The EMPSA head office in Johannesburg closed its doors shortly after the 1994 General Elections (1994/27 April). The programme was launched in September 1992. International monitors working in successive teams monitored events up to and including the 1994 General elections

Sketch of the Ecumenical Monitoring

Programme in South Africa:

EMPSA was established as a result of a call by the South African Churches - the South African Council of Churches (SACC) and the South African Catholic Bishops Conference (SACBC) to the international church community to send teams of monitors to address the question of violence.

The structure, policy and vision of the programme was agreed at a meeting with EMPSA's international partners in Geneva in August 1992. EMPSA was established with a three-fold mandate: to monitor violence, the political transitional process and elections

A group of eminent international church leaders, the Ecumenical Eminent Persons

Group (EEPG), launched the programme in September 1992.

The programme's international coordination was provided by the World Council of Churches in Geneva, in conjunction with the Vatican's Pontifical Commission on Justice and Peace. Recruitment, screening and initial selection of monitors proposed from countries all over the world was done in consultation with the EMPSA national office.

Programme coordination within South Africa was done from the Johannesburg head office, which had both national and international staff, and was responsible to a National Coordinating Committee representing participating churches and church agencies in the regions, the World Conference on Religion and Peace, and national independent monitoring organisations

Participants in the EMPSA programme developed working structures in their own countries which represented interested church denominations and relevant non- governmental organisations. These committees/forums undertook a more systematic approach to recruiting, screening, selecting and proposing monitors, raising funds to cover fares, allowances, insurances etc., and lobbying and information work with returned monitors. More recent participating countries tended to have a weaker infrastructure in this regard and operated on the basis of a single church, organisation or even individual.

EMPSA monitors, deployed in successive teams to various priority areas, engaged in a wide range of activities, from monitoring marches and rallies to facilitating meetings between groups to resolve conflicts, to intervening with police and government officials. Victims of violence were visited and contact was established with the police, all the main political and community players, peace committees, local churches and businesses. EMPSA was at an advantage because it worked closely with church networks as well as non-governmental organisations. Monitors did experience problems with the length of their stay (approximately six weeks). They needed time to familiarise themselves with the situation in which they found themselves. They also needed to follow up on cases. However a good handover between successive teams and a growing network of local contacts was able to sustain a level of continuity.

Monitors worked under difficult conditions and frequently found themselves in dangerous situations. In one particular incident, EMPSA monitors Joyce Cashmore and Pieter van Reenen were detained by Bophuthatswana police sparking a local and international outcry. It is generally agreed that the presence of EMPSA monitors together with other monitoring structures contributed to a relatively peaceful electoral process