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Bishop Winter, Confirmed in Office, Lssues• a Challenge

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Bishop Winter, Confirmed in Office, Lssues• a Challenge !Nt-o) 1M- -rhe VVitAlf; "tuot e.-. of thj ~rA.inl!;) l1ast COWlpo...5sed uS" ~D00lT wifA So jye(A! c.- C/OULd.. of wrfVler;c;es EPISCOPAL CHURCHMEN FOR SOUTH AFRICA 14 West 11th Street, New York, N.Y. 10011 PHONE: (212) 477-0066 All Saints 1975 BISHOP COLIN WINTER CONFIRMED BY SYNOD AS BISHOP OF DAMARALAND-in-EXILE The fifth synod of the Anglican Church in Namibia overwhelmingly confirmed Colin O'Brien Winter as the Bishop of Damaraland - three and a half years after he was forced into exile by the South African usurper. A resolution drawn up by some white Anglicans, which would have had synod request Bishop Winter to resign, was defeated, 40 to 14. Bishop Richard Wood, expelled from Namibia by occupation officials in June of this year, was declared still to be the lawfully consecrated suffragan bishop and synod agreed to support the bishop until his future ministry is decided. Synod began on 3 October with a celebration of the Holy Eucharist in the Cathedral Church of St. George in Windhoek, Namibia's capital city. The first session examined the Terrorism Act and how that South African law permits the police to hold a detainee incommunicado indefinitely without recourse to the courts. Synod passed this resolution: "That it expresses its abhorrence of the Terrorism Act and remembers with love and compassion the people allover the world who are suffering for conscience sake and indeed people who are undergoing all forms of mental and physical and spiritual suffering." Synod also sent a message of solidarity and support to four pastors of the Lutheran Church ln Namibia who are now detained under the Terrorism Act. Another resolution read: "That the Synod of Bishops (of the Anglican Church of South Africa) be requested to continue to give their approval and bless­ ings" to Bishop Winter in exile. This was overwhelmingly approved. Bishop Winter's message to synod Has video-taped and played to the diocesan assembly on close-circuit color t.v. - a first time for Namibia. So over­ joyed were most of the delegates and so great the welcoming commotion that the tape had to be started allover again. Colin told his people "'chousands of miles away: "It is my wish and fervent prayer that the voice of truth will ri~g loud and clear at this synod. Your concerns must be for the well-being of all people in Namibia. The voice of the oppressed and the powerless must be clearly declared among you . " The Rev. Edward Morrow, vicar general of the Diocese of Damaraland, said the support for Bishop Winter is to be seen as an act of Christian witness, that the church makes an act of witness against the injustice of expulsions of its bishops and against the improper interference by the state in the af­ fairs of the church. He said that the church is called to be a suffering church, that it cannot be secluded in purity and security. The church that refuses to dirty its hands for righteousness and on behalf of the poor can­ not claim to be the church. He believed that the church must be able to hold up its hands and display the stigmata to the world. BiShop Winter, confirmed in office, lssues• a challenge Namibia were not yet showing any ~rHE Right Rev. Colin Winter service a.t whic'h ·he was preaohing in Germany was just ending when a signs of doing this. was overwhelmingly eon­ student burst in with the . esults of Bi~hop Winter denied thaI he was tirmed as Bishop of Damaraland.. the Sy.nod's voting. seeking the destruction of whites in in-exile by his Diocesan Synod at "I was given a terrifk o Va!iOll and c~ll,ng [or justice for blacks. And he pledged himself to continue speaking the weekend, and immediately a champagne party by the Germans," said BiSlhop Winter. And he added; out against apartheid, working for the issued a challenge to the Church "Nat1;rally I am delighted and over­ release of Namibian political detain­ of England to take him and the whelmed at the confidence whkh ttle ees. pressing for South Africa's total people of Namiblia have pJa.ced in me. withdrawal from Namibill, and chal­ "Namibian struggle" seriously. This really is a rati·fication of the lenging ~.he "collusion" of the ten-point platform which J put to Western powers--W1ho, he claimed. The Synod, meeting at Wind- them. robbed the Namibians by maki·ng a hoek, Namibia (South-West profit out of their sufferings, "The struggle in Namibia is a s:,ruggJe for freedom against oppres­ sion, an{j I think the Synod stands by 'Racist laws' these ohings and ha~ given me a man­ '" a.nod my family a,re Namibians," d·ate to go On working in the way 1 Bishop Winter declared. "With my am doin.g, following these principles." st aff We are convinced that in God's Bish(fp Winter went on:· HI hope good time we will return to build up that the Church ill Eng/al1d will lake a free country which ,viII remove the my positiol1 seriollsly now, a/ld that hundreds of racist laws which -for .too Iilt're call IIOW he some dia/oglle at long have weighed '<1own our ~op·Je. lOp lev£'! ahout what the ·Chul'cll ·01 "1 am determined to, w<Jrk, wbnes.s England Cl1rt ([nd will do ahout :he and sutf~r unttl OLl,r country is free perseCllfed Church ill Nall1ihia" 10 take its place with pride. among T'he Bishop added that ,he did not the frec peoples of tlhe world." un{jerstand w;h.a,t the official Church of England attitude w.as on the Namibian is-sue. becaUSe it had neVer been expressed, "But now it oug;ht to be expressed," he declared. "There ought now to be some tangible support for the people of Namibia from the Cburc.h here.'· Bishop Winter In ·his recorded add ress to the Damaraland Synod Sis·hop Winter CH~CHTIMES noted that the resolution c,alling for Africa), had before it a resolution, his resignation had been. pro.potiec! by 'laid to have been drawn up by "white memb~rs of t,he Cathedral:' white people, urging the Synod to and tha~ among other things it spoke request Bishop Winter's resigna­ of the need for a bishop w.ho would bring {o Namibia the gif,ts or forgive­ tion. The Tesolution was, however, ness, l{)ve and reconciliation, defeated by forty. votes to fourteen. LONDON, FRIDAY, OCTOBER 10, 1975 But, he observe{j, white peopl¢­ Bis,hop Winter-who had put his including w.hite Churchpeople~had · ~ase to the Synod by means of a to make amen<ls and ask for forgive­ video-taped address~heard the news ness before the;5e gifts could be given. of his victory in dramatic .f!ashion: a And, he daimed, the whites of lf1/e jOUYlot DU;- Chu..'rch rAnof. otheys d.~ela/f erwne5fteuL /f'l fhe r()..cjst-. COfl1;O)~x:J.lie5 of ~rou.f;1eyY( (A/rICe-.. _.. _. ~--:.. {?J?lr.; In NQnv.b;a.. fi1rof.A.9h tA~ )eaaer,Si1ip of ;J)S"i1C?p 111. ~:xl/e CO/t'n W;j/(T~}~ Ctl'1o£.. of /~)sho/a 1?)cAaroi WC?DoL) C;"S5>510..Y7.1: oUe:;{ we ;firzcf... th.e fYlDra...) c.tV/!/ a..ndL COUY'G.se. to sfCt.noL up a.11~ be cOtAnfec[ C'LV(c:i- c/~a.r)1 tD /oI.e.f1;-/7~ /l1e/"j/( 5f?/)/e S WI fft. tIH::. 6/c...c k mq/OYJ 161 at !V'CtJ1-'( I 6; c_. - REPORT aN SOUTl-l P\~R ItA I ANG-LI C.AN q .. ·\UR'tH Or: CANADF\ I J""U ,NE . (9.1$ SOUTH AFRICA STARTS MASS RENOVAL OF NAMIBIANS South Africa is clearing all civilians from a long stretch of northern Namibia bordering Angola. THE WINDHOEK ADVERTISER on 17 October broke the news: "the entire frontier of 250 km which the Kwanyama tribal area has with Angola will be moved back a few kilometres to become a tight security zone to eliminate as far as possible the chances of a surprise assault as happened during the weekend" ... a reference to a SWAPO attack near the border post of Oshikango . Jannie de Wet, the occupation official who bears the title 'Commission­ er for Indigenous Peoples', said "the Kwanyama tribal authority has de­ cided to move entire villages, kraals, businesses such as shops, cafes and other establishments. In fact, the removal has already started." He added that people would be compensated from tribal funds and allocated new land. De Wet declared the strip would be tightly controlled and pop­ ulated by security forces. In testimony before the UN Council of Namibia on 28 October,the Rev. Fred­ erick L. Houghton, who in the 1970s was warden of St . Mary's Theological School at Odibo in the northern region, estimated that if the security sec­ tor were 5 km deep as many as 20,000 people would be affected. That region is the most fertile and favored with the heaviest rainfall in water-scarce Namibia; it is the most thickly populated. Relocation would cause mass dis­ location and the splitting of families, and so narrow is the fertile belt that there is no land for resettlement except in semi-desert territory. Odibo, the central Anglican mission station, is a scant two km from the Angolan border.
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