The South African police appeared to have made no further progress by the end of March in investigating possible charges against the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Durban, Denis Hurley, for his role in exposing atrocities in the Namibian war. If he is charged under Section 27b of South Africa's Police Act and found guilty of making false allegations against the police force, the archbishop could face up to five years imprisonment or a fine of up to R 10,000.
The police investigations arose out of a 34-page Report on Namibia published by the Southern Africa Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC), based on a visit made to the Namibian operational area in September 1981 by a six-man delegation headed by Archbishop Hurley. The Report was banned in South Africa in January 1983, within days of another SACBC publication – an open letter about apartheid directed at recent and prospective Polish immigrants to South Africa – being deemed 'undesirable' by the South African Directorate of Publications.
Following its banning, Archbishop Hurley said that the Report must have been suppressed 'because it tells something of the other side of the story, particularly the reactions of the vast majority of the Namibian people to the SWA Territorial Army'. He and the five other bishops who had toured Namibia in September 1981, besides collecting evidence critical of the South African security forces, had found that SWAPO was 'seen as the national liberation army by the local population, all of whom believe SWAPO will win any election hands down'.
The banning of the Report on Namibia was widely criticised both in Namibia and South Africa. The Cape Times, in an editorial, described the action as 'probably the most flagrant interference with freedom of religion and freedom of conscience yet experienced at the hands of an increasingly authoritarian government... the Nationalist government is serving notice of its determination to subject the church to its militarist will'.
