WZESTERN CHURCH LEADERS VOICE Ecumenical Press

WZESTERN CHURCH LEADERS VOICE Ecumenical Press CONCERN ABOUT SOUTH AFRICA Service 85.12.46 [This and other items from Harare in this issue of EPS are based in part on reporting by Monique McClellan and Hugh McCullum.] HARARE - Church leaders from Australia, the US, Canada, and several west European countries, meeting here on the situation in South Africa, have expressed concern about the situation and support for their colleagues there. Avery Post, president of the [US] United Church of Christ, called the "size and breadth" of the US delegation (about a dozen) "a testimony to the seriousness" of US church conern. A statement on behalf of the US participants pledged "our prayers, our material help, and our moral influence". They promised to "fight side by side with you [South Africans] until victory is achieved". They said that even though "the reactionary forces of injustice and racism are still strong in our country", they will "continue to put forth greater effort to persuade our government to use its influence to help change the cruel and oppressive system of the South African government". John Habgood, archbishop of York in the [Anglican] Church of England, called for a ban on all new investment in South Africa, and selective sanctions as a way to bring the South African government to "negotiate a radically different constitution". However, he declined a blanket endorsement of all sanctions because they might be "socially disruptive, throwing up a different kind of leadership. This needs reflection." Church leaders from Sweden, France, FRG (West Germany), Denmark, Canada, and Norway reiterated similar support for the dismantling of apartheid, differing only in the degree of support for sanctions. Speaking at a news conference, Martin Kruse, United of West Berlin and chairperson of the council of the Evangelical [Lutheran, United Reformed] Church in [West) Germany [and West Berlin] (EKD) agreed that its membership was not of one mind about how to oppose apartheid. He also noted that at one time, the EKD council, in connection with East-West questions, insisted sanctions could not be used to fight ideological battles. Ted Scott, archbishop and primate of the Anglican Church of Canada, said "applying sanctions cannot mean that one wants to get even with South Africa, * but that fundamental changes are brought about". Scott is part of a sevenperson Commonwealth group set up to foster peaceful change in South Africa. Lutheran World Federation General Secretary Gunnar Stalsett said "our commitment is to complete dismantling of apartheid". A Norwegian, Stalsett said "some of our nations and their leaders hold the solution for peaceful change in their hands". World Council of Churches General Secretary Emilio Castro, who called the meeting, said he had come with "a lot of anguish and a lot of faith". He recalled that the meeting here came 25 years after the WCC-called Cottersloe Conference, in Johannesburg, a pioneer international church effort against apartheid, and other WCC anti-apartheid efforts since then. Castro said "apartheid goes against the texture of the spiritual reality of the universe. That's why it can't prevail. I believe", he added, "it's the power of prayer that has generated so much courage in so many people in South Africa, who are risking their lives knowing that even their death will be useful in God's hand for the liberation of the people." - EPS