Comment from ZWNEWS, 24 February

Bishops and pawns

By Michael Hartnack

Churches in Zimbabwe are riven by an age-old question: the morality of political power. At opposite ends of the storm are the country’s leading Anglican bishop, a fanatical supporter of Robert Mugabe, and the beleaguered Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, who has consistently denounced the Zanu PF regime, and now accuses Mugabe of starving opponents.

In Bulawayo, Archbishop Pius Ncube has had to move between safe houses following death threats, and is stalked by Mugabe’s feared intelligence agents. He is also fast emerging as the spiritual figurehead of Zimbabwe’s embattled civil society. In Harare, Anglican Bishop Nolbert Kunonga, who hailed Mugabe’s disputed March 2002 election as "God given", is accused of using his close ties with the ruling Zanu PF party to intimidate Anglican critics. He is embroiled in dispute over alleged maladministration of the church, and features on a list of prominent Mugabe supporters barred from entering the United States. In a move that worries many Christians in this country, Kunonga was reportedly instrumental in bringing to Harare the Archbishop of Cape Town, Njongonkulu Ndungane on January 31. The South African prelate emerged from three hours of talks with Mugabe sounding impressed. He said Mugabe spoke to him "like a father", he implied Zanu PF critics were the ones responsible for the lack of Christian reconciliation, and offered to mediate. Among the other Christian denominations, the Methodists, Congregationalists, Baptists, Lutherans and Presbyterians have been unanimous in condemning state-sponsored violence, use of food relief as a political weapon, and disregard for the rule of law. In contrast, the indigenous Vapostori sects, who worship under trees dressed in white robes and eschew Western medicine, have given their unqualified blessing to Mugabe. One of their spade-bearded leaders became Minister for Youth Development and principal organiser of the self-styled war veterans who terrorised the commercial farms. A Vapostori bishop in the Harare suburb of Kambazuma declared any who died seizing land "would go straight to heaven - they have no sin before Jehovah."

In the precincts of Zimbabwe's Anglican and Catholic cathedrals, angry voices have been raised over the reluctance of most of the prelates to speak out against Mugabe. "When the party faithful murder, rape, maim or beat us up, why do the church leaders remain silent," a Catholic parishioner wrote in an article in the independent Daily News. Catholic Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa of Harare, who consecrated Zimbabwe’s new flag at the independence ceremony on April 17, 1980, is now a sick man. His record, however, is one of resolutely refusing to censure Mugabe. In 1997 Chakaipa strove to suppress a report by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace on the 1982-87 Matabeleland atrocities. Nucbe, 55, has declared that agitation for land reform is being used a cloak for persecution of Mugabe opponents. And in an address to the South African Catholic Bishops Conference in Durban in November he said, "Mugabe is starving his own people. I think it must come to a situation where people tell the government: 'You give us the food or we will eat you’." All this has met with stony silence from his seven fellow Catholic bishops. Timorously, Catholic Bishop Alexio Muchabaiwa of Mutare said in Nairobi that speaking out "would put lives in danger - one has to be very careful on matters of this nature." However, Matabeleland parish priests expressed strong support, declaring: "Attempts to use personal influence and persuasion (with Mugabe) have only allowed a corrupt system to consolidate its power. There is no place for neutrality in the face of evil which is destroying our nation."