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PASTOR GENERAL'S REPORT, DECEMBER 28, 1984
PAGE 11
Tribalism remains a dominant political force•••• Tribal animosi
ties are the source of frequent bloodshed, some of it•••almost
genocidal in nature•••• It is the major cause of strife in Zim
babwe, where the Ndebele people in the southwest of the country
say they were under severe pressure at the hands of government
troops, majority Shongas, for much of the last year or so. It has
been the root of the horrors of Uganda--where the numerically
predominant tribe, the Baganda, have been shut out of power by
President Milton Obote••••
The assumption almost everywhere (a notable exception being Pres
ident Julius K. Nyerere of Tanzania) is that African presidents
are exorbitantly wealthy. And the presidents themselves do noth
ing to contradict the assumption, but rather act as if great
wealth were their right [note Matt. 20:25]•••. Occasionally, in
tellectual friends of Africa•••suggest that what Africa needs is
� new system of government.•••
The man who must be considered the most distinguished leader in
Black Africa remains Nyerere of Tanzania.•.[ who continues to pro
mote] socialist ideals•••• It is Nyerere's sincere belief that
the world's poor should be subsidized by the world's rich•...
After his recent appointment as chairman of the Organization of
African Unity, he said that Africa's $150-billion debt was "a
great weapon" over the rest of the world. "We should just not pay
it," he said.
Journalist Powers concluded his series with a December 19 dispatch from
Lagos, Nigeria:
There is a crisis of spirit in Africa today. Twenty-five years
after independence swept the continent, the sense of gloom, of
ground giving way, is widespread....
A nurse named Felicia works at the polyclinic that receives pa
tients for the main hospital in.••the capital city [of one West
African nation].
A strong, sad-faced young woman, she spoke
after work one day.... "We have no drugs," she said. "No bed
sheets. No paper to write down the histories of the patients.
The doctors are disgusted. There is no pain-killer, no aspirin.
The lights go off and on all day•••• The rats are invading us. We
have no stretchers•... We have no needles for giving injections,
but we have no drugs so it doesn't matter. If we get disposable
syringes, we boil them and use them again. When you go to the
hospital, if you have to go, you take along your own sheets and
pillows and a bucket--just to bathe. There is no hot water, no
dressing for wounds."•••
Abena Ohenena is a businesswoman who se-
lls•..handicrafts and art
work in a shop kept splendidly attractive at enormous effort amid
the general decay of [the same city]. Her great fear, she says,
is that "I don't see any future for us here, any future for our
grandchildren.•.. Too many people don't want to take the respons
ibility for what has gone wrong. When in doubt, they bring out
the old colonial masters to whip.
Well, I can remember that
time--there � buses for the people then, and - -ui"ey ran regular-