Axel-Ivar Berglund - Nordic Documentation on the Liberation ...

Bertil Högberg: Were there any problems, I mean, did the CSM relations to
South Africa create problems for getting visas for people to travel or for
missionaries to go in and out of South Africa?
<strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: Yes greatly so. Do you know who Mamphela Ramphele
is?
Bertil Högberg: Yes.
<strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: She gave birth to Steve Biko’s child, though they were not
married. Much later she became the Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cape
Town. Earlier, considerable sums of money were channelled for Steve Biko’s
black consciousness movement through her. Again don’t ask me for figures, I
cannot give you those. These were things that took place and yet did not take
place.
Bertil Högberg: That was when you were still in South Africa. Was it money
from CSM or from other sources that went through the South African Council
of Churches?
<strong>Axel</strong>-<strong>Ivar</strong> <strong>Berglund</strong>: Both. I supported this kind of thing when I came here
because I knew the people and I could write a private letter to John Reese,
not to his address because I knew that his post was censored as was mine
when I was in Johannesburg, but I wrote to a different address and in the
letter I would just write ‘For John’ and he would know how to handle it. There
were lots of these kinds of strange things, strange to the world, but to us in
South Africa they were necessary to keep the pot boiling.
Bertil Högberg: Were any Swedish missionaries thrown out of South Africa?
Gunnar Helander was refused a re-entry visa, but that was in the 1950s.
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