It was always inevitable that the new black African governments, insecure and nervous and sensitive to even the shadow of a threat to their authority, would lash out at the Jehovah's Witnesses. After all, this strange, fanatic, fundamentalist sect not only was among the first victims of the Nazis in Germany but was harassed for years by outraged local governments in the United States. Since the independence of most of black Africa, the Witnesses have been banned or restricted in Malawi, Gabon, Cameroun, Zambia, Guinea, Tanzania and Kenya. The sect's most terrible troubles came in Malawi last year and its most recent in Kenya this year.

There are relatively few Jehovah's Witnesses in Africa, perhaps 250,000 on a continent of 340 million. They can hardly be called more than a minor irritant. But the threat of their presence has been exaggerated by African leaders unsure of their political power, intolerant of opposition, equipped with fragile institutions, and frustrated by their failure to make nations out of hostile tribes. As ever, the problem stems from the attitude of the Witnesses toward governmental authority.

Founded in the United States by Charles Taze Russell in the 1890s, the Witnesses believe that governments are part of "Satan's world.” In their view, therefore, God's authority is always greater than the authority of any government. At the same time, the Witnesses insist, they follow the laws of the societies in which they live, as long as these laws do not conflict with their conscience. A good deal of annoying condescension is implied in this position. Jehovah's Witnesses look on governmental officials as minions of a dying order; the Kingdom of God will some day rule on earth. To make matters worse, the Witnesses do not keep their views to themselves. They are obsessive preachers, selling their brand of gospel from house to house - in Africa, from hut to hut.

In the United States, the Witnesses have been enraging local officials for decades. A persistent irritant has been the sect's refusal to salute the American flag because it is "an earthly emblem." In the 1930s and 1940s parents were arrested and fined and their children expelled from school when the children refused to participate in classroom salutes. The issue was not settled until 1943 when the Supreme Court; in a series of civil rights cases, ruled in favor of the Witnesses. Americans had a constitutional right to refuse to salute their flag.

In Malawi, a similar issue has not been settled so favorably for the Witnesses. The main problem has been the refusal of the sect to buy membership cards in the Malawi Congress Party. The Witnesses insist that God forbids them to join a political party. But since Malawi, like most African states, has only one political party, President H. Kamuzu Banda and other government leaders look on the refusal in a different way. In their view, refusal to buy a party card, is a demonstration of disloyalty to the nation, akin to refusing to salute the American flag in the United States.

In 1967, the Malawi Government banned the Witnesses and expelled their missionaries. But the sect is not easy to ban. Its members act individually, not as groups; each Witness is a minister. Though outlawed, the 22,000 Witnesses in Malawi still refused to buy cards and still moved from hut to hut extolling the Kingdom of God.

Fed up, the Malawi Congress Party, at its convention in Zomba last September, passed a series of resolutions calling for the dismissal of Witnesses from their jobs and urging that they “should be chased away” from their villages.

The Young Pioneers, the youth wing of the Malawi Congress Party, formed bands to do the chasing. Armed with sticks, knobkerries, axes and pangas, the Pioneers, began killing, beating and raping Jehovah’s Witnesses. The only protection for a Witness was the purchase of a party card, a way out that almost all refused to take. Rushing from the onslaught, 19,000 Witnesses fled to Zambia and the rest to Portuguese Mozambique. According to Awake, the official publication of the sect in New York, between ten and sixty Witnesses were killed in Malawi and another 350 died in the squalid conditions of the Zambia refugee camp. Many refugees showed up in the camp with panga slashes.

Zambia has 56,000 Witnesses of its own, and the refugees were unwelcome. Zambian officials, intent on getting rid of the newcomers, immediately began negotiations with the Malawi Government and the United Nations. In December, the refugees were put on trucks and moved back to Malawi. Awake insists that the Witnesses were tricked into boarding the busses. They were told they would be moved to another camp in Zambia. When they discovered the ruse, according to the paper, many Witnesses leaped off the trucks and ran into the bush. Those who returned found no new tolerance in Malawi. Their leaders were arrested; politicians again demanded that they buy party cards. According to Awake, the Young Pioneers resumed their beatings and rapes.

In Kenya, the government’s action against the sect was surprising because it seemed so pointless. There are only 1,200 Witnesses in Kenya - hardly a threat, whatever they did, to the government of President Jomo Kenyatta. Nevertheless, the government banned the sect in April as “dangerous to the good government of the Republic of Kenya.”

Two weeks before the announcement of the ban, Vice President Daniel arap Moi had criticized the Witnesses during a speech given in Western Kenya. He said, “There is no room in Kenya for those who created havoc in the country under the pretext of religion,’’ but he gave no examples of the havoc. Despite Moi’s attack, Peter Palliser, the British missionary who is presiding minister of the Jehovah’s Witnesses in Kenya, said that the ban had taken him completely by surprise: “We have no idea of how it happened. We have never received any official notice warning us not to do anything. We don’t know what it is all about.”

Since then, African journalists have been interviewing local government officials and neighbors of the Witnesses and have come up with a catalogue of complaints: They showed no respect for the flag and national anthem. They refused to take part in government-sponsored self-help projects. They preached “disaffection.” Schoolgirls who converted to the sect soon dropped their studies. Other women defied custom by marrying men who did not pay a bride price. Some women divorced husbands who refused to convert. The Witnesses did not show up when a chief called public meetings. Some refused to pay taxes, because they found nothing in the Bible that sanctioned taxes.

Palliser has denied most of these complaints, but the catalogue creates an image that is depressingly similar to what most people feel about the Witnesses elsewhere in the world. To Kenyan officials and to the neighbors of the Witnesses, the members of the sect are strange, pesky zealots who always seem to get in the way. They cannot be tolerated.

But Kenya is not Malawi and so far no cases of violence against the Witnesses have been reported. The government has not deported the thirty European and American missionaries who work with the Witnesses. In fact, it is not yet clear just how the ban will change the style of the Witnesses in Kenya. While they surely must give up public meetings, the Witnesses probably will continue to proselytize their neighbors and confound their local officials.

It is a safe guess that more trouble lies ahead for the Witnesses in Africa. Since independence, black African governments have grown more repressive and less tolerant of dissent. Though the Jehovah’s Witnesses may be harmless, they are fanatic irritants. That makes them the first and most obvious targets for the scorn and fury of frustrated governments.

Stanley Meisler is Africa correspondent of the Los Angeles Times.