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NOTICE OF MDC DEMONSTRATION
AGAINST MUGABE GVT IN
MDC-NAD Executive invites
all concerned Zimbabweans and supporters to join us in protesting Mugabe and his
brutal regime while he visits the UN General Assembly in NY. Come and tell him
to step down now for the sake of our future!!!!!!!!!!
Venue:
Time:
Date:
Contacts: 610-563-0959;
214-458-6066; 215-425-9910; 469-733-4713
Email:
mdclobby@mdczimbabwe.org
Call for Directions, Free
accommodation and bring your friends.
Chinja Maitiro, Maitiro
chinja.
Gugula izenzo, Izenzo Guqula
ISSUED BY NAD LOBBYING COMMITTEE
Immediate Press Release
Christians Together for Justice and Peace
The NGO Bill – a defining moment for the Church and Civic Society
We,
Christians Together for Justice and Peace, stand in solidarity with all those
churches and church and civic groups which have expressed their abhorrence of
the Non Governmental Organisation Bill. We support those numerous groups of
lawyers, journalists, human rights’ activists and freedom-loving people in
Zimbabwe and around the world who have condemned the NGO Bill as
unconstitutional and anti-democratic.
Although the contents of the Bill may be “dressed up” to
look respectable and its stated objective is to provide “an enabling
environment” for the operations, monitoring and regulation of all
non-governmental organisations, we discern in this Bill a deeply sinister
purpose, and that is to disable all NGO’s which the ruling party
perceives to represent a threat to their continuing, brutal, hold on
power.
Specifically we note the outlawing under clause 17 of any
overseas funding for local NGO’s concerned with “issues of governance”, which
are defined to include the promotion or protection of human rights and political
governance issues. This no doubt
includes the monitoring of torture and other gross human rights abuses
perpetrated by the present regime. It also presumably includes anything to do
with constitutional issues and the conduct of elections. In short, in the very
areas in which the motives of the ruling party are most suspect, the Bill seeks
to proscribe the invaluable part hitherto played by NGO’s in monitoring abuses
and exposing wrong doing.
The Bill is all about control – the iron hand of control
which a deeply unpopular administration seeks to assert over one of the last
remaining democratic spaces in this country.
We note that the proposed all-powerful NGO Council which is the chosen
agent of that control is composed of members either appointed or at least
approved by a government minister. There
can be no pretence of objectivity here, nor of any genuine desire to regulate
NGO’s for the benefit of those millions of Zimbabweans who have come to depend
on them heavily for their well-being – even for their
survival.
The NGO Council is given sweeping powers, not only over
the registration process, but to investigate the activities of NGO’s and apply
disciplinary measures as it deems fit, including the cancellation and amendment
of registration certificates, removal and replacement of NGO members and
disposal of assets. Furthermore the
right of appeal against any decision of the Council lies to the government
minister who appointed and directs the affairs of the Council. Effectively therefore under this draconian
measure the ruling party seeks to take control of all NGOs and NGO activities
across the land, including the right to close down or refuse registration to any
groups whose work takes them into fields which the party finds inconvenient or
embarrassing. To ensure the total
subservience of the whole NGO sector the ruling party have appointed themselves
policeman, prosecutor and judge in all
matters.
In passing we note also the huge administrative and
financial burden which this Bill imposes on those NGO’s which comply, both in
relation to the registration process and also the reporting and accounting
required by Council – time and money thereby diverted from the needs of those
whom NGO’s are there to serve.
The
definition of a “non-government organisation” is so wide as to include virtually
any group involved in humanitarian, relief or development work – and a great
deal besides. All are subjected to the
requirement to register and any group proceeding without a registration
certificate is committing a criminal offence.
At one stroke therefore, save with the approval of the ruling party, all
the humanitarian, relief and social upliftment work carried on hitherto by
churches and NGO’s across the length and breadth of Zimbabwe, is
criminalized. This Bill therefore
represents not only a savage assault on the civil liberties of all Zimbabweans
but a grievous blow to the increasing number who have come to depend on the
NGO’s and church-related organisations for a wide variety of services, from
health and education to emergency feeding schemes, as the services provided by
the state continue to decline. Those who
will suffer most will again be the most vulnerable members of our society who
are already living at, or below, the bread
line.
Nor are we
deceived by what might appear to be a concession to the churches. Under clause 2 of the Bill and among the activities
exempted from the general definition of
an NGO, is the following: “any religious
body in respect of activities confined to religious work”. The difficulty here is what is implied by the
term “religious work”. According to the Church’s own self-understanding
religious work is bound to include works of charity and compassion and much else
beside in the way of empowering men and women to reach their God-given
potential. Given the ruling party’s oft-stated view that the churches should
confine themselves to purely “spiritual” matters, we doubt whether the minister
appointed by Mugabe to administer the Bill will subscribe to such a broad
definition of our core activities. Indeed it may be that the minister will have
in mind no more than what Christians do in worship for an hour or two on Sunday
mornings.
In short we
find ourselves confronted here by a provocative piece of legislation which
threatens to remove completely the Church’s freedom to respond to human need in
accordance with the Gospel imperative.
In essence the Bill seeks to substitute the permission of the state for a
mandate given by God himself. It raises
the question whether the Church needs the permission of the state to be the
Church, and our answer to that question can only be a resounding “No”. Our divine mandate to which the Scriptures
bear witness, is “to loose the fetters of injustice, and untie the knots of the
yoke, and set free those who are oppressed, tearing off every yoke”. (Isaiah
58/6) Upon this our God-given mission we
cannot compromise. We will not accept any restrictions imposed by the state on
this our divine mandate. If what we do
in obedience to our Christian calling makes us criminals in Zimbabwe, so be it;
that is only a measure of how far from the ways of God our rulers have taken
this nation.
Clearly the
underlying purpose of the NGO Bill is to take even greater control over people’s
lives. The essence of the Church’s
mission on the other hand is to set men and women free. (See Jesus’ own mission manifesto for example
in Luke 4/18-19). By moving to enact this oppressive measure the ruling party
has set itself on a collision course with the Church, as well as with civic
society. It would be possible of course
for the Church to try to avoid confrontation by applying to register in respect
of its humanitarian work. But in our
view that would amount to a betrayal of our Christian vocation and also a
legitimizing of the ruling party’s attempt to usurp the place of God. We cannot therefore take the path of
compromise. It is of this regime’s doing
entirely that the claims of God and of Caesar are now in conflict, and in this
situation we can do no other than say to our rulers, with St Peter and the
apostles: “We must obey God rather than men”.
(Acts 5/29)
This is
surely a defining moment for the Church.
We know we shall be judged by our response – whether active or passive –
to this pernicious piece of legislation.
It is our prayer that the challenge will not find us wanting, and our
hope that the Church and civic society will act as one in rejecting outright
this vain attempt by the ruling party to usurp the place of
God.
Christians Together for Justice and Peace
14th September, 2004
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