IT WAS A WARM DAY IN SOWETO, BUT 3-YEAR-OLD OTLILE PLAYED OUTSIDE in a pair of colorful winter boots. His father grinned and said, "He got them as a gift, and we can't get him to take them off."
As Rev. Frank Chikane entered their home, he made the seemingly misplaced remark that the curtains in the living room do not match. Then he explained. The house was fire-bombed in 1985, and one set of curtains went up in flames; the replacement is a shade different.
Frank Chikane is a man acquainted with suffering. During his first of five detentions since 1977, he was tortured so brutally that he could not walk. In 1981 his Apostolic Faith Mission Church suspended him for a year because of his activities against apartheid. He was appointed general secretary of the South African Council of Churches in 1987 while in hiding from the government. He is a man of gentle spirit -- and unwavering determination.
The threats and violence of the South African state have done nothing to turn Frank Chikane around. "I suspect that the state is going to be forced to be more brutal against the church, simply because of the amazing determination of church leaders," Chikane said just a few weeks after he and other religious leaders had led a march on Parliament in protest of the government's banning of 17 anti-apartheid organizations. "I suspect that the state might try other than just the legal methods of dealing with church leaders. We are already experiencing harassment and attacks. We might have to go through an experience of assassinations and people disappearing."
Chikane's two young sons came into the house as he spoke, Otlile making a clatter in his boots as he walked. As they played and laughed in a corner, Chikane leaned closer and talked of the days ahead as the white South African government tries desperately to maintain its stranglehold on the country: "We find ourselves in a vulnerable situation where we cannot do otherwise but, in fact, offer ourselves for sacrifice ... For us to go over into victory, we will have to go through the cross."
It was April 6, 1988.
A YEAR LATER, ON THE OTHER side of the globe, the mammoth Washington Cathedral was packed with people who had come to hear South Africa's most prominent church leaders preach. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, Rev. Allan Boesak, and Rev. Beyers Naude in turn pronounced from the pulpit their determination to see an end to apartheid.
But four church leaders had been slated to preach that night. One never made it to Washington. Frank Chikane was in a Madison, Wisconsin hospital, unable to walk and struggling to breathe.
Chikane had left South Africa on April 23, 1989, flying from the Jan Smuts airport in Johannesburg to Windhoek, Namibia. He was scheduled to travel to northern Namibia for critical meetings with Martti Ahtisaari, the United Nations special representative and commander of the U.N. forces in Namibia. Chikane had concerns that he wanted to express to Ahtisaari about the situation in Namibia, a nation illegally occupied by South Africa, whose northern border was the site of a massacre carried out by South African troops in early April during a U.N.-arranged cease-fire (see "U.N. Role Questioned After Massacre in Namibia," July 1989).
On the morning of April 24, Chikane left Windhoek by car for northern Namibia. About 40 kilometers from his destination, he began vomiting and showing signs of extreme weakness. He was taken to Onadyokwe Hospital in Ondangwa, from which he was flown on a chartered plane back to South Africa and taken to a Johannesburg clinic. Four days later he was discharged from the clinic, with no hint as to what had caused his illness.
On May 10 Chikane left South Africa for the United States. He flew to Madison, Wisconsin, where his wife, Kagiso, had been studying African linguistics at the university there. He intended to fly on to Washington, D.C. to join the other three church leaders for the Washington Cathedral service.
In the days following the service, the religious leaders had meetings scheduled with President George Bush and members of Congress. The purpose of the meetings, according to Chikane, was "to discuss the urgency of the South African situation and the opportunities now open for the Bush administration to provide the leadership to the community of nations to end the racist apartheid system"; and, furthermore, to "assist in creating the necessary conditions for meaningful negotiations to establish a free, democratic, non-racial society in South Africa where all will be equal before the law, irrespective of race, color, or creed."
WITHIN THE FIRST 24 HOURS of his arrival in the United States, Chikane again fell seriously ill. He was taken to St. Mary's Hospital in Madison on May 12 and transferred the next day to the University of Wisconsin Hospital. A week later, he was discharged in good health.
Within 48 hours of his release, he had another attack and was admitted to the emergency unit of the hospital on May 21. Once again, he was released; and, once again, he had an attack within 48 hours. He returned to the hospital on May 27. Within a period of less than six weeks, Frank Chikane had been admitted to the hospital four times.
Although they differed in degree of severity, the symptoms in all four episodes were the same. "In all cases I felt nauseous, I started sweating, salivating, and vomited," said Chikane in a statement to the press. "My body started shaking and twitching. My eyes became watery, and my vision was blurred. I could hardly walk or turn my body when in a sleeping position. All this was followed by hyperventilation. At St. Mary's I lost consciousness and had acute respiratory problems."
The respiratory difficulties brought Chikane close to death. According to Chikane's physician, Dr. Daniel J. Smith, assistant professor of medicine at the University of Wisconsin-Madison Medical School, Chikane suffered a respiratory arrest and had to be placed on an artificial respiratory system. He also suffered from inflammation of the pancreas and was found to have high blood pressure and generalized muscular weakness. Laboratory evaluation revealed "multiple metabolic abnormalities," according to Smith's statement.
Extensive tests for neurologic, pulmonary, cardiac, kidney, and gastrointestinal diseases revealed that, except during the acute illness, Frank Chikane was in excellent physical health. "The most baffling part of this ailment," said Chikane, "was that in all cases I recovered rapidly within the first two days or so of hospitalization."
In his press statement, Chikane thanked Dr. Smith and his team for "spending endless hours and sleepless nights trying to unravel what I saw as a mysterious disease, for which all explanations given at different times and stages did not seem to fall into place, nor answer all questions raised, thus making it difficult for anyone to prescribe the appropriate medication or treatment to treat the condition to avoid its recurrence."
THE UNRAVELING OF THE MYSTERY led to a stunning conclusion. The shock waves spread through the church leadership in the United States and South Africa, and on to the townships, streets, and squatter camps where Frank Chikane is most revered and beloved.
Initial evidence suggested that Chikane had been exposed to "a nerve-inhibiting toxin belonging to the family of compounds found in pesticides and chemical warfare substances." Subsequent tests confirmed that p-Nitrophenol, a breakdown product of such compounds -- known as organophosphate anticholinesterases -- was detected in Chikane's urine.
According to a June 9 medical report by Dr. Smith, the presence of the p-Nitrophenol, along with the metabolic abnormalities and the detection of a markedly reduced level of the enzyme cholinesterase in Chikane's system, provide strong evidence that he had been chemically contaminated.
Such chemical contamination occurs by either inhalation or absorption through the skin. Chikane's doctors and chemical experts ruled out inhalation as the method. Chikane reviewed his travels in the time period before and during the attacks and confirmed that he had no recollection of being in a farming area or war zone where such a chemical might have been in use. As those investigating the case followed up on the absorption theory, they discovered that Chikane's exposure to his baggage was the common denominator in all the attacks.
To test this assumption, Chikane was placed in a controlled environment without contact with his baggage. The cycle of attacks was broken. This theory also explains the two-and-a-half-week break in the illness between April 24 and May 12, when Chikane did not travel and wore a different set of clothes from those in his luggage. Further tests are under way on his clothing, and the FBI has been brought in on the continuing investigation.
RESPONSE FROM THE CHURCH community was immediate. In a press conference in the United Nations Church Building in New York City on June 8 -- held simultaneously with a news conference in Madison which included statements from Chikane and Dr. Smith -- religious leaders reacted to the news.
"With deep shock and horror, the World Council of Churches [WCC] has just learned that Rev. Frank Chikane ... faced a life-threatening illness as a result of a mysterious chemical substance that contaminated his clothes and was absorbed through his skin," began Dame Nita Barrow, president of the WCC. "It is tragic evidence of the demonic forces present in the apartheid system."
Rev. Joan Campbell of the WCC's U.S. Office in New York City added, "This behavior will not be tolerated by the international community ... We have been told that the churches and the church people are under siege in South Africa ... This attempt on Frank Chikane's life is incontrovertible proof that such is the case."
Rev. William Watley of the Black Church Summit Leadership Council stated, "The blindness of those who support apartheid is matched only by their cruel and callous treatment of blacks in general and their stupidity in attempting to silence the individual, articulate voices of freedom who represent the nonviolent option for change in South Africa.
"The heinous attempt upon Rev. Chikane's life was a dastardly and repugnant act which outrages everywhere the sensibilities of persons with conscience." Watley concluded his statement by reaffirming solidarity with "that portion of the South African struggle represented by the leadership of the new triad in the fiery furnace -- Allan Boesak, Desmond Tutu, and Frank Chikane."
Jim Wallis of Sojourners brought the issue close to home, posing the question, "What is it going to take for the U.S. government finally to respond to the brutality of South Africa? ... Our hearts are riveted these days on China ... and we hear official calls for sanctions against China, but in South Africa the massacres have been going on for so long. We hear official indignation over stolen elections in Panama, and yet no commensurate passion for South Africa, where there are no elections to steal ... Why do we tolerate apartheid?" Adding his voice to those of the South African church leaders who met with President Bush and Frank Chikane, Wallis appealed to the administration to apply "the nonviolent tool of comprehensive economic sanctions in South Africa."
In South Africa Rev. Allan Boesak said of the incident, "The poisoning was such a sophisticated operation. It was not just an accident or the work of some lunatic.
"There were chilling aspects of the war against those of us who continue to fight against apartheid. There is now the question of assassinations of enemies of the apartheid regime being taken to a new sophistication. One has always been accustomed to look out for bullets, bombs, or cars as threats to one's life. But now we are looking for more dangerous and sophisticated attempts. The seriousness of this cannot be overestimated."
IN APRIL 1988, IN HIS HOME in Soweto, Frank Chikane had spoken of the children who were massacred by the South African police in the township a dozen years before. He reflected on the current determination of South Africa's youth to work for their freedom. "They understand the fact that you cannot get closer to liberation without bringing out the viciousness of the system. The pain is an indication of the closeness to our day of liberation," said Chikane.
"It is our faith that gives us hope," he continued. "We know that in our helplessness we become more dependent on God. In our powerlessness we become powerful. It is our weakness that is our strength.
"Those who run the evil system know it will end, and therefore they have no hope. They just become madder by the day, and in their madness take more and more lives. But we know that our struggle is a just one. That is what really makes it hopeful -- God cannot allow evil to prevail forever."
The powers of evil have been foiled, and a great and gentle man lives on. For that we can all be grateful. And from it, we can draw a measure of hope.
Joyce Hollyday was associate editor of Sojourners when this article appeared.
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