Tutu Rejects Idea of Active Support by Church for Armed Black Rebels in South Africa

HARARE, Zimbabwe —  Bishop Desmond Tutu on Wednesday rejected the idea that the church should actively support the armed black nationalist movement in South Africa.

Tutu is among 37 South African delegates to a three-day emergency meeting of the World Council of Churches intended to map a new strategy on South Africa in the face of rising violence there and Pretoria’s refusal to dismantle apartheid.

Tutu’s rejection came in response to an editorial in the Zimbabwe Herald calling on the conference to commit the church to active support of a black armed struggle against South Africa’s white-minority government.

“The church as the church has at no point in its history ever advocated force,” Tutu said.

“What the church has done is to say that we face two evils, in this case the evil of the oppressive system of apartheid, and you have the evil of the other kind of violence of the force that seeks to overthrow this oppressive system,” he said.

But the church also tells Christians that circumstances might arise that make it desirable for individuals to use force against that system, Tutu said.

“We use the criteria of the just war, but the church can never as an institution say that it espouses force or violence,” he said.

Earlier, Tutu told the 88 delegates to the conference that those like himself who advocate a peaceful solution in South Africa are losing credibility in the face of growing black impatience with the entrenched apartheid system.