FORMER APARTHEID POLICE MINISTER REPENTS AND APOLOGISES TO BLACK SOUTH AFRICANS
Adriaan Vlok, the former apartheid regime's law and order police minister, recently went to church in Soweto and during the service washed the feet of Reverend Frank Chikane, a person he had sought to kill during the years of struggle in South Africa. The pair took turns to describe Vlok's apology as a miracle. It emerged that it took Vlok two months to convince Chikane to meet him and hear his apology.
This is how Vlok described their first encounter on August 3: "I was so grateful, I cried. There were tears in his eyes too. I looked into his eyes and I saw love. Then he prayed for me." Speaking at the church, Vlok - described by some sources as "one of the most evil men that apartheid created" - called Chikane's congregation his "brothers and sisters". "I feel your pain," he said. "I am sorry for what you had to suffer. We were fighting here in Soweto. It was a war. But today we're coming here to pray."
Vlok admitted that he used to "hate your pastor (Chikane)". "We were fighting each other with guns, hand grenades and poison," Vlok said. "I thank God for letting me not succeed in killing you."
Vlok described his wife's suicide in 1994 as the defining point in his life. "It took me 12 years, after the government changed, to come to this point. I had to rid myself of my own pride, my egotism and selfishness," he said. "I don't represent anyone else because I stand before the Lord alone."
Vlok sat in the front row in the packed church next to Chikane's wife. At one point he stood and clapped along to a gospel song. He also joked when being introduced, saying: "You can't give a microphone to an old politician and expect him to speak for only a minute. It's not possible."
Chikane maintained that the apology was sincere and that more were likely to follow. "The fact that Mr Vlok has come to make a confession to me and is here with us today is a miracle," he said. "Some people have told me it's profoundly historical." He said that, despite being angry, people should be prepared to "pick ourselves up and move on". "We must not let the past we've defeated dictate our future."
Source: Pretoria News (c-/ The Australian Prayer Network Newsletter)
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1 comment:
I was reading a book a while back where the author described a story that i thought of when i read your post. A friend of hers had a sister who was raped and murdered by some guys in a jail. It was a really sick and perverted act. She was a Christian and one day one of the guys who had participated in her sister's death rocked up at her church.
He went up to her, told her he had become a Christian and held out his hand to shake her hand. This lady stood there fighting all sorts of horrible thoughts, battling with unforgiveness as she stared into this guy's eyes.... and then somehow Jesus gave her the strength to extend her hand and shake his hand.
I don't think i could do that. It would just be so hard. It really would take a miracle to be that transformed when you have witnessed with your own eyes such a sick act.... don't you reckon.
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