SOUTH AFRICA: I Won't Come Out Alive

The judge took five hours to drone out his verdict, but it still had the impact of a thunderbolt. Women in the courtroom gasped and sobbed last week as the dean of Johannesburg's Anglican cathedral was sentenced to five years in prison under the catchall Terrorism Act for subversion against the South African government. As the pale, stocky defendant left Johannesburg's Old Synagogue, site of his three-month trial, blacks and whites outside began singing Onward, Christian Soldiers.

To the South African regime, Dean Gonville A. ffrench-Beytagh (pronounced french-Beta) had indeed veered too close to Christian soldiering during his insistent campaign against...

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