wfn.org | Death penalty

[Theo and Ruth Coggin <coggin@sn.apc.org>]

Death penalty has no place

CAPE TOWN, DECEMBER 11, 1997

For immediate release

Those who supported the reintroduction of the death penalty in South
Africa as a means of combating the high levels of crime and violence
were “grasping at straws”, the Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the
Most Revd Njongonkulu Ndungane said at the opening of the hearings on
capital punishment in the city this evening.

The hearings have been organised by Amnesty International to mark the
49th anniversary of the Declaration of Human Rights Day.

Archbishop Ndungane said it was fitting that the hearings should be held
at a time when crime and violence was rampant in South Africa, and when
opinion polls indicated that many supported the reintroduction of the
death penalty.

“The call of a leading judge last week for its reintroduction has added
further fuel to the fire, and the desire of the ruling party in the
province of the Western Cape to hold a referendum on the death  sentence
is fresh in our minds,” he said.

Archbishop Ndungane said that the roots of crime and violence in South
Africa were many  –  not least of which was poverty.  Another was the
inability of the criminal justice system to cope with the volume of
prosecutions facing it, and the correctional services system to enforce
adequately adequately the sentences meted out by the courts.

He added:  “It is shocking that as many prisoners should be escaping
from gaol and custody.  Given the ease with which escapes are occurring,
one has to wonder whether there is not a level of complicity from the
very officials who are responsible for their incarceration.  To believe
that the thereat of the death penalty is going to reduce significantly
crime and violence is to be oblivious to the complex nature of the
issues facing us.”

Archbishop Ndungane noted that his own denomination, the Church of the
Province of Southern Africa, had resolved in the 1980s that the death
penalty was not compatible with the way of Christ.  He said that many of
the people who had “swung from the gallows during the apartheid era were
unjustly condemned” by an heretical political system.

“Ironically, there is now no way to reverse the injustice meted out to
them”, he said.

He pointed out that it was ironic that some of those who were
politically responsible for implementing the death penalty, or who had
ordered the deaths of freedom fighters, in the interests of  maintaining
the policy of apartheid, were now seeking amnesty.

“Even if they are not granted amnesty”, Archbishop Ndungane said, “they
cannot be sentenced to death for any capital crime they may have
committed.  The same, of course, holds true for those on the other
side.”

ends

Issued on behalf of the Church of the Province 
of Southern Africa by Quo Vadis Communications

For more information contact Ruth Coggin on (082) 900 0168

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Tel: (011) 648-5461/1093; Fax: (011) 487-1994
Cell: 082-900-0168
e-mail: coggin@sn.apc.org

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