Frank Chikane was interviewed by phone on June 9, 1989, the day after his press conference in Madison, Wisconsin. -- The Editors
Jim Wallis: How are you feeling after this ordeal you have been through?
Frank Chikane: Well, I am trying to rest; it was quite a heavy day yesterday. But otherwise I am fine.
How do you think this chemical contamination reached you?
If I had a police force and I wanted to cover all the possibilities, I would send those police to my home and interview everybody who's around. I would also send the police to my office. Not that I suspect the people in my home or office; the point is that there could be infiltration. People could come to the house when it's unattended and gain access to it.
There is another area that people don't think of; I would send the police to the dry cleaners. And I would send the police to the airport. You like to imagine that home is a controlled environment, but the airport situation is different. It is completely out of your hands. Because of [the perpetrators'] sophistication, once they gained access to my baggage or clothes, they could have used any method. I have been told it is not difficult to spray that type of chemical.
Could the chemical have been sprayed on the outside of the baggage and then penetrated, or would the baggage have had to be opened?
I would imagine that if somebody wanted to do a good job, it would have to be opened.
What do you think would have happened to you if you had been in South Africa during these attacks of illness?
If it had happened in a situation where there hadn't been sympathetic attention and people who are concerned to find out what the problem is, it would have been different. In Namibia, when I went into that hospital, one of the doctors picked up my case immediately. He is a German doctor, and he is a friend of somebody in the church that we work with in Zimbabwe, so he was very sympathetic. But the hospital didn't have the facilities to do much.
I was flown to Johannesburg, and the doctor who took care of me there was also very sympathetic, but he couldn't identify the problem. Even Dr. Smith [at the University of Wisconsin Hospital] has said that if I had left there after the first episode, they would never have known what the problem was. It's only when I went there the second time that we began to see. And the third time he came to my room immediately. He observed everything, and he said there must be something extraordinary going on. Then they went into deeper analysis.
You need very good doctors -- that's important. My being in a teaching hospital was also significant. You need research-minded people, not only doctors.
So we can be thankful you were in the right place at the right time.
I think it was the right place, and the right time, to unravel the mystery. If I had landed as an emergency patient in an ordinary hospital in Johannesburg -- or any other part of South Africa where there wasn't a doctor or somebody who knew me -- I could easily have died.
What are the next steps? What tests are being done?
They sent some tests to California. They needed a specialized laboratory for the tests; no one else in the United States does this type of test. So they sent samples [of my clothes] there. The police have come to search all my belongings, and the FBI is getting directly involved.
We're also going to do tests in South Africa. We don't know what other [contaminated] items there are at home. Some investigation will have to be done.
You were on your way to Namibia for a very critical meeting with a top official of the United Nations about the situation there, and then you were coming to Washington to meet with senators and President Bush here. Your attacks occurred around these very important meetings. Is that just circumstantial, or do you think there is significance to the timing?
It is very significant. The South African government prohibited me from entering Namibia in 1986. I challenged them in court and won. They appealed against me and won the appeal, which means I am not allowed to go to Namibia. When we decided to go to Namibia this time, I decided to go there without applying for a permit. It was going to be an important mission, because we had appointments with Martti Ahtisaari, commander of the U.N. forces. I expected them to stop me at the airport.
The Washington meeting was critical as well, because the four-person team [of Chikane, Tutu, Boesak, and Naude] is no small thing to deal with. Our position was stated quite clearly -- that we feel this is the time for the United States to provide the leadership to end apartheid. And the conditions are such and the climate is such that we can force the regime to abandon apartheid and go to the negotiating table. Those were very crucial meetings.
Do you believe that the chemical contamination was an attempt on your life?
I am involved in a ministry that is risky -- that is challenging those defending the interests of a minority and a system with many beneficiaries. So my life has been threatened through and through.
When I was told it was this type of chemical, instead of getting shocked and scared, I was happy to know the devil. When I know the devil, I can deal with it. When we didn't know and I just fell sick, it was frustrating. Now that I know that there was a strange chemical put on me and we know how to treat it, I feel relieved.
I have no basis for proving it was accidental. I don't see how such a chemical could have reached me. So it looks as though somehow, in one way or another, that chemical has been put on my clothes. And if it was intentional, obviously that person intended to kill me. Because that's not the kind of chemical you play with on somebody's life.
If that's the case, who do you think is responsible?
It's very difficult to say. We are dealing with a system -- a massive system. One journalist was asking me, "Do you think it was one of the right-wing groups?" I don't like that, because it absolves the South African government. They will do things in the name of the right-wing groups, and so it is of vital importance for the South Africans to clear up this mess. It is in their interest to remove the suspicions and speculations about who has done it.
It's also true that apartheid has created the climate in which such things occur.
It has created the climate for anybody to do it. For instance, when [the government] was put under pressure during the [recent] hunger strike [of prisoners], the minister was forced because of the political climate to release people. But the ordinary chief of the security police did not understand why they had to be released. These people are dangerous to the security of the state, as far as he is concerned. It is very easy for that type of guy to try to have a plan beyond the minister's. That's why I am saying that the system is too complex to try to think in a simplified way of some right-wing person who wants to do something evil. This is more sophisticated than for any right-wing person to plan a thing like this.
If this was an attempt on your life, it does seem like a new level of sophistication, a new level of violence.
Precisely. If we start from that hypothesis, then it is a very high and sophisticated level. If I had died from the first attack, then they would have just said it was pancreatitis or something, and it would have been quieted.
Did you ever suspect that there was something like this involved, or did you just feel under the spell of some mysterious illness?
With the first attack, people thought maybe it was food poisoning -- that's the first thing you think of. For the first two hours, the doctors were looking for that but didn't pick it up.
In the hospital, there is not a direct way of measuring the chemical; it isn't a normal blood-test type of thing. The doctor was telling me yesterday that even the laboratory here had to wait for an expert to set up the test. But people became suspicious right from the start -- although unless you could confirm it, you could not say anything.
Were you also suspicious from the start?
It was strange for me. I couldn't believe I couldn't walk. When the nurse in Namibia said, don't try to leave the bed, I couldn't believe that in a few hours' time, I couldn't just get up. It was a mystery, but you can't say this has happened or that has happened. It was difficult to say.
In light of this sophisticated attack, do you feel more vulnerable now?
It's a new type of approach. At some point, you do think about poisoning in general -- the ordinary kind that's put in food. But not this type of sophisticated stuff; because this would be moving into the chemical warfare type of game -- which is a different game altogether.
You may have thought about inhaling something, but never in terms of something being put on you. You can see how far-fetched the whole thing can seem; no one would have worried. But if this is the case, we become very vulnerable. Anybody who goes into a plane -- they can easily gain access to your baggage.
Will the attacks occur if you are no longer in the presence of the chemicals?
The chemical dies with the corpuscles in the cells. The lifetime is about 80 to 120 days. I could have another episode, but not the type that sends me to the hospital. From time to time I feel my body twitching a bit -- the muscles -- sometimes during the night when I'm asleep. But that's actually an indication that what's in the system is dying out. In three months' time it should be cleaned out.
I have been assured that without further contact it will not return -- unless it was concentrated in an organ. If that were the case, it would actually cause irreparable damage, like in the nerves. I learned that it eats at the nerve and disconnects the muscles. If it is too concentrated, it could affect the nerves at that level. But the fact that I've recovered is a sign that I may not have to go through that. As I become stronger, I am less vulnerable.
It must have been terribly frightening for you.
Yes, it has been. But this is a world with sinful and evil-minded human beings in it. You begin to understand the magnitude of the evil we are dealing with. And it puts you back into the world in terms of calling and mission.
Having come through an experience like this, in the face of such viciousness, where do you find the hope to continue?
In effect it has misfired. And for the world to know that gives us a chance to expose the seriousness.
Our strong point is our moral basis -- the high ground we stand on. And those who are responsible will actually be on the defensive all the time. The hope is that evil cannot prevail over justice and righteousness.
Jim Wallis is editor-in-chief of Sojourners.
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