Namibian Trip's Legacy: 'Sacred Trust' to Serve
Episcopal News Service. November 17, 1983 [83213]
Ivor Shapiro, Special correspondent for the Anglican Press Cooperative
JOHANNESBURG, (DPS, Nov.17) -- The six members of the Anglican communion delegation returned to their homes around the world after an 11-day pastoral visit to the church in Namibia feeling, said one member, that they had been given a 'sacred trust' to strive to meet the needs of a people beset by war and drought.
Appointed by the Archbishop of Canterbury to 'look, listen and report', on the situation of Anglicans in the south west African country, the team had wide-ranging discussions with peasants and politicians, bishops and business executives, soldiers and school teachers. The delegates were tight-lipped about the recommendations they would be making in a written report expected to reach Archbishop of Canterbury Robert Runcie and the Southern African primate, Archbishop Philip Russell in December, but their suggestions are likely to include both political action to promote independence, and financial support for beleaguered diocesan educational and other projects.
The team members were the primate of Japan, the Most Rev. John M. Watanabe, Bishop James Thompson of Stepney, London, Bishop Edmond L. Browning of Hawaii, the Rev. Charles Cesaretti, public issues officer of the Episcopal Church Center, the Rev. Winston Ndugane, liaison officer for the church of the province of Southern Africa, and Terry Waite, Runcie's advisor on Anglican communion affairs.
They were appointed by Runcie in response to an invitation from Namibian Bishop James Kauluma.
This was the most extensive international church delegation yet to visit this predominantly black nation which is ruled by South Africa. A United Nations mandate to administer the country was revoked 17 years ago and the country has been a battlefield between guerrilla forces and the troopers controlled by South Africa ever since.
Over and over again, as the deputation met with church people in Namibia, they were told that there would be no peace in the country until South African military forces and politicians went home.
In Johannesburg after the visit, Waite told a press conference that church leaders were unanimous in their opposition to the South African presence.
"We met very few supporters of the system of ethnic government and a very large number who regard this as an imposition from the Republic of South Africa, and have no stomach for the system," Waite said.
In contrast, Waite said the team had been told that the People's Liberation Army of Namibia (the military wing of the South West African People's Organization fighting against the South Africans,) contained "very many Christian men who are fighting for independence and liberation of their people."
"One person said: 'These are sons and children of the church.' This does not mean the People's organization is totally innocent of atrocities. In a guerilla war, the local people find themselves in a miserable crossfire, where one side cannot be innocent and the other side totally in the wrong," Waite said, adding that the 'great majority' of Namibians were supporters of the People's Organization.
Team members were impressed by the hope remaining alive in the Namibians they met, that peace and independence would be achieved. " They want independence, and they want it urgently, but they are realistic. They don't expect the present political initiatives to bring it about, " one delegate told me.
" It is the church which is giving people hope here," said another on a long, hot day trip to the north eastern region of Kavango..." It's a throwback to early Christian times, when Christians were faced with a clear enemy, and held on to their hope by depending on God." In much of the northern area, where the bulk of Anglicans live, that dependence on God is literally all that the church possesses. Church buildings have been destroyed by artillery fire. Schools have closed down, or been bombed. The Anglican hospital at Odibo stands empty by order of the government.
A dusk-to-dawn curfew inhibits travel and makes night worship and education work impossible. Medical emergencies at night just have to wait until morning. Land mines make it safer to walk than to travel by car along the dirt roads which criss-cross the war zone -- and anyway, the people's poverty means most clergy use bicycles, not cars.
It was in the war zone that the team spent six days, travelling from one isolated bush mission or village church to another. They met not only Anglicans but also leaders of the Roman Catholic and Lutheran church. The denominations, which together account for an estimated 80 percent of the Namibian population, co-operate closely.
Everywhere on the gigantic battlefield of the north, local Christians told the team that South Africa was engaged in a war of occupation among an openly hostile population. Allegations were made of large-scale intimidation by the security forces, and the delegates were told the victims of torture, beatings and indiscriminate shootings were reluctant to complain to the military authorities, for fear of further trouble.
After visiting the central and coastal areas of the diocese, five members of the team returned to the war zone -- this time as guests of the South African government. (The only South African delegate, Ndugane, declined to say why he had not made the army-organized trip).
During the six hour tour, they met with military leaders and discussed the role played in the region by the arm and by the especially feared special unit known as KOEVOET (Crowbar.)
Later, Waite told the Johannesburg and foreign press that a selection of specific allegations of misconduct had been put to the military representatives -- among them accusations that there had been times when soldiers or police had "dressed in People's Organization uniforms and engaged in programs of intimidations in order to create fear."
He said that this had been admitted to him by an army officer, who had commented: "In guerilla warfare this type of activity occurs." "If the aim of a military presence is to protect the people and foster development, then it would seem to us that this is a strange way to seek the achievement of those particular goals," Waite said.
Thompson told the press conference that the people who had made the allegations "were people of profound and apparent integrity, and with whom we experienced a Christian brotherhood of considerable depth."
"Intimidation is felt to have become a way of life," he said. Military authorities responded to the press conference by releasing to the South African Press Association a copy of a document which had been handed to the Anglican team. It gave details of criminal trials in which 18 soldiers had been convicted of offences against civilians, and said this proved that the military viewed such transgressions in a serious light. The document alleged that over a 57-month period, 303 civilians had died in land mine blasts caused by People's Organization insurgents, and that 366 civilians had been killed and 1,341 abducted by People's Organization forces. "In a well-orchestrated propaganda campaign...," the security forces are continually accused of atrocities", the document stated. "SWAPO's atrocities, on the other hand, are not given the same prominence."
A statement from military headquarters in Windhoek said the comment attributed by Waite to an army officer could only be assumed to have rested upon a misunderstanding. The delegation had been given details of a recent court case concerning "so-called pseudo-operations" (in which forces pose as enemy units and carry out terrorist activities) to illustrate that the military did not condone that type of action.
According to another Press Association report, a spokesperson said atrocities were not condoned, and any allegations would be thoroughly investigated.
By the time they embarked on various flights out of Johannesburg, the team consisted of six weary men. They had been living through 18-hours days in the early summer heat of the Namibian bush. Continually on the move, rushing to their changing home bases in order to beat the curfew, eating strange food generously provided and at irregular times, and always aware of the sounds and sights of war around them.
Thompson spent two of those days in a Lutheran hospital at Oniipa after collapsing as the probable result of dehydration. Most of his colleagues suffered stomach complaints during the trip, and all were grateful for the malaria prophylactics they had been advised to take.
"The only time I got kind of anxious was when we overtook some soldiers sweeping the road with land mine detectors," said one team member. But another said the continual sound of artillery barrages, and the enduring presence of military vehicles -- often driving on the wrong side of the road because only that section had been cleared of mines -- was unnerving.
"But a memory which will remain with the delegates as long as their taste of war does, was the confirmation of 133 catechumens during a five-hour open air service within sight of the unmarked Angolan border.
"It was an overwhelming experience of the universal church, with at least 2,200 people witnessing the candidates being confirmed in English by the Bishop of Stepney, or in Japanese by Archbishop Watanabe, or in Kwanyama by their own diocesan bishop, " one delegate said. "Some people had walked up to 60 kilometres (37 miles) to get there."
The two Americans on the team had a less pleasant memory to take home. They sense in a number of people a certain reserve about speaking openly to them, and finally at one meeting a church leader said frankly: "There's no way we will speak with Americans here."
In fact, a good discussion did place after it was pointed out that Bishop Kauluma "would not have brought enemies to speak with friends", but the point was taken. Americans are seen as allies of the South Africans in delaying the independence of Namibia.
The cause of this belief is the U.S. government's policy over recent months of demanding that the withdrawal of Cubans from Angola be linked to South African withdrawal from Namibia. Again and again the team was told: "The Cubans are an Angolan problem -- they have nothing to do with us in Namibia. It's just a delaying tactic."
Coupled with this was the message: "Stick with Resolution 435" -- a reference to the 1978 United Stations Security Council call for the withdrawal of the South African administration and transfer of power to an independent government through U.N.-- supervised elections.
In the South African capital, Pretoria, the team passed these messages on the ambassadors of five western nations in what was described -- possibly euphemistically -- "a free and extensive discussion."
Back in their home countries -- particularly in Britain and the United States -- there will probably be further contact with foreign policy makers.
And if the team's report proves useful in facilitating a united Anglican response to Namibia's special needs, the October mission could become the first of many top-level Anglican communion delegations to dioceses in the world's trouble spots.
But the main significance of the visit may already be a reality. As Cesaretti put it, heading north through the brown-green, menacing bush: "This is a diocese with a long history of problems and suffering. We are here to be signs and symbols of the greater life of the church -- to help people feel that they are part of the worldwide Anglican communion."