wfn.org | Allan Boesak Charged with Misusing Anti-apartheid Donations

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

9-January-1997 
 
 
97009          Allan Boesak Charged with Misusing  
                     Anti-apartheid Donations 
 
                     by Religion News Service 
 
WASHINGTON, D.C.--Former South African clergyman Allan Boesak, one of the 
most prominent activists who led the fight against apartheid in South 
Africa, has been charged with misappropriating more than half a million 
dollars in donations from international church and aid groups. 
 
     [Boesak, a former president of the World Alliance of Reformed 
Churches, is well known to American Presbyterians.  He was the daily 
preacher for the 1994 General Assembly in Phoenix, preached at the worship 
service dedicating the Presbyterian Center in Louisville in 1988 and 
earlier this year served as a theologian in residence at the Stony Point 
Conference Center in New York.] 
 
     In mid-December a Cape Town court charged Boesak with nine counts of 
fraud and 21 counts of theft involving the misappropriation of funds 
donated to his Foundation for Peace and Justice, according to "New York 
Times" reports. 
 
     Most of the donations came from Danish and Swedish relief 
organizations.  Lawyers for one of the groups, DanChurch Aid, alleged that 
Boesak used hundreds of thousands of dollars donated to apartheid victims 
for his own personal expenses. 
 
     Boesak, who now lives in Berkeley, Calif., and teaches at the American 
Baptist Seminary of the West, did not appear in court, but attorneys said 
the former Dutch Reformed Church minister would return to South Africa this 
month to answer the charges. 
 
     Boesak did not respond to requests for comments about the charges.  In 
previous statements, he denied any wrongdoing and demanded apologies from 
the aid agencies. 
 
     The charges come after an official investigation that lasted nearly 
three years.  Prior to moving to the United States about a year ago, Boesak 
was a provincial leader of the African National Congress and South Africa's 
representative-designate to the United Nations. 
 
     Boesak, who rose to international prominence for his efforts to 
convince the Dutch Reformed Church to officially condemn apartheid, was 
forced to resign his ministry in 1990 after admitting to an extramarital 
affair. 

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