wfn.org | Council of Churches in Namibia moves closer to reconciliation

[FRANK_IMHOFF.parti@ecunet.org (FRANK IMHOFF)]

Confession of guilt admits to sins of apartheid

WINDHOEK, Namibia/GENEVA, 16 April 1998 (lwi) - The Council of Churches in
Namibia (CCN) has moved a step closer to its goal of full national
reconciliation from the Christian perspective with its Conference on
Restoration held March 5-7 in Okahandja, according to a CCN press
communique. About 60 representatives of different churches, government
ministries, political parties and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs)
participated in the event which was part of "CCN 1997: Proclaiming a Year
of God's Grace".

One focus of the conference was the exchange of personal stories and
experiences of isolation during and since Namibia's struggle for
liberation.

The conference participants were moved by a confession of guilt for the
sins of apartheid made by Clem Marais, leader of the Dutch Reformed Church
in Namibia. A week later, during the CCN annual general meeting following
the conference, Ngeno Nakamhela, CCN general secretary, embraced Marais as
a sign of forgiveness and official recognition. "The estrangement is being
overcome and the Church of Jesus Christ will confess, will apologize and
will receive forgiveness," Nakamhela said.

At the beginning of the reconciliation conference, former general secretary
of the Lutheran World Federation (LWF), Gunnar St†lsett, reminded the
participants that the struggle continues. The Namibian churches took
seriously their responsibility for spiritual and political freedom in the
past struggle. Now, they must "stand up for the values which were
victorious," he said.

The conference participants proposed, among other things, the development
of a new working committee which will facilitate a "confession of faith and
failure" by churches. This confession would include not caring for the
people who were tortured or whose family members disappeared or who were
accused of being spies and traitors during the struggle for liberation.

Assistant general secretary of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in the
Republic of Namibia, Henog Kamho, urged the churches to "monitor the human
rights situation in Namibia closely and, should cases of human rights
abuses and intimidation appear, the churches should reject them publicly."
Kamho also urged the churches to look for ways to restore all groups in the
society who are "still suffering under the burden of the past". The
churches also should suggest specific forms of restitution for each group
concerned, such as combined programs on housing, education support for
orphans, and others, he said.

Although the "Year of God's Grace" program initially was planned for 1997
only, the CCN Executive Committee soon realized that reconciliation will
take more than a year. Now, the special program - with subthemes of
reconciliation, restoration and liberation - will extend into the
foreseeable future. The program began in 1995 with a request from the
annual general meeting that meetings be held with parents of children who
disappeared during Namibia's war of independence from South Africa. Since
then, the CCN has broadened the emphasis on reconciliation to include all
who suffered during the war and people today who also need to be
reconciled, such as the landless and the unemployed.

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