Two priests deported by the SWA Administrator General, Justice Steyn, less than a month before the arrival of United Nations personnel in Namibia, have both been outspoken critics of South Africa's occupation. Rev. Ed Morrow, the Vicar-General of the Anglican Church in Namibia, and his wife Laureen, were on 14 July given seven days to leave the territory. Both are South African citizens. Rev. Morrow had been the senior Anglican churchman in Namibia up to the arrival shortly before of the Most Rev. James Kauluma, the newly consecrated Bishop of Damaraland. Father Heinz Hunke, the Father Provincial of the Irish Order of Mary Immaculate of the Roman Catholic Church in Namibia, and a West German citizen, was given only 96 hours to quit. He was served with a deportation order by the security police on the same day.
The expulsion orders were issued in terms of the Undesirable Persons Removal Proclamation of 1920, as amended only a day previously by Justice Steyn under Proclamation AG50. The power to expel persons from Namibia was formerly vested in the Administrator of SWA; Proclamation AG50 transferred such authority to Justice Steyn. He is thereby empowered to deport "undesirables" or any person who "threatens the peace or good government" of Namibia or who "inflicts or threatens to inflict hurt or damage" on others in order to achieve certain objectives.
No reason was given by the authorities for the expulsions, but Rev. Morrow's deportation, in particular, came only a few days after delegates of the Anglican Church in Namibia, meeting in Maseru, Lesotho, had issued a statement expressing their "increasing alarm (at) the systematic increase of troops and massive build-up of weapons in our country". The declaration continued: "the barbaric attack on Kassinga and the detention of SWAPO leadership within Namibia under Proclamation AG26 have clearly demonstrated the aggressive nature of the South African regime and the bad faith of its rulers". In this context, the delegates concluded that the western proposals for a Namibian settlement, which depended for their success on "trust and good faith on all sides", could no longer work, and "can now not be considered as giving sufficient safeguards to the suffering Namibian people in the period before independence".
Rev. Morrow himself suggested that the South African authorities had probably wanted him and Father Hunke "out of the way" before the arrival of the United Nations team led by Mr. Martti Ahtisaari. Speaking in Lusaka, Zambia, after his deportation, he pointed to the widespread intimidation, detention, torture and assault of black Namibians supporting SWAPO.
Father Hunke had also consistently condemned the use of torture by the South African police in Namibia. Affidavits and medical reports of torture collected by himself and an Anglican churchman were published in the UK in February 1978. Most recently he had submitted evidence of the torture of Namibians captured during South African raids into Angola, to the Administrator General.
In a statement issued in Windhoek on 16 July condemning the procedure adopted by Justice Steyn, the heads of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church in Namibia warned that the summary expulsions in their view "seriously endanger joint efforts for peace and justice, and denotes an undesirable strengthening of those elements which favour the total exercise of power by force rather than discussion at the conference table."
