders and others were detained more shock came their way. But I think all that has bound a great deal to conscientize people but the real issues which are at stake within our country in the very sheltered Western Cape is still part of the whole problem of Southern Africa. We might ask what do we see as our role as a church in this very serious situation; I am now reminded of a word which was used many years ago by the Cape African association whose moto was "without a vision the people perish". Let me say clearly the church in our part of the country has to create this vision, not only the vision of the end time but the vision of the kingdom in our time and in our situation. That means that the church has to have very clear and positive tasks in education, not only in the christian education fields but also to play a part in the secular education because we are sitting with a serious crisis in the Western Cape. at the moment 80% of students, blacks and coloured have refused to write examinations. They have been joined by many teachers which said "well if there is any who write they are not prepared to control the examination", and next year, we know the ten years of Soweto will have an impact on our young people. The church has then this important task to meet this challenge of education, but not only on the Sunday schools level of education but to be assisting in the secular education and how to bridge a gap between students and parents. Unfortunately, the parents have been left way behind in their thinking and in their understanding and the church has to try to bring people together so that the common task could be spelled out and people can begin to realise what the real issues are for us and especially in the Western Cape. As I said earlier, much of our work is being done through cooperating in the Western Province Council of Churches but one last very heartening point in

12 this whole struggle there was the closeness of our community. But from the Christian faith, from the Islam, from the Hindu and from the Jewish there could be agreement, there could be a common service to grieved families, detained families - 13 and also to prisoners so in some way the whole event of the past year has brought a sudden closeness, has brought people together and whether we are a muslim or a christian, or a Jew, we could see a common task within Southern Africa. I will not my place any longer, we have another speaker on the Western Cape who will give you another aspect of this. But in conclusion, I will say, we are heartened by your concerns, that you show a very keen interest in the welfare of fellow christians as they struggle, not become revolutionaries but only to live out their christian faith in their daily lives. Thank you. Charles Villa-Vicencio Cassette 3 - South African Delegates Testimonies (cont'd)... and a struggle of an interfaith nature, we find people across denominations and indeed across religious lines committed to the struggle. At the press conference yesterday, Dr Castro was asked a question as to where prayers fits in to the struggle. I want to say that our struggle in the Cape is deeply grounded in a spirituality and in worship and in prayer but in turn it has its roots in an political and in a social struggle. We know not the difference between worship and prayer on the one hand and political action on the other. Some of you may know that on June the 16th, the anniversary of Soweto, in response to a call that became so confused and somewhat controversial but in response to a call from the South African Council of Churches to have prayers on that day for the end to unjust rule, a document was published, it was a document that I suppose one can say safely to put the catamount the pigeon in the country; it was perhaps ultimately one of the most controversial doctrine to be filled in and handled by both the media and the church. I want to read only one sentence to you from that document: "In committing ourselves to prayer we aknowledge that such prayer cannot be offered without a corresponding commitment to work for good and legitimate government." Our engagement is a deeply spiritual commitment to the Lordship of Jesus-Christ, and I believe that we have seen the realisation in Capetown, perhaps as we have seen nowhere else. I mean the interesting thing is that this is perhaps what had confused and undermined and rattled the security police in that part of the country more than anything else, and so I certainly find that the time when I was detained and interrogated, the security police for example produced this very document and said to me :"What - 14 do you mean by pray?". They even asked me whether Bishop Tutu is a christian. I gave him a good credential. That is the irony of the situation that they cannot begin to comprehend, they cannot understand how it is our faith that leads us and

13 motivates us to be engaged in the struggle. And so many people who were interrogated during that period of time would again and again confronted with a certain theological expert who work for the security police, who is brought in to ask us theological questions. The poor man left the interrogation on more occasion than one, more confused than when he came in. Because even with his rudimentary knowledge of theology he realised that he was in fact dealing with a commitment that was coming from a group of people but would not be silenced and would not be put down by mere state brutality and intimidation. Our engagement across those denominational lines, across religious barriers has provided a king of religious and christian commitment that is causing many people to look again at the church and ask what the church is. And so we have found young people, angry young people, radical young people who understanbly say: "We want nothing to do with the church because the church is being silent, in fact the church is continue to pray for our boys on the borders and the church is to continue to affirm the status quo." But as they have seen some people commit themselves to the struggle on the basis of their theological convictions so they have began to ask new questions concerning the nature of the christian faith. Let me say very briefly, in passing and I don't wish to make a point of this, and that is we would be deceiving ourselves both within South Africa and we would be leading you astray my sisters and brothers if we didn't say to you that not all of the church is engaged in the struggle and there are many, many congregations and many, many church leaders and many, many church ministers who continue to seek to worship God the way they would worship God if they were leaving in any other country at any other point in time in history. We believe that our commitment must be grounded in our struggle and our theology, and our spirituality emerge out of that. And so much the activity that we have seen in the West Cap has in fact been an activity that has been shared in and participated in by christians, that is what has made it so interesting. Allow me to refer to only one example, I could refer to many but I know time is short. Let me refer to the Polesmoor march which took place most recently. It was essentially not exclusively but essentially church people and church christian ministers who were - 15 arrested on that particular occasion. You all know that Dr Allan Boesak who was to have led that march was arrested, he was detained more correctly the day before that march was to take place. It was at this point in time that we question whether it could be a peaceful march at all because he was the one person in the Cape who would be able to control the people ensure that it would be peaceful. And in spite of the leadership, in fact calling off that march, it is estimated that something like people took to the streets on that day and participated in various marches in the direction of Pollsmoor prison to demand the.release of Nelson Mandela and all political prisoners as the next, obvious and logical steps towards establishingpeace, justice in our land. I could speak about many such events, events that christian people have participated in because of their theological commitment. Enclosing let me say a very, very brief word about the state of emergency which was ultimately declared in the Western Cape on the 26

14 of October. A State of Emergency that remains enforced. It was on the previous day between 3.00 and 4.00 this morning that a number of people received that frightful knock on their doors and they were detained. The following morning the State of Emergency was declared. Let me say to you that many of those people are still in prisons at this time. The State of Emergency does not allow them to access to legal representatives. If they are to have visits and some people have been allowed visits, it is at the privilege of the minister or the commissionner of police. These people are not allowed reading matter, many of them are ill, in solitary confinement and some of those people that were arrested on that 25 are still in prisons today. Many of them are ministers of religion. Some people were arrested before that day, let me just name two people to you, Shirley Gown, David Pickles (?) a white women, a black man who have now been detained for over 100 days, but when we talk about detention in South Africa, we dare not talk without reminding ourselves of our national leaders who have been in prisons for 22 and 23 years. And so our commitment is that one day we will see in our land a situation as we see in Zimbabwe today. A land committed to justice and a land to democratic participation. Thank you Sir. Mr Chairman my name is spelled FINCA, pastor in the Eastern Cape. The word crisis has been used to describe the situation in South Africa and in my own perception, that word crisis is misleading. To me the word crisis suggests trouble, a situation which is difficult to handle and to control and to manage. In that sense apartheid is experiencing a crisis at the present moment, the architect of apartheid which is the government, the supporters of apartheid in industry and commerce and the upholders of apartheid in the police and the defence force, all those who benefit from apartheid are experiencing crisis. This includes all the collaborators with apartheid, or bantustans leaders and tribal leaders, and all of those churches which have already been referred to that benefit from apartheid, that are rich because of apartheid, they also are experiencing crisis. But our people talking from the point of view of the Eastern Cape are not experiencing crisis. On the other hand they are involved in an exciting, an interesting and hope provoking time of conflict. The conflict that is both costly and painful and yet exciting, challenging and hope provoking. The more they put apartheid into crisis, the more exciting it becomes and yet the more costly also it becomes. In listening and in participating with the people in Eastern Cape I think the only support they expect from us is not to stabilise things in South Africa, it is not to keep the peace in South Africa, it is not to make things better in South Africa but to help them to intensify the conflict that put apartheid into crisis. To help them escalate this conflict more and more as day goes by because, they believe, or we believe that it is in intensifying that conflict and in escalating that conflict that we create a crisis for apartheid and force apartheid to give in. We heard our people in the Eastern Cape say to us as churches: "You are hypocrits. You pass resolutions and statements about our sufferings". They have called on us to stop that,

15 to stop resolutions and statements and to stop holding meetings with the legitimate government, to stop calling for the release of Nelson Mandela and other political prisoners, to stop calling for the unbanning of the ANC and the PAC and the calling off of national convention. They said to us, statements and resolutions are useless and pointless and we know that. And they have called also those of us who are theologians who are reflecting in the situation to stop writing books about it. What we need at this hour, at this time in South Africa, is action calculated to intensify an escalate conflict. That will force the government to release Nelson Mandela, to release other political prisoners, to unban the ANC and the PAC, to declare apartheid a failure and call for a national convention. And the question that is facing the church in South Africa, whether it is prepared to move from that area of being a spectator in that zone of being a spectator to the zone of being in action. And the question that is facing the church catholic and those of us who come from other countries is whether it is prepared to move from the armchair resolutions, conference kind of reflection on the situation in South Africa to a campaign for costly action that will intensify the conflict and escalate the conflict because that is the only way in which you can be of assistance to the oppressed of South Africa. Rev. Baartman is the President of the Methodist Church in South Africa Mr President, I think one is to say that what is happening in South Africa is people resisting apartheid. To speak of the boycott of schools, we need to understand that this has not just come about, but the young people have been lorced to boycott schools by the government itself. They made demands and these were not met. On the other level, is the consumer boycott and this has been the most effective non-violent form of protest and especially in the Eastern Cape. You hear businessmen having conferences, putting pressure on the government because they are hit where it hurts most and that is in the pocket. We are talked about funeral and I think what you need to understand that funeral in South Africa are not just funeral. They have become point of rallying people to the struggle. They are point of conscientisation and the government is worried about this. I think this is why people are being banned from attending funerals and numbers caught because it is at funeral that people meet. The other thing is a week or so ago they were pulling down shacks, what they call shacks in South Africa. Now those shacks are homes of people and while a group of ministers went, one of the official asked him:"brother at some time you have to be with your conscience". His response was: "My conscience does not pay my salary." And I think once a person is at that point then talking to him about peace and the other things is not going to help. At the present moment, it seems that the violence is confined to black townships and I think it is a matter of time before it reaches the white areas. The white areas are only a stone throw away from where things are happening and patrol bombs do travel. The church as it has been said has been involved

16 simply because of geographical factors but now the church has ceased to be a sanctuary because 2 or 3 weeks ago people were killed on church property,that is a Methodist church building in Queenstown. They were in the church holding a meeting, tear gas was thrown into d the church building, they started running in all directions and they were gunned down and this is happening in our churches. Let me also say and say to the people from the West there was a notion some years n back you don't put money into bricks and mortar but you need to do that in South Africa for the black people. They have been forced to move. Their church, the former church building have been taken f awayfrom them so that you need church building, you need to put money into church, into mortar and bricks because now the church building is the center for the people. It is the only place where they can hold meetings, it is the only place where they can meet until last week without being disturbed by the police. So I will ask you to devise that :king of theology. I don't know where it comes from but it is e there. Lastly, the South African government, I think in the whole world, is a leading leadership dentist. By that I mean they are expert at pulling out leadership and especially black leadership. And that left them with a monster. They want to negotiate but all leaders are in prison and now they have to negotiate with them all. I don't know how you negotiate with them all, they need to understand that, in fact, before they can release those people I think they need to destroy their which are the puppets in that country and bring back authentic leadership. Until we have them to understand that, that in South Africa we need leadership who can lead the people. That is a vacuum which should be filled by all sorts of people and sadly the West tends to support even those puppets. And on that note I would like to say, this meeting will help South Africa and help our young people in particular if they know that they will be supported not only through prayer but I think materially. The next will be Natal who is the General Secretary of the Methodist Church, Sol Jacob, responsible for the ministry for refugees I am Sol Jacob, of the staff of the South African Council of Churches responsible for the division of refugee ministries. I speak here as a person, myself was detained under Section 6 of the Terrosrism Act and held in solitary confinement for 45 days. Arid if in my presentation you feel a bit of emotion or anger I ask you to bear with me. Up to this point, in the struggle in South Africa, blacks have been vacillating between white oppression and black forgiveness. What we are now confronted with is white oppression and black anger and d something of that in the events that led up to it, particularly in the Natal region as other people have covered other areas, and I want to do by giving you a glimpse of one week in the Natal area which n

17 highlighted the present unrest. Up to August 1985, it was claimed generally in the country that Natal was the most peaceful of the provinces. But then on August 1st, the violence began which at the end of the week left 70 people dead, killed in the riots between police and mobs, 43 people were shot by police, 215 people were injured and it brought the death toll to over 700 in the 14 months period of the unrest, exceeding the 1976 figure of 577. And to give you an idea of the unrest I want to go through one week, day by day, and just give you a brief summary without going into the details because I think e they speak for themselves. On Thursday 1st August, a Durban civil rights lawyer, Victoria Tange an attorney was gunned down by 4 men, outside Ablazio (?). Until that night both of the unrest that was happening in an township was probably hidden or not advertised and did not really get into the media. At the same time there was a growing escalation of students boycott of schools. On Friday the 2nd of August, students and pupils held a lunch hour demonstration to protest this killing of Victoria Tange. The police arrested 31 demos. On Monday, August the 5th, the schools in Durban and Petersmaritz region of Natale boycotted classes in order to mourn her deaths. The violence broke out in the township South of Durban. On Tuesday August the 6th, two people were killed and a 15 month-year-old baby was burnt to death. On Wednesday August 7th, 4 more people were killed in rioting and 5000 people were trapped in a memorial service that was held for Victoria and was rioting between two mobs of blackswith different ideological perspectives. On Thursday August 8 the death toll leads to 24 after overnight fighting in the townships, 16 were admitted dead on arrival at the local hospitals. On Friday August 9th, the death toll went up 32. The Phoenix settlement and Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Center was destroyed by fire and by black mobs on the rampage. On Saturday August 10, 8 more people were killed in the rioting in the Northern township of Durban, Quamachi and hmlazi in the South(?). The violence spilled over into Indians housing areas in the Northern part of Durban and most people interpreted this as a black Indian riot, but it was the riot that spilled over from one township to the other and the real reason for that was that the people were protesting the participation of the Asian or Indian communities in South Africa in the tricameral parliament. It was a protest against the new dispensation and those who participated in it were seen to be collaborators in the system of oppression. Sunday August 11, ten houses were burnt in the black townships and shops and business were looted. In all these times, the townships were patrolled by riot police. On Monday August 12, 3 more people were killed in the unrest in the township North of Durban. On Tuesday August 13, 3 more people were killed in the Nadanda(?) township where most of the rioting, and burning and looting took place. Now, people have asked why such a riot took place in a black area across two so-called black groups. As I mentioned earlier, the first reason was that the protest was directed against those Indians that participated in the tricameral parliament to the exclusion of 80% of South African Blacks in the political