ECSA Bulletin

The newsletter includes the NAMIBIA - THE AI-GAMS DECLARATION adopted at a meeting held under the auspices of the Council of Churches in Namibia (CCN) on April 29-30, 1986. The declaration rejects South Africa's delaying tactics and persistent refusal to have United Nations Security Council Resolution 435 of 1978 implemented and its linking of Namibian independence to extraneous issues such as the withdrawal of Cuban troops from Angola. It also rejects the succession of puppet governments installed by Pretoria, including the increasingly repressive, so-called Transitional Government, as well as the illegal presence of the South African army in Namibia. Signers of the declaration are: Evangelical Lutheran Church, Anglican Diocese of Namibia, Methodist Church, South West Africa People's Organization, Damara Council, Namibia Christian Democratic Party, Nudo Progressive Party, Namibia Women's Voice, Roman Catholic Church, African Methodist Episcopal Church, Council of Churches in Namibia, South West Africa National Union (SWANU), Mbanderu Council, Namibia Independence Party, Namibia National Students Organization, and Young Women's Christian Association (YWCA). The newsletter says Father Basil van Rensburg is a white South African and a Roman Catholic priest of Holy Cross church in District 6, Cape Town. About 50,000 of Father Basil's parishioners have been removed so the choice section could accommodate white homes and white businesses. Father Basil is on a year's sabbatical at the University of Notre Dame; on April 9, 1986, the 55-year-old priest began a water-only fast calling on the University to divest of its holdings in corporations in South Africa. The newsletter includes a newspaper article "Warnings of UDI" by Kevin Toolis that says at a conference in Amersfoort, Holland, Reverend Jimmy Palos of the Methodist Church in Namibia charged that South Africa was intent on bypassing Resolution 435 and implementing a unilateral declaration of independence through the installation of an interim government in the territory. The newsletter includes newspaper articles: "A missed opportunity to 'beak with the past'," "A wealth of poverty" by Francis Wilson, "Educating S. African blacks" by Ned Temko, and "Ambassador Miller leaves Harare a frustrated man." It includes a newspaper article "American in Harare condemn US attack" reporting that concerned Americans living in Zimbabwe have condemned the U.S. attack on Libya. The newsletter discusses SWATF (South West Africa Territorial Force), the Netherlands Council of Churches, David de Beer, Ida Jimmy, Father Roger Key, Nashilongo Elago, Namibia Women's Voice, Reverend Irwin Tjirimuje, Erasmus Hendjal, Nico Schrijver, Reverend W.R. van der Zee, self-determination, human rights, David Smuts, Surplus Peoples Project, Land Act, David A. Hamburg, Carnegie Corporation of New York, Soweto, Jean Graham, Maureen Cassidy, Paul Jackson, St. Ansgar's school , W.J. Zybrands, David Charles Miller, U.S. aid to Zimbabwe, Witness Mangwende, Robert Keeley, President Ronald Reagan, and Rev. Theodore Hesburgh.