Hours after Kenya relaxed its travel restrictions on South Africa, a group of 15 South Africans of all races flew into Nairobi to take part in a Moral Re-Armament conference.
The visit attracted extensive press coverage. Kenya's Daily Nation reported, under the headline 'Wind of change is global', that former South African rugby star George Daneel, now a Dutch Reformed Minister, had been invited to speak in Nairobi's Anglican cathedral to a congregation of 2,000.
Other press coverage featured Agnes Leakey Hofmeyr, whose book Beyond Violence had just been published by the Jomo Kenyatta Foundation. In the book, and in an interview with the Daily Nation, she described her father's burial alive by the Mau Mau and her subsequent struggle to forgive. Hofmeyr chaired a session of the conference on 'forgiveness' jointly with one of the Mau Mau leaders who had authorized the execution.
Dr Mohammed El-Murtada, director of the Regional Training Centre for the International Labour Organisation in Harare, spoke of the concern of Africans over events in South Africa. 'It is not a concern about whether apartheid will stop - that is now certain - but there is concern over what role the new South Africa will take: will it be a dominating or a serving economic power? A united multiracial South Africa can be an answer not only to Africa but to the rest of the world.'
In a message to the conference the Attorney General for Kenya, Mr Amos Wako, said 'The message of absolute honesty, unselfishness, love and purity is relevant at all times and even more so in Africa today.'
English
