Pope John Paul II’s very strange day

A hostage drama, a precarious flight and an unexpected stop in Johannesburg turned September 14, 1988 into one of the strangest days of Pope John Paul II’s long pontificate. GUNTHER SIMMERMACHER looks back at all the drama 25 years ago.

Pope John Paul II visited 129 countries in his 104 international journeys, but surely no day was as bizarre as the one when he was forced to land in Johannesburg en route to Maseru, 25 years ago.

The pope’s visit to Southern Africa from September 10-19, 1988 was controversial long before it began. It included Zimbabwe, Botswana, Lesotho, Swaziland and Mozambique but not South Africa.

For many South Africans the reason for that omission was obvious: the country was subject to all manner of international boycotts as one frontier in the struggle against apartheid, and a papal visit might have been seen as legitimising the regime and encourage the boycott busters.

Other South Africans took the opposite view: the pope should come on a pastoral visit to his flock in South Africa, and, if he wanted to, take the opportunity to speak out against the injustice of apartheid. Why, they asked, was it acceptable for the pope to visit other countries ruled by other contemptible regimes, but not South Africa?

The debate was fierce, and in the months preceding the papal trip, the Southern African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) sought to calm tempers by ascribing the exclusion of South Africa from the papal itinerary to issues of scheduling.

The pope’s purpose in coming to Southern Africa was at the invitation of Inter-Regional Meeting of the Bishops of Southern Africa (IMBISA), to address the region’s bishops at their plenary in Harare, Zimbabwe. The wheels were already in motion for that when in June 1987 John Paul cleared the way for the beatification of Fr Joseph Gerard OMI, the apostle of Lesotho’s Catholic Church.

With the beatification, the programme was indeed too full to include a visit to the Church in South Africa which would include the main centres. Far better to do one-day and half-day trips in bordering countries, especially as two, Botswana and Swaziland, were within the territory covered by the SACBC.

What the bishops were not saying too loudly, probably to keep the controversy at bay, was that they in fact had not even extended an invitation to the pope.

Feelers about a possible papal visit had been put out as early as 1982. As talks went on, the South African government was asked if they would welcome the pope (they would), but nothing further came of it.

Bishop Wilfrid Napier of Kokstad, today the cardinal archbishop of Durban, had actually explained the bishops position a year before the papal visit in Inter Nos, the bishops’ newsletter. He noted that it would be incongruous and unacceptable in the present situation to have the pope being protected by the same security forces that visited terrible repression upon the people.

Bishop Napier saw political capital in a papal boycott: The refusal of the pope to come to South Africa is a much more devastating blow to PW Botha than if the pope had come to South Africa and denounced apartheid.

The bishops doubtless wanted to spare John Paul embarrassment when they told him in 1987 that a visit would be inadvisable. Reportedly a senior Vatican official had told Vatican Radio that Pope John Paul was horrified at the prospect of being escorted and protected by [State President PW] Botha’s brutal police.

Following a meeting of South African Christian leaders with the pope in the Vatican in May 1988  in which Pope John Paul strongly condemned apartheid  Archbishop George Daniel of Pretoria said that it would not have been opportune for him to come, especially while we are in a state of emergency.

For the apartheid regimes foreign minister, Pik Botha, only the bishops were to blame for the pope’s exclusion of South Africa. His statement on the visit betrayed not only hurt feelings but also claimed that neither the pope nor the government, only the bishops, were to blame for South Africa’s exclusion.

But Mr Botha’s spirits were soon to be lifted.

Having visited Zimbabwe and Botswana, Pope John Paul, his aides and the pool of journalists covering the visit were departing Gaborone for Maseru in Lesotho in an Air Zimbabwe Boeing 707. Just after take-off, the weather turned bad, making for a flight so rough that a number of journalists fell ill, with one even suffering a mild stroke.

Meanwhile, storms in Maseru had knocked out the airport’s navigation beacons and radio signals. The pilot had already opened the aircraft’s flaps in preparation for descend when he decided against a landing.

But there was a problem: the aircraft had too little fuel to reach Botswana. So the flight was re-routed to Johannesburg and with that Pik Botha got to meet the pope on South African soil after all.

The foreign minister and a big entourage were already at what was then Jan Smuts Airport when the 707 landed. A beaming Mr Botha personally welcomed a visibly uncomfortable pope, who broke with custom by refraining from kissing the tarmac, even after his terrifying flight.

The South African government was going to grab the opportunity to demonstrate its organisational mettle in the spotlight of the world’s media.

Things swiftly moved into gear to get the pope and his fellow travellers safely to Maseru. A motorcade of 25 cars, led by the pope in a bullet-proof silver BMW, took off from Kempton Park towards Lesotho, escorted by ambulances, helicopters and the security whose notional protection had previously horrified the Holy Father.

When the convoy stopped at a rural petrol station, attendants dropped to their knees when they saw the pope. He gave them each a papally blessed rosary.

At the border, the pope and his party were placed into the care of Lesotho’s ruler, Major-General Justin Lekhanya, a friend of Pretoria.

The caravan rolled safely into Maseru, having missed a major drama, one related to the pope’s visit, by just minutes.

The previous day, members of the anti-Lekhanya Lesotho Liberation Army, once clients of the apartheid regime, had hijacked a bus packed with pilgrims on their way from Qacha’s Nek, in south-eastern Lesotho, to Maseru for the papal Mass, holding the 71 passengers hostage.

Their demand was to meet the pope, in the mistaken expectation that he would help topple Lekhanya. The pope was, in fact, not even told about the hostage drama.

The hostages later reported that their four captors showed both cruelty and gentleness. At times, they prayed and sang hymns with their pilgrims.

After a 26-hour stand-off, a gunfire battle erupted on the pavement outside the British High Commission in Maseru between the rebels and a South African commando, called in by Lesotho’s military council. Eyewitness accounts differed on who shot first.

When fire ceased, three hijackers and two hostages, one a girl of 16, were dead. Eleven men and nine women, including two nuns, were hurt and hospitalised. Mahanoe Makhetha, the 29-year-old organiser of the pilgrimage, lost both legs.

The papal motorcade had passed the scene only half an hour earlier.

When Pope John Paul heard of the tragedy he was dismayed. He immediately went to a chapel to pray, then asked to be taken to the Elizabeth II hospital, where the survivors were being treated. At the Mass the next day, the pope expressed his distress at the tragedy.

I have come to southern Africa as a pilgrim of peace, carrying a message of reconciliation, he said. I am saddened to learn that others on their way to join me in this pilgrimage have been the victims of a hijack that caused such anguish and ended in bloodshed.’

Pope John Paul eventually made it to South Africa, on a one-day trip in 1995, when he celebrated a Mass in Johannesburg to issue the exhortation of the first Synod of Africa. He never returned for a full visit.

And while Pik Botha was a gracious host who at virtually no notice organised safe passage for the Holy Father, the regime didn’t like the Catholic Church any better. Almost a month to the day after the pope set foot on South African soil, on October 12, security agents of the apartheid government bombed Khanya House, the Pretoria headquarters of the SACBC.

Pope John Paul II had not been wrong when he told reporters on his flight to Zimbabwe that apartheid represented a racist vision of human inequality [which] cannot be continued.