Africa Update

Volume 3 1991

CHURCHES BURNT IN NIGERIA

A dozen churches were burnt down and over eighty Christians killed by Muslim mobs in Bauchi, Northern Nigeria, in April. Nigeria is Africa’s most populous country, with 120 million inhabitants — half Muslim, and half claiming to be Christian. Since the vicious civil war, when the Christian Ibo’s of Biafra sought independence from the Muslim-dominated government of Nigeria (1967-1970), there have been sporadic outbreaks of violence between Muslims and Christians. More than 100 churches were burnt down in 1987 alone, by Muslim radicals seeking the imposition of Islamic Law even on Christian areas.

TRIBAL WAR IN RWANDA

Christians in Rwanda have been caught in the middle of the civil war between invading Tutsi exiles, from Uganda, and the ruling Hutu tribe (who came to power in violent revolution in 1973). Eyewitnesses have reported seeing tribesmen (including Christians) beaten, dismembered, and thrown into lakes and rivers. Many homes and some churches have been ransacked and many schools have been closed. Yet in the midst of this inter-tribal warfare, the churches have experienced great opportunities for ministry, distributing thousands of blankets in the overflowing prisons, witnessing to soldiers and dealing with the terrified crowds who now pack the church services.

COURAGE AND COWARDICE IN EGYPT

At least 235 Christians are jailed in Egypt for religious reasons. A bishop of the Coptic Orthodox Church confirmed that several young priests who had evangelised and baptised several Muslim converts were arrested and imprisoned with the converts. However, the Coptic Church had no intention of doing anything for these prisoners as it was more important to them to live in “peaceful co-existence” with the Islamic community. The Coptic Church had even refused to provide food for the detained converts. As the families of these converts have rejected them, and as prisoners in these countries rely on food brought in by their families, this can be akin to a death sentence.

STARVATION IN MOZAMBIQUE

In what the BBC calls “Africa’s forgotten famine”, millions continue to starve under the affects of socialism in Mozambique. UNICEF rates Mozambique as suffering the world’s worst infant mortality rate — 29,7%.

The Human Suffering Index of Washing ton DC rates that living conditions are the worst in Mozambique, followed by Angola, Afghanistan, Chad, Mali, Ghana, Somalia, Niger, Burkina Faso, Central African Republic, Zaire and Benin.

NEW DANGERS — NEW CHALLENGES IN ETHIOPIA

The overthrow of Marxist dictator, Mengistu, and the symbolic toppling of the huge statue of Lenin in the capital, Addis Ababa, offers some new hope to war and famine-weary Ethiopians. Since the communist revolution of 1974 deposed Emperor Haile Selassie (ending the 3 000-year royal dynasty traditionally believed to date back to the Queen of Sheba and King Solomon), Black Africa’s oldest state, Ethiopia, has suffered constant oppression, famine and war. Socialism turned this ancient Christian nation, once known as “the breadbasket of Africa”, into a byword for famine and starvation.

Lt. Col. Mengistu siezed and consolidated power in “the Red Terror” of 1977, which massacred 30 000 people. Then, aided by $10-billion in Soviet weapons, tens of thousands of Soviet, East German and Cuban troops, and multiplied millions of dollars of Western aid, the Marxist regime relocated millions of Ethiopians in forced removals, destroyed and confiscated thousands of churches and created the worst man-made famine since Stalin starved the Ukraine into submission in the 1930s.

Mengistu’s socialist experimentations with nationalisation and collectivisation were responsible for over a million deaths due to famine and over 400 000 in the resultant civil war. By conscripting children as young as 12 years old and squandering 60% of the economy on his military build up, Mengistu built the largest army in Black Africa, whilst reducing Ethiopia to one of the poorest nations in the world. Despite enjoying “Most Favoured Nation” status with the USA, massive Soviet military aid and vast economic aid from the European Community and relief agencies, the Marxist dictatorship began to crumble under the popular revolt of the Tigre, Wollo, Oromo, Shoa, Gojam, Gondar, Weloga and Ilubabor peoples.

By the end of May, Mengistu had fled the country to seek exile with his fellow Marxist, Robert Mugabe, in Zimbabwe. Yet while Ethiopians celebrated this victory, many expressed a cautious optimism. There is hope for the future but it is a future fraught with dangers. The Eritrean People’s Liberation Front are Muslims supported by Syria and Kuwait. The Ethiopian People’s Revolutionary Democratic Front is a coalition of 4 groups dominated by the Tigreans and including communists, democrats and Muslims. They are supported by Sudan and Libya. The Oromo Liberation Front has the smallest army but represents the largest ethnic group (41% of the population). There are indications that the Muslim groups are being supported by Arab states in order to make Islam the state religion of Ethiopia. (52% of Ethiopians profess faith in Christ, while 35% are Muslims).

Aside from the danger of exchanging Marxist oppression for Muslim persecution, Christians are also concerned about ethnic conflict as most of the liberation movements have a vendetta against the minority Amhara tribe, who have dominated leadership in Ethiopia for centuries.

In the midst of all this conflict, however, the Christian churches have multiplied in numbers. Evangelicals have grown from 241 000 in 1960 to over 3,5 million today. The Ethiopian Coptic Churches have similarly grown. There is now a great need for Bibles and Bible teaching.

Peter Hammond

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