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Mission To Renamo: The Militarization of the Religious Right

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  23 August 2021

Steve Askin
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Extract

A century ago, Cecil Rhodes told a Dutch Reformed missionary’s mother that “your son among the natives is worth as much to me as a hundred policemen.” He was referring, of course, to the role many missionaries played in turning Christianity into an ideology which could be used to convince Africans not to resist white domination.

Rhodes’ modern-day successors—South Africa’s white rulers and their allies—have gone one dangerous step further. For them, it is not enough to use the church as a kind of ideological cheering section for white domination. Instead they are quite literally using pastors and missionaries as soldiers and policemen.

Type
Focus: Changing South Africa; Vectors and Visions
Information
African Issues , Volume 18 , Issue 2 , Summer 1990 , pp. 29 - 38
Copyright
Copyright © African Studies Association 1990 

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References

Notes

1. Gifford, Paul, The Religious Right in Southern Africa, Harare: Baobab, 1988, p. 46 Google Scholar.

2. Unless otherwise noted, this and subsequent Frontline Fellowship quotes are drawn from “Frontline Fellowship News” and ‘Information for Intercessors” (irregularly published newsletters 1986-1989); “The Frontline Fellowship Story,” and “Mozambique Report: Eyewitness Testimonies of Persecution and Atrocities,” all published by Frontline Fellowship, Box 74, Newlands 7725, South Africa.

3. Sources on Schaaf include “MNR agent exposed in US,” New African, October 1986 and various Renamo documents.

4. Robert Gersony, “Summary of Mozambican Refugee Accounts of Principally Conflict-Related Experience in Mozambique,” US State Department, April 1988; and Roy Stacy, address to conference on Emergency Assistance to Mozambique, Maputo, April 26-27, 1988.

5. Sources on Grey, Shekinah Ministries and other Renamo allies identified: Ian Grey interview, Australian Broadcasting Corporation, March 1988; The Herald (Harare) January 13, 1988; “MNR moves for US Support: Some private aid alleged,” Inter Press Service, October 28, 1986; articles by Steve Askin in the National Catholic Reporter, July 17, 1987 and September 18, 1987; John Battersby, Profile of Afonso Dhlakama, “Focus on Africa,” British Broadcasting Corporation, July 23, 1989; Battersby, “Pariahs Abroad, Mozambique Rebels Fight On,” New York Times, July 31, 1988, page 1. “Mozambique: Marketing Renamo,” Africa Confidential, September 9, 1988; AIM Bulletin No. 141, Mozambique Information Agency, April 1988; Noticias, Maputo, March 28, 1988. Molly Ivins, “Soldiers of Fortune Support Magazine; Liberals Attack It,” New York Times, May 4, 1980. James Kelly, “Quiche Eaters, Read No Further: Soldier of Fortune, ten years old, wants only the macho,” Time, August 19, 1985, p. 48. Information is also drawn from author’s interviews in Zimbabwe and Mozambique and from publications of End-Time Handmaidens, Christ for the Nations, Open Doors News Service, and other right wing religious group.

6. Rhodesian links of “Commander Peter” are described in Bob McKenna, “Renamo: Freedom Fighters’ Agenda for Victory,” Soldier of Fortune, May 1987. On Renamo’s origin as Rhodesian surrogates see Flower, Ken, Serving Secretly, Quest Publishing, 1987, esp. p. 192 Google Scholar and Martin, David and Johnson, Phyllis, “Mozambique: To Nkomati and Beyond,” in Destructive Engagement: Southern Africa at War, Harare, Zimbabwe Publishing House, 1986, pp. 6–7 Google Scholar.

7. AP-Reuters dispatch in The Herald, Harare, November 30, 1989.

8. Frontline Fellowship publications, and Alastair Teeling Smith, “Missionaries detained by Zambia preach to the MNR,” Weekly Mail, October 23, 1987. Brown has left Frontline Fellowship to embark on a mission of even more direct military significance: leadership in a “Veterans for Victory” group, formed to combat South African anti-conscription activists. Hammond subsequently stated that there are no longer any ex-mercenaries working with his group.

9. ISHR press release September 1986 and Denis Herbstein, “The Propaganda War,” Africa Report, September/October 1987.

10. Published by South End Press, 1989, this book provides the most comprehensive overview currently available of US religious right political and military involvements in the Third World.

11. For more detail on this incident see articles by Steve Askin, “Rightist Church Workers Captured,” Africa News, November 1989; and “A quick return to freedom for the mercenary priests,” Weekly Mail, November 3-9, 1989; and response from Peter Hammond, Weekly Mail, November 17-23, 1989.

12. Quotes in Prexy Nesbitt, ‘Terminators, Crusaders and Gladiators: (Private and Public) Western Support for Renamo and Unita,” ECASAAMA Conference, Bonn, December 1988.