Bishop of Rhodesia Describes Growing Apartheid in His Country
Diocesan Press Service. February 6, 1968 [62-7]
Apartheid has reached a point in Rhodesia where segregation of blacks and whites is more complete in some areas of the country than in South Africa, according to the Right Rev. K. J. F. Skelton, Anglican Bishop of the Diocese of Matabeleland, which includes part of Rhodesia and Botswana.
This has had a decidedly adverse effect on the local support of the Church in Rhodesia which seeks to maintain its position as virtually the only institution in the country providing a place where black and white people can sit down "together to speak the truth in love with one another," in the words of Bishop Skelton.
Speaking before a meeting of the American Church Press in New York Jan. 17, Bishop Skelton said that the governmental policies of lan Smith's Rhodesian Front Party are stamping out what was formerly a trend toward more equality among white and black with what has been called by a recent Unesco report, "police state methods." Specifically:
(1) Colored (mixed blood) Rhodesians can be evicted from homes where they have long been neighbors of whites and moved to segregated communities, without regard to property rights, if 50% of their neighbors request it.
(2) Blacks can be forbidden to enter certain parks designated white only. (In South Africa blacks may enter parks but may not sit on benches.)
(3) Segregation of school sports, which have been multi-racial for the past ten years, has been established by new government actions, although none of the orders has been allowed to appear in the Rhodesian press, according to Bishop Skelton.
In Bishop Skelton's opinion the policy of the Smith government of "separate facilities, separate development" represents a reversal of progress made during the last ten years toward a more liberal relationship between blacks and whites.
The Bishop said that Rhodesia is almost completely cut off from news and information from the outside world. One priest in his diocese comments that if Rhodesia has a new flag designed, which it is considering, one of the symbols on it should be the ostrich. This would symbolize the intense parochialism of the country and the press.
Bishop Skelton called for more and continued interest in Rhodesia by Americans through such programs as "companion diocese relationships" to alleviate this situation. At present, the half of the Diocese of Matabeleland which is in Rhodesia has such a relationship with the Diocese of California and receives a large measure of its support from that diocese, which provides subsistence, scholarship aid and the continuance of devotional and educational work.
The other half of the Diocese of Matabeleland which consists of the country of Botswana has a companion relationship with the Diocese of San Joaquin in California. Together, the two sections of the diocese cover an area about twice the size of the whole state of California and Church membership consists of approximately 10,000 southern Rhodesians and about 5,000 Botsuwans.