Returning to Zimbabwe A commentary by Parker T. Williamson Executive Editor The Presbyterian Layman Tuesday, December 8, 1998 ZIMBABWE, AFRICA - The World Council of Churches, gathering for its 50th Anniversary meeting on Dec. 3, has been in this country before. Vicariously, so have I. When the World Council came to Zimbabwe (then known as Rhodesia) in 1978 it brought bullets and bombs. As an elected leader of the Presbyterian Church (US), I could not ignore that act, nor could I turn my back on the fact that contributions from my denomination made it possible. Zimbabwe was a turning point for us all. Parker T. Williamson In 1978, this African country was engaged in turbulent transition. Colonialist Ian Smith's regime had finally come to terms with the fact that white people alone could no longer rule this fabulously wealthy land. Gold emerged from the ground. Farms exported their bounty throughout Africa. Game parks attracted tourists worldwide. Transportation, health care, electrification, and communication systems were the jewel of the continent. But in spite of all these accomplishments, Rhodesia could not survive while its black population remained disenfranchised. White rule had to end. But by any rational judgment, Rhodesian blacks were in no position to run this sophisticated and highly efficient infrastructure. Theirs had been a tribal life, governed by a world view that could not easily comprehend ideological assumptions on which the Rhodesian economy was formed. So a biracial government was organized, an instrument of transition, an attempt to transfer incrementally the levers of control, to apprentice into leadership a very different people. The WCC Funds Revolution Not so, said the World Council of Churches. The council declared its support for the Patriotic Front, a cluster of guerrilla fighters led by Robert Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo, that had been funded and trained by the Soviet Union, North Korea and Cuba. Mugabe/Nkomo guerrillas demanded an immediate takeover of the biracial Rhodesian regime, and World Council leaders conferred moral legitimacy to their claim. UMTALI, Rhodesia, June 29, 1978 – Shown are the caskets of eight missionaries and four young children, battered to death by nationalist guerrillas. The killings of the Penetecostal missionaries and their children aroused world-wide anger against the World Council of Churches which in August announced an $85,000 grant to the guerrilla-terrorist groups fighting against a peaceful settlement in Rhodesia. Tactics of the Patriotic Front were well known by 1978, for in February 1997, according to reports by Newsweek, the Patriotic Front had murdered seven Roman Catholic missionaries who opposed its Marxist campaign. Again, in June of 1977, the Patriotic Front killed three men, five women and four children at a Pentecostal missionary post for similar reasons. Reports of these killings notwithstanding, the WCC, in August 1978, gave the Patriotic Front $85,000 from its Fund to Combat Racism, an account to which the Presbyterian Church had contributed generously. No strings had been attached to the grant. In fact, WCC guidelines specifically prohibited the imposition of such strings, stating in its Notting Hill principles that the grants were to be "made without control over the manner in which they are spent." The Politics of Murder In August, 1978, the same month in which the WCC awarded the grant, the Patriotic Front shot down a civilian Air Rhodesia plane, killing thirty-eight of its fifty-six passengers. Newsweek reported in its September 1978 issue that a small group of survivors climbed out of the wreckage and pleaded for mercy, but they were assassinated by Patriotic Front guerrillas, using Soviet-made Kalashnikov rifles. According to the Newsweek account, the next day, when Rhodesian troops parachuted into the area, they found ten bodies, including seven women and two young girls, among those who had been gunned down. [see summary of 1978 Time magazine report] Later, when the Patriotic Front won its revolution, largely due to the support it received from Soviet bloc countries and organizations like the World Council of Churches, Zimbabwe's new prime minister, Robert Mugabe, publicly thanked the WCC for its "commitment to the principles for which you and we have struggled together" (Ecumenical Press Service, March 7, 1980). WCC leaders also claimed the victory, with General Secretary Philip Potter vowing triumphantly during the WCC's 1980 General Council meeting that the WCC would "not be bullied by those who attack us for giving our attention to controversial political issues" (Document No. 23, WCC Central Committee, Geneva, 1980, p. 10). Tribal Warfare Shortly after Mugabe ascended the throne of what was to become his one-party state, he moved to consolidate his power. In January 1982, he turned against his ally, Joshua Nkomo, imprisoned and later exiled him. Then in 1983, in a monumental campaign of genocide, Mugabe unleashed his North Korean-trained Shona tribal warriors on Nkomo's numerically-smaller Matebele tribe, resulting in mass killings throughout Matebeleland. In that same period, Mugabe ordered a crackdown on the free press throughout Zimbabwe, a control that has never been fully lifted, and a reality that is of no small concern to some members of the press who have entered this country to report on the WCC meeting. Thus two former allies will experience reunion as the World Council visits Zimbabwe. Both Mugabe and the WCC have undergone radical changes since their revolutionary partnership was consummated in 1978. The fall of the Soviet Union deprived Mugabe of a patron from whom he had expected steady income in return for permitting a Soviet stronghold in his country. It also deprived the WCC of an institutional embodiment for its theologies of liberation. Neither the country nor the council has fared well since Communism surrendered its Cold War defeat. Current Conditions in Zimbabwe The once-thriving Rhodesian economy is now in deep distress. Banks have failed. Farm land that once fed the native population and produced major exports lies fallow. The country's electrical and communication systems have fallen into disrepair and are now unreliable. Pickpockets freely roam city streets. Gangs slash the tires of tourists' cars at rest stops and rob drivers when they get out of their cars to repair the damage. Corruption fomented by Mugabe's appointees is blatant. (Because of a law passed by the party he controls, Mugabe himself is immune from prosecution.) The prices of basic commodities have risen 30 to 70 percent between 1991 and 1997. Inflation is so bad that Zimbabwean businesses - and even the government - often refuse payment for services in Zimbabwean dollars. (We were required to pay our hotel bill in American dollars before occupancy and have been warned not to convert more American dollars into Zimbabwean currency than we think we will use because the government does not want its dollars back when we depart the country.) Interest rates in 1997 soared more than 20 percent. AIDS has infected more than 38 percent of the population, and there is only one public ambulance in the city of Harare, whose population exceeds 2 million. Mugabe's "land reform," a program to confiscate land from wealthy white farmers and return it to "indigenous peoples," has resulted in massive grants to Mugabe's friends and the creation of a land-wealthy class whose productivity is practically nil. Current Conditions in the WCC In developments that parallel Zimbabwe's misfortunes, the World Council of Churches has also fallen into hard times. The collapse of Communist states, particularly East Germany, has dramatically diminished WCC income because WCC contributions from what was formerly West Germany, one of the largest WCC donors, is now staying home. Exposure by the popular television program, Sixty Minutes, and reports published by Readers' Digest that document collusion between WCC officials and Soviet KGB agents during the Cold War have undermined the WCC's moral credibility. And mainline Protestant denominations in the United States, led by liberals who strongly supported the WCC, have felt their own financial pinch due to diminishing memberships and fewer discretionary dollars. These losses have led WCC leaders to declare that some form of downsizing will be necessary if the organization is to survive beyond its 50th Anniversary. Thus in this "Jubilee Celebration," WCC leaders will entertain discussions of a "new ecumenical vision" that seeks to redefine what it means to be ecumenical in a pluralistic age. Some WCC leaders are advocating "macro-ecumenism," a term they use to welcome into the council's big tent groups who cannot affirm that Jesus Christ is the Son of God. The WCC will conclude its meeting on December 14 with a giant "commitment" ceremony, an attempt to impress on member churches its need to find new cash for an otherwise collapsing ecumenical infrastructure. Whether representatives of those churches will be successful remains an open question. If the Presbyterian Church (USA) delegation in Harare is typical, denominational representatives who attend this event will sound a loud hurrah for the WCC's intentions. In large measure, the Presbyterian delegation is composed of long-term WCC and COCU (Consultation on Church Union) supporters whose influence has led the Presbyterian Church (USA) to become the largest United States donor to the WCC. But times are changing, even in the Presbyterian Church (USA). Leaders with a passion for the World Council of Churches are aging out of the Presbyterian system, and the new breed, while strongly ecumenical, tends to support evangelical ecumenism, a movement that WCC leaders long ago abandoned in favor of international politics. Remembrance and Reunion And so on this 50th anniversary of the WCC in Harare, two old allies have much to remember. They also have much to anticipate, for each faces a very different future than it could have anticipated when bullets and bombs punctuated their partnership. Robert Mugabe and the WCC discovered in Karl Marx a vision that served them both for a season. Neither has much to say about that any more. But something must be said. And what more appropriate place to say it than here, where it all began. If perchance these partners choose not to address such matters, then those of us who have witnessed what this association has done over the years must do so. It is not by accident that we all return to Zimbabwe.

WCC grant in 1978 caused dismay even among liberals Reprint from The Presbyterian Layman, October-November, 1978 Recent reports on the World Council of Churches and daily coverage of the 50th Jubilee assembly in Harare News From Around the Church News Updates Home, · Archives, · The Presbyterian Layman, History of the Lay Committee, · Letters & Editorials, Book Reviews, · Resources, ·Links