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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, APRIL 19, 1985
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President P.W. Botha told an Easter assembly of some 2 million
black churchgoers that blacks and whites must stand together
against "messengers of terror."••• Botha was the guest at the an
nual Easter assembly of the conservative blacks' Zion Christian
Church held on a hillside near Moria in northern Transvaal Pro
vince. He applauded the church's stand for law and order and
called on all blacks and whites to "come together and talk to
each other as we are doing now."•••
The fundamentalist Zion Christian Church, headed by Bishop Barna
bas Lekgenyane, shuns the political activism for black rights
followed by most of the Roman Catholic, Anglican and other Eng
lish-speaking churches.
Botha told the vast audience, "We shall not tolerate people who
come from far away with evil minds to kill and injure innocent
people. We must not allow them to burn our houses and destroy our
property. We must all stand together against these messengers of
terror. Our trust in God must enable us to withstand evil with
firmness.... In the past, we have not really listened to each
other. Let us start listening to each other as we are doing now.
We must jointly strive to find out what our problems are. Then we
must jointly strive to find solutions to our problems."
A few hundred, or at the most, a few thousand activists demanding "power to
the people" (meaning to themselves, like Korah) grab all the headlines, of
course, rather than two million people advocating peace and showing respect
to their government. The news media would tend to view them as two million
"dupes." The conflict brewing at the tip of Africa is certain to spill over
with a deadly impact someday in the United States.
--Gene H. Hogberg, News Bureau