"If you obey my teaching, you are really my disciples; you will know the truth, and the truth will set you free." (John 8:31f)

One of the responses to the June 1976 crisis was to establish a special fund to assist the victims of the unrest. The immediate purpose was provision of food and clothing for those who suffered because of the disturbances, and funeral expenses for those who had lost loved ones. It then moved into the provision of legal expenses and bail money for those prosecuted by the system. There was some allowance for discretionary use of the fund by the General Secretary.

Called "Asingeni" the fund came in for much criticism from the Government and its allies, including a new English language newspaper called "The Citizen" later to be found to have been funded by the Government. The criticism as voiced by the Minister of Justice, Mr J Kruger, in Parliament in February of 1977 was to suggest that Asingeni was a secret source of funding to "aid trouble-makers."

The comment on Asingeni being a "secret" fund was paradoxical. The November 1976 issue of KAIROS, the SACC magazine, had carried details about sponsors and expenditure of the Asingeni fund. But, before it could be distributed the police raided the SACC offices on November 25th. Among the many papers confiscated were all the available copies of that KAIROS. Further copies were hastily printed, only to be banned completely by the authorities. Any suggestion of secrecy relating to the fund by the Minister of Justice was one that his own Department had created with its refusal to allow the details to be made known!

The months that followed the National Conference of July 1976 were filled with further disturbances as the fierce active opposition to Government legislation continued in the townships.

The major message to the Government from the Churches, contained in statements by the SACC, Churches, and Church organisations was for the Government to contact genuine recognised black leaders.

The Presidium of the SACC called for "Bold, swift and courageous action" from the Prime Minister to call a meeting that "should lay the foundation for an immediate round-table convention, representative of all races, which would have as its aim the removal of apartheid and the implementation of an acceptable system of Government for all."

The wisdom and experience of the Rev Dr Manas Buthelezi, who ministered in Soweto, was heard through a statement by the Council of the Evangelical Lutheran Church. It said that South Africans must view the disturbances in a serious light and not just as "sporadic unrest caused by unruly children." While the Christian Institute said it was urgent that blacks be given the freedom to elect "truly recognised leaders."

The most significant comments came from two of the "daughter Churches" of the DRC calling upon Mr Vorster, the Prime Minister, to meet with black leaders. "The renewed clashes are the incontrovertible evidence that the existing political, economic and social structures ... are rejected." Both Churches went on to urge the white DRC to speak out and that they had become weary of ambiguous statements made by the "mother Church" on the question of apartheid and the whole social structure of South Africa.

Killed, Detained

The DRC remained silent and the Government announced, through its Minister of Justice, Mr J Kruger, that law and order would be maintained at all costs. The lists of those killed and those detained surged to new heights as did the lists of young people leaving the country to join the liberation armies. Black and white divisions throughout society, and especially between the DRC and its daughter Churches, became more apparent.

In the midst of all the violent confrontation when the Churches were still calling for a National Convention, the Prime Minister, Mr J B Vorster, publicly said that there was no cause for panic and there was "no crisis" in the country!

Two more members of staff, for some were already in detention, were detained during the November 25th police swoop on the SACC offices. There were also detentions on that same day among the staff of the Christian Institute and the Christian Academy.

The raid gave rise to an SACC Executive statement expressing solidarity with the staff "in carrying out the tasks which have been delegated to them." The statement also protested the "tactics of intimidation being employed against the SACC."

The Anglican Provincial Synod was meeting in Grahamstown at the time of the raid and issued a strong message. Apart from condemning the raid, the message addressed all members of the Church of the Province "to ensure that the non-violent work of all detained and banned Christian workers ... was carried on; to demand that persons in detention should receive the ministry of Word and Sacrament; and to rejoice in the Christian witness of the detained and the opportunity police action gives to Christians to give joyful testimony to the victory and healing power of the love of Christ."

1976 ended with the students calling for a "truce" and appealing for Christmas to be a time of mourning. The year, according to Revelation Ntoula of ECUNEWS would be on record "as the opening of a new chapter in the history of South Africa."

The year also ended with some staff changes in the SACC. Mr John Rees had resigned as General Secretary at the October meeting of the Executive Committee. Mr Rees did, however, stay on to assist while the search for a new Secretary took place. All eyes were on Lesotho and Bishop Desmond Tutu but he felt at that stage that he had not been in Lesotho long enough to return to South Africa.

Mr Rees would leave the Council a much larger organisation than it had been when he started seven years before. The number of staff had quadrupled, there were more Regional Councils and there were as many as sixteen Divisions ranging from Dependant's Conference to a Choir Resource unit.

A deeply committed layman who was greatly respected by Church leaders, he ensured that the theological basis of the Council was never forgotten and that faith and mission were well and truly woven into the fabric of its life and witness.

He had also accomplished much of his first priority - to bring black leadership into the courts of the Council and on to the staff.

And he had co-operated with Dr Beyers Naude of the Christian Institute to bring the SACC into a closer relationship with the African Independent Churches.

Meetings were organised by the Christian Institute and the SACC to bring different groups of Independent Churches together to discuss co-operation. An early result of these discussions was the formation early in 1976 of the South African Theological College for the Independent Churches (SATCIC). This was to be centred on SACC owned property at St Ansgars on the near West Rand. Bishop Isaac Mokoena, leader of the "Reformed Independent Church Association" (RICA), was one of the founder members of the college and was appointed chairman of its Board of Management.

As the meetings progressed it was agreed to form a Federation of Independent Churches which would encourage and assist the associations to work together. Following a December 1976 meeting of representatives of the groups and the offer of the SACC to employ one of their number as a Church Development Officer, Bishop Mokoena was chosen to become a member of the SACC staff.

Another new member of staff was Mr Eugene Roelofse. Well known for his struggles over the years against consumer discrimination, Mr Roelofse was appointed as "Ombudsman." President John Thorne announced that he would "specialise in consumer problems which affect the poorer classes rather than the affluent. Those who think they can exploit the unsophisticated and get away with it are in for a surprise."

And the year 1977 began with a prominent lay Baptist, Mr Dan Vaughan, being appointed Director of Evangelism for the Council. The ironic aspect of this appointment was that the Baptist Union of South Africa had only recently cut itself off completely from the SACC by withdrawing from observer membership. With a wry smile, Dan Vaughan says that he went to the General Secretary of the Baptist Union for counsel before taking the job but that "he only said he didn't think I would do much good in the SACC."

"The whole experience for me, as a so called evangelical," says Dan Vaughan, " was that the SACC pushed me to examine those things which were part of my Church culture and, therefore, quite irrelevant and that which lay at the heart of my belief. The interesting factor, and I have often said this to people in the Baptist Church, is that I have never felt compromised. I just got rid of a lot of unnecessary baggage."

And so the work of the Council went on with continued altercations between it and the Government, continued activity through its many Divisions with special growth in field work among the victims of the unrest, and in the search for a new General Secretary.

The President of the SACC, the Rev John Thorne, was invited to be General Secretary at the National Conference of 1977, a position he held for only three months during which he decided that this was not the place that God intended him to be. Mr Thorne returned to pastoral work in the United Congregational Church.

His service as President and support of the then General Secretary, John Rees, bears mention and commendation. He was always ready to speak a prophetic word to the situation, never afraid of voicing the demands of the black community, helped establish, through many difficult National Conferences, set procedures for debates and discussions, and in many ways complemented the work of the General Secretary throughout all his years as President.

March On John Vorster Square

Mr Thorne was to be prominent in the ecumenical movement again a few years later when on May 24th 1980, when he was minister in the "Coloured" township of Bosmont near Johannesburg, he was arrested by security police. Although no official reason was given for the arrest it was thought to be related to support he had given to children attending local schools in their opposition to the education system.

As it happened, an ecumenical service was to take place the next day, Day of Pentecost, in his own Church. Those present agreed that a service would be held at the Congregational Centre in Johannesburg the next day and this would be followed by a protest march to the John Vorster Square police station to present a memorandum requesting Mr Thorne's release.

Fifty four clergy, dressed in their official robes and gowns, and lay Church men and women took part in the procession. No one really expected the police to take action against the group. This is evident from the way in which many of them had left their cars in bays allowing for only sixty minutes parking time. As it turned out, however, the whole group was arrested by many heavily armed police and spent the night in the same prison cells from which John Thorne was just being released.

The publicity that the arrest received both at home and abroad has to do more with the manner in which the police made the arrest than with the march itself. They stopped the procession in the middle of a busy street where many bystanders could see what was happening and directly across the road from the offices of The Star newspaper. The reporters did not even have to leave their desks!

For those who took part and were placed into cells overnight, many of whom were not known for their outspoken criticism of the Government, it was a time of intense fellowship. Archbishop Tutu remembers it as one of the highlights of his time as General Secretary. "We held a service conducted by (the Rev) Simeon Nkoane and we took a collection to pay a woman's fine whom Leah (Tutu) had identified in their cells. (The Rev) Joe Wing wept because he had worked long and hard for Church unity and that had been the best example of Church unity he had experienced."

The court was to witness two scenes of Church unity before the matter was over. On the day following the arrest when the marchers were brought into the magistrates court, crowds of people were there to show support in singing hymns. There were so many police present that there was room only for few of these visitors to enter the court itself so they gathered in the corridors and outside the building. When told they were not allowed to sing hymns, they simply knelt down in silent prayer. It was yet another of those moments of deep spiritual significance in the battle against the inhuman system of apartheid.

When on July 1st the group appeared to face charges for committing a traffic offence and for contravening the Riotous Assemblies Act, the court had to listen to testimony after testimony on the reasons for being in the march. A time, again, for Christian witness. The Anglicans had earlier called it "joyful testimony to the victory and healing power of the love of Christ", in the midst of the structures of the Government itself.

For there is no doubt that the courts were proving to be places to further Government plans and processes to deal with any opposition. They were used as the structure through which to assert Government policy as the legitimate voice of the society. With some notable exceptions, the courts merely echoed the voice of the Government in applying the apartheid regulations and carrying out the Government's wishes.

Biko and Bannings

The second half of 1977 saw the tragic death of Steve Biko while in police custody, with the infamous "it leaves me cold" statement of the Minister of Justice, J Kruger. It also saw on October 19th the forced closing of many organisations and the banning of many more people.

Included in the 18 organisations were the Black People's Convention, the Black Community Programme and other youth, student, and community organisations through which black people were seeking to assert their human worth. The World newspaper was banned, and its editor, Percy Qoboza, detained. The Eastern Cape Daily Dispatch was hit through the banning of its editor, Donald Woods.

Forty two black leaders were detained. Among them, yet again, Tom Manthata of the SACC Justice and Reconciliation Division, Dr Ntato Motlana, Chairman of the Soweto Committee of Ten, Mrs Ellen Kuzwayo, so often affectionately known as the Mother of Soweto, and the Rev Smangaliso Mkhatshwa of the Catholic Bishops Conference.

It was the banning of the Christian Institute and many of its staff members that had the closest effect upon the SACC. The two organisations had worked side by side on many programmes over the years and there were close ties of friendship between members of staff. Director Dr Beyers Naude, Administrative Director the Rev Brian Brown, and editor of the CI publication Pro Veritate the Rev Cedric Mayson, were all banned in terms of the Internal Security Act. Brian Brown and Cedric Mayson made their way to Britain to continue serving the struggle there, while Beyers Naude sat out the seven years of his banning order working as best he could within the strictures of its regulations.

Some of those who were there during those dreadful days remember security police telling all CI staff to pick up their personal possessions and go. Then, putting the CI offices out of bounds to all other tenants of the building, searching them and taking away mountains of paper, files and furniture. Groups stood on the pavement outside Diakonia House to bid tearful farewell to friends, express solidarity again and again, and watch with obvious distaste as the security police went about their business.

Writing about the bannings in EcuNews, David Thomas said "The fact is that the authorities are faced with a mass movement which will not be contained simply by banning leaders and organisations. Clearly, this is what the Government is aiming at, its action being based on the premise that only a few people are responsible for the woes and unrest which have taken place since June 1976."

He pointed out, as did other writers of the time, that the banning orders would only create further polarisation and cause even greater active resistance. "The Government," he wrote, "is steadily diminishing any chance of dialogue or negotiation with those who present alternatives to its policies. In other words, the main door to peaceful change is being closed."

Dr Beyers Naude had shown his courage in the face of many attacks from his own Church, he had directed a spirited organisation that placed opposition to apartheid right into the area claimed by the Dutch Reformed Church as of great importance - Bible study and theological expression. Now under a banning order he became a world symbol of hope for South Africa and the determination of those who stood against the evil draconian monster of apartheid.

And all of this against the background of a Government that was not only intransigent in declaring its apartheid policy and determined to stop any protest against it, but was ruthlessly pushing forward in its severe and insensitive application.

No More Black South Africans

The Verwoerdian dream of there being "no more black South Africans" was being implemented through the homeland policy creating the "independent states" of Transkei, Ciskei, Bophuthatswana and, later, Venda. None of the states was to be recognised by the international community.

The mass movement of people to resettlement areas from their traditional homes, named as "black spots in white areas", was horrendous. The SACC was to denounce such movements over the years, give aid to the communities involved, and stand by the people in whatever way possible.

The Cape, around the beautiful Table Top mountain, provided the scene for many removals. Cape Town itself had its heart torn out with the declaration in the mid sixties that District six was a "white area." It took fifteen years to destroy the settled community, but by then a once busy neighbourhood of great character looked devastated and derelict. In 1977 action was taken against the giant squatter community at Modderdam, near Belleville. The so called "Coloured" residents were first faced with orders on July 1st to pack their goods and move to another site where they would receive a plot so long as they agreed to pay a monthly rental. Then a few days later the African residents received notices that their homes would be destroyed and each of them "screened" to see if they had section 10 rights (allowing them to work in a white area). If not they would be moved back to their homeland.

August 8th a large front-end loader arrived and remaining residents were given fifteen minutes to collect belongings before it went into action destroying homes. When it, and the tractor sent to help it, got stuck in mud the residents cheered. Small skirmishes broke out between residents and police and a major confrontation was only averted by leaders of the community appealing for peace.

August can be cold and wet in the Cape. All of this took place during a very bleak period of Cape winter weather. Peoples homes were destroyed in the rain, the bitter winds, and cold. Over the next few days the 10 000 person community of Modderdam disappeared with the people scattering to other sites and moving into the black townships of Langa, Nyanga and Guguletu. Few, very few, went back, as the authorities had planned, to the Eastern Cape.

The Rev David Russell, now Bishop, of the Anglican Church lay down in front of the lorries moving the people's possessions. He was promptly arrested and all whites barred from the area. His action and that of one time SACC worker, Margaret Nash who stood in front of police with a white cross held high when the same fate befell another informal settlement not far from Modderdam later in the month, bore witness to the determination of some in the Church to stand with the poor, the oppressed, and the desperate victims of apartheid in all situations.

During the following year when the large Crossroads squatter camp was under fire, the Rev Dr Sam Buti, now President of the SACC, visited the people to take part in an ecumenical service of solidarity. He was able to speak to the Cape crowd about the forced removals in the Transvaal, "Where is Sophiatown?" he asked, "Where is Lady Selborne, Pageview and Alexandra?" He also used scripture over and over again to make his points about the inhumanity of the removals policy.

A minister of the Dutch Reformed Church in Africa (NGKA), he had the scriptural knowledge and theological training so often respected by many Afrikaans speaking people. In this case, however, and on many occasions to come, the racial policy of apartheid took precedence and the text of Romans 13:1 was trotted out as God given authority for inhuman laws. "Everyone must obey the state authorities, for no authority exists without God's permission, and the existing authorities have been put there by God." Needless to say it had NOT been a much used text by that same community when, in their own history, they stood against the British colonial power! This is the tragedy, that people who had gone through the experience of struggling for their own rights, which one would expect to create sensitivity to the needs of others, were now the oppressors.

Many years later in 1983 the community of Mogopa, a small village in the Western Transvaal, was threatened with removal. Many buildings were destroyed and community services cut off, but the people tenaciously stayed where they were. As it drew near to threatened action against the people and a date was announced for the forced removal Bishop Tutu, as General Secretary of the Council, called a number of Church leaders to go with him for a night vigil of prayer and preaching with the people of Mogopa. Dr Allan Boesak, the Rev Joseph Wing, Dr Wolfram Kistner, and many others spent that whole night showing solidarity and sharing comfort with the people.

The visit to Mogopa succeeded only in delaying the inevitable and some days later the lorries and the armed men arrived to remove the people of Mogopa to their new "home." A ministry to those people has continued through the years with regular visits and assistance from field workers of the SACC. Through such field workers and local Church workers and clergy a ministry, never to be claimed as enough, has been practised among the more than three million displaced persons.

Little money was made available to the relocated to purchase new homes or provide adequate amenities. Much money was spent, however, in covert communication operations. In 1978 the "information scandal" exploded upon the nation with revelations of money used to buy South Africa a presentable image in the western world. Although many details were obviously hidden from public scrutiny, the revelations pushed the Prime Minister and the Minister of Information into retirement. The new Prime Minister, once Minister of Defence, P.W.Botha brought to that office a new priority of security and military dependency that was to be the hallmark of the Government's policy for a number of years to come.

In that same year the SACC provided him with a formidable foe. Bishop Desmond Tutu returned from Lesotho to take over the reins as General Secretary of the South African Council of Churches.