Contents
- Home
- Greenbelt
- News
- Be united and let Jesus smile again, begs Dr Tutu
- Software suggests Minns rewrote Akinola’s letter
- Christians join in to aid quake survivors in Peru
- It is painful to be treated as less than human, says Gene Robinson
- Williams produces prayers for Diana commemoration
- Diocese goes shopping for tips about ‘pulling power’
- Priests pulled out of danger zone
- Jefferts Schori in the dark on Wikipedia edit
- Eye of the storm
- Bishop ends Amnesty support
- RE popular at A-level
- News in Brief
- Families struggle after floods
- S. African Churches question reconciliation after judgment
- Wish you were here
- Embrace God’s migrants, says CCRJ
- Vicar unfrocked: anger at lengthy legal process
- Bishop’s defence
- Research shows ‘adult’ news affects children
- Over a drink
- New Centre will provide ethical sport
- Question of the week
- Comment
- Letters
- Real Life
- Features
- Faith
- Humour and crossword
- Pastimes
- Books
- Arts
- Media
- Gazette
 back to News |
 previous story
|
next story 
|
S. African Churches question reconciliation after judgment
by Bill Bowder
|
THE General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches (SACC), Eddie Makue, has questioned whether the trial and sentencing last Friday of a security minister from the apartheid era and others for the attempted murder of the former SACC president, the Revd Dr Frank Chikane, has helped South Africa achieve “meaningful reconciliation”. The minister, Adriaan Vlok, a Christian, who has already washed the feet of Mr Chikane in an act of penitence, admitted to the court that he had approved the plot to poison Dr Chikane in 1989. He received a ten-year prison sentence, which was suspended after plea-bargaining. General Johann Van der Merwe, who also approved the plot, and the three police agents who laced the clothes in Dr Chikane’s suitcase with the nerve agent, Paraxon, while he was passing through Johannesburg airport, also received suspended sentences. After the attack, Dr Chikane had needed hospital treatment, and nearly died. |  Penitent: Adriaan Vlok outside the court
reuters |
| “While we have the highest respect for our courts and judiciary, some judgments place the Council in serious predicaments. This particular ruling is a case in point,” Mr Makue said on Monday. “We thank God for protecting our brother and leader [Dr Chikane]. Was it not for God’s grace the apartheid criminals would have deprived our nation, and the ecumenical movement would have been deprived of another great leader.” He was not seeking punishment, but there needed to be “meaningful reconciliation”. The court’s sentence has raised the question as to whether South Africa’s widely admired Truth and Reconciliation Commission, chaired by Archbishop Desmond Tutu, which completed its work in 2003, has left too many ends untied. The SACC has reiterated its call to the perpetrators of human-rights violations to tell the truth “that will set us free”. Professor Tinyiko Mululeke, the newly elected president of the SACC, said that the court’s “historic” judgment complicated this search for justice and subsequent reconciliation. The criminal act was not only against Dr Chikane, but “also against the SACC which he headed”, he said in a statement. “He was the general secretary of the SACC, and he was targeted for the work that he did on behalf of all SACC Churches and other members.” |
