Peter Hammond
RIGHT TO REPLY
Your correspondent, Ivor Powell, accuses me of “gun-running” and “of supplying military hardware and training to Sudanese Liberation Army rebels” in the front page banner headline article, “SA pastor in row over gun-running to Sudan” (September 23 to 30). I wasn’t aware of any such row – it would appear that the Mail & Guardian article is creating the row rather than reporting on it.
On no occasion have I, or any of the missionaries of Frontline Fellowship, ever been involved in gun-running or providing military assistance to anyone in the course of our work. Those who suggest that we have done so display their complete ignorance of what motivates a Christian mission and how we operate.
I would not displace 1kg of medicines or Bibles or educational materials to carry in any instruments of war.
I believe the very best way we can help these precious people suffering in these conflicts is to minister to them – body, mind and spirit – as we are doing.
Frontline Fellowship is a Christian mission that for the past 19 years has been assisting suffering Christians in Mozambique, Angola and Sudan. We have delivered hundreds of thousands of Bibles and Christian books, many tonnes of medical supplies and food; and we have provided regular leadership training courses for teachers, nurses and pastors.
It is important to note that, when he made those accusations about our mission, Ian Grey was a prisoner of the Frelimo government (not the MPLA as the M&G article incorrectly claims) and had reportedly been tortured.
In the course of our literature distribution, leadership training and love in action, I have been arrested and imprisoned, in Zambia in 1987 and in Mozambique in 1989. On both occasions, the socialist governments concerned had to release us, with apologies. Despite intensive interrogations and exhaustive investigations, the governments concerned concluded that we were innocent of all accusations of wrongdoing.
Not that this has stopped some sensational journalists from continuing to propagate the unsubstantiated accusation that we were involved in some kind of sinister and underhanded activities.
What we did in Mozambique is a matter of public record – the full story has been published in a book, In the Killing Fields of Mozambique. Similarly, our missionary activities in Sudan have been published in the book Faith Under Fire in Sudan.
Far from being a “secretive” and “covert military operation”, Frontline Fellowship conducts many hundreds of public meetings in South Africa, Europe and America every year. We produce more than 60 different publications each year. Articles on our work are published worldwide. Our missionaries present slide presentations and videos on our work at missions conferences, churches and schools worldwide.
It seems incredible that M&G would so prominently publish such an outrageous accusation from the military dictatorship which is waging a genocidal war against its own population.
According to the United Nations Commission for Human Rights, the National Islamic Front government of Sudan is guilty of systematic terror bombings of its own citizens, chemical warfare, public mutilations, executions without trial, slavery and scorched earth with a resultant two million deaths.
Yes, our mission has worked in conflict areas and assisted persecuted Christians caught up in the crossfire of many conflicts in Africa. Yes, we have been involved in evangelism, including the showing of the Jesus film, to combatants on all sides of many conflicts.
However, that hardly serves as grounds for the fantastic accusations published last week. Just because you do not understand what motivates Christian missionaries to regularly travel into war zones and to assist those suffering persecution does not mean that one has the right to jump to the conclusion that they are serving some kind of military or political ends.
In the past, it seemed that anyone opposing the National Party apartheid government was accused of being a communist. These days it seems that anyone who opposes communism is accused of being a right-wing extremist.
I must object to the labelling of our mission as “right wing”. Frontline Fellowship is a Bible-believing Christian mission. We have never described ourselves with such political terminology.
Nor would we identify with those groups that call themselves right wing. As a multiracial mission dedicated to assisting mostly black people suffering persecution throughout Africa, we wholeheartedly reject racism – from whichever side.
Nor have we ever advocated, in print or in speech, a “theocracy”. We advocate a constitutional republic, decentralisation, the rule of law and separation of powers.
In the M&G article it is asserted that I have used the “American Rifle Association” as a model. I do not know of any such organisation. I presume you mean the National Rifle Association, with which I have absolutely no contact either. No, our model is not based on the National Rifle Association, but upon the Bible.
The final paragraph of the M&G article uses such torturous terminology and convoluted sentence structure as to give the false impression that I enlist “support from Nazi Germany”.
In fact, I have made clear in my writings and in the interview with Powell my steadfast opposition to Nazism and communism. My thesis on genocides is not drawn from academic reflection. I’ve documented scores of massacres and atrocities in Mozambique and Angola, and walked knee-deep and waist-high among corpses and piles of skulls inside churches in Rwanda.
It is a matter of historical record that every genocide in this century has been preceded by gun control, the disarming of the civilian population.
Adolf Hitler was a pioneer of gun control, stating that his innovative legislation would make the work of the police in Nazi Germany easier, and that this pioneer legislation from the National Socialists, to limit the ownership of firearms to government officials, would soon be followed by governments worldwide.
It is also a matter of historical record that Joseph Stalin, Mao Zedong, Pol Pot, Idi Amin and the genocidal Hutu government of Rwanda, among many others, have followed Hitler in advocating gun control and the disarmament of the civilian population.
Those who believe that the state should have a monopoly on weapons are following in the footsteps of those dictators who have slaughtered millions of their own, disarmed population.
I would prefer to stand on the side of the victims and potential victims of crime and genocide, supporting the basic human right of self-defence. Wouldn’t you?
Dr Peter Hammond is the director of Frontline Fellowship