Missions in the Midst of War

The tragic dilemma of innocent bystanders

The death toll rises steadily as the bloody civil war in Rhodesia grinds on, with little hope for an early settlement. Last week black nationalist guerrillas attacked a convoy of 50 vehicles at Kariba, 140 miles north of Salisbury. A bus driver and three young white girls died from bullet wounds; 16 other passengers were wounded. Later, guerrillas attacked and set fire to a tiny village in the Zwimba Tribal Trust Land, killing 17 of its 22 black inhabitants.

Among all the innocent bystanders caught in the Rhodesian conflict, however, none face a more agonizing dilemma than Rhodesia's Christian missionaries, who for years have provided education and health care to blacks. Their stations, schools and orphanages have become targets of suspicion for both the army and the nationalist guerrillas. The missions face a problem if they do not report local guerrilla movements to the government and a problem if they do. In the past two years, 25 missionaries have been deported, accused of aiding the rebels. Last month 13 men, women and children at the British Pentecostal mission of Elim, near the Mozambique border, were killed during the most brutal assault on whites since the civil war began.

More than one-third of the 300 missions in rural Rhodesia have closed since 1972. Others survive only as caretaker operations. One undaunted exception is St. Augustine's, a boarding school at Penha-longa, only 20 miles from Elim in an area where the guerrillas now operate with impunity. St. Augustine's, run by Anglican friars of the Community of the Resurrection, was founded in 1891, and is one of the oldest church missions in Rhodesia. In 1939, over white opposition, it established the colony's first secondary school for Africans, and boasts 1,150 students in primary and secondary grades. A number of today's black nationalist leaders are among its graduates.

Last week TIME Johannesburg Bureau Chief William McWhirter visited St. Augustine's. His report:

During the day, life in the mountain valley where the mission's 4,500-acre tract is located still appears as serene as it was in 1964 when the present rector, Father Keble Prosser, first came out from England to run St. Augustine's. The dirt road twists and turns its way up a hillside, into which are built low, one-story brick classroom buildings and dormitories, shaded by long verandas and heavy foliage. St. Augustine's 14th century bell continues to ring out across the valley. As the African sun climbs through the mist to strike the treetops, the hill rings too with the sound of children's voices.

But life at St. Augustine's is quickly changing, for the worse. Says Father Prosser: "Until recently we were genuinely a haven of peace. But after Elim, I was approached by a number of our senior African teachers who said they had certain knowledge that St. Augustine's would be next." The rector replaced his last five white teachers with blacks. Reluctantly, he began to spend his nights at the home of a friend in the nearby town of Umtali.

Father Prosser has never hidden his personal opposition to white minority rule. Despite his feelings about Prime Minister Ian Smith, however, his goal is to protect St. Augustine's by removing it from politics and lately from the spreading war. "It was always our hope to keep the mission as a no man's land," he explained last week, "because if you bring in one group, you bring in the other. Any mission is distrusted by everybody. The whites think that we are Communists. The blacks think we're fascists."

Two years ago Rhodesian army officers appeared, seeking permission to address the student body. Father Prosser refused, explaining that it would invite trouble for the students. The officers then asked to be allowed to bring the body of a dead terrorist to the school so the students would draw an obvious lesson. Yes, said Father Prosser, they might do so if the mission could give the guerrilla a Christian burial. At that, the army left and did not return.

A committed pacifist, Father Prosser has tried to persuade his students not to join the wokamana (boys) in the Patriotic Front forces training across the border in Mozambique. "I pleaded with them not to go, to think for God's sake of their parents. But in every single case it had no effect whatsoever." Not only did a fifth of the 450 boys in the upper school leave, but, he says, those who did go "were the best intellectually, the best morally."

Those who remained must deal with another problem: the bitter division between black advocates of the internal settlement and those who support the Patriotic Front. Says a student: "There is too much tension in the towns between those who support [Bishop Abel] Muzorewa or [the Rev. Ndabaningi] Sithole and backers of the Patriotic Front. Sometimes it leads to people being knifed. If we talked politics, the same would happen here. We are in a different world here. It would be nice if we never had to leave."

There are two fresh graves at St. Augustine's; they contain the bodies of victims of an army-guerrilla Shootout at the edge of the mission. Many neighboring white farmers have abruptly abandoned their properties. Nonetheless, Father Prosser is not only keeping St. Augustine's open but is even expanding with a $200,000 program designed to double pre-university enrollment. The need is there, he explains: "No matter what happens in the future, school buildings are going to be very necessary for whatever government comes." He admits that he does not know how much longer St. Augustine's will be spared. Last week Father Prosser discovered chalked letters--HOME GO--written on the wall of a classroom building. Until recently, the phrase would only have been an end-of-term exhortatory.

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