Week in Review : MAJOR EVENTS, IMAGES AND PEOPLE IN ORANGE COUNTY NEWS : COUNTY : Banned Africa Leader Defends Organization

A leader of the banned African National Congress, the largest multiracial opposition organization in South Africa, defended his group’s political existence last week in Orange County.

Alfred Nzo, the general secretary of the banned group, told the annual meeting of the Reformed Church of America that the government of P.W. Botha has “resorted to unprecedented brute force and state terrorism to assert its right to rule the country.”

Nzo, in turn, said that the African National Congress represented “the only sane alternative to the policies of genocide pursued by the apartheid regime” in South Africa.

Nzo’s comments came in reply to charges by Garden Grove evangelist Robert Schuller, who barred Nzo from addressing the Reformed Church of America convention at the Crystal Cathedral. Two weeks before the convention, Schuller said that because the ANC was infiltrated by “violent elements,” Nzo’s address would not be permitted at the cathedral.