|
News Items:
|
|
Headlines
|
|
News Briefs
|
|
Stories
|
|
Movies
|
|
Word To Life
|
|
Special Items:
|
|
Vatican
|
|
Election 2004
|
|
Africa
|
|
Charter update
|
|
John Jay study
|
|
Other Items:
|
|
Client Area
|
|
Links
|
|
Archives:
|
|
Origins
|
|
.
|
|
Did You Know...
|
The whole CNS
public Web site
headlines, briefs
stories, etc,
represents less
than one percent
of the daily news
report.
Get all the news!
If you would like
more information
about the
Catholic News
Service daily
news report,
please contact
CNS at one of
the following:
cns@
catholicnews.com
or
(202) 541-3250
|
|
.
|
|
Copyright:
|
This material
may not
be published,
broadcast,
rewritten or
otherwise
distributed.
Copyright
(c) 2005
Catholic News
Service/U.S.
Conference of
Catholic Bishops.
|
|
 |
|
CNS Story:
|
ZIMBABWE-NCUBE Mar-28-2005 (950 words) With photo. xxxi
Zimbabwean archbishop predicts president will buy March 31 election
By Gunther Simmermacher
Catholic News Service
CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- Zimbabweans will be "dancing in the streets" when President Robert Mugabe is gone, a Zimbabwean archbishop said.
Describing Zimbabwe's president for 25 years as "the one big devil," Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo said that "everybody is fed up with Mugabe, even the armed forces -- but they keep paying the top brass good money so as to silence them in their opposition."
The archbishop, who has in the past received death threats and been harassed for his opposition to human rights abuses, made his comments in a wide-ranging interview in Cape Town in mid-March with the South African Catholic weekly, The Southern Cross.
As Zimbabwe prepared for parliamentary elections March 31, Archbishop Ncube said the poll would not be free and fair. The opposition Movement for Democratic Change "will be cheated right, left and center," he predicted.
"The electoral supervisory commission is handpicked by Mugabe. The oppressive laws are still in force. The government has persecuted the journalists and chased away the international press," he said.
"Public meetings are banned without police permission," except for church services, he said; unauthorized meetings are broken up violently, often with tear gas.
Archbishop Ncube alleged that the government had registered voters properly only in the rural areas, the party's stronghold.
"In the towns we hear of people having been removed from the voters' roll," he said.
"Then there are almost 2 million ghost voters. Of those, 800,000 are dead, 300,000 don't exist -- if you go inquire at the listed address, the residents will never have heard of them -- and 600,000 are duplicate voters who are listed in different constituencies. So, out of a population of 5.6 million voters, 2 million are fake," he said, adding that public access to the voters' roll is restricted.
Archbishop Ncube also repeated his claim that Mugabe's Zanu-PF party had been using food aid as a political weapon.
"They are going up and down the country telling people, 'If you don't vote for us, you don't get any food, and then we're going to come back and burn your houses,'" he said.
Noting that large areas of Zimbabwe were experiencing a drought, the archbishop said that the government had obstructed international agencies from distributing food. Poor management of farms after a controversial land redistribution program exacerbated the country's food crisis, he said.
"Meanwhile, the gap between rich and poor is absolutely unspeakable. Some people are stinking rich ... while others stay three, four days without food. Some women come weeping to me with their babies. They tell me, 'I haven't eaten for three days, and my breast has no more milk,'" he said.
Last June Mugabe told a British TV station that Archbishop Ncube was an "unholy liar" for making claims of extreme food shortages and famine.
"But we know. We have a church hospital, we have clinics, and we know that people have died of malnutrition," the archbishop said. Based on figures in Bulawayo, he estimated that 8,000 Zimbabweans had starved to death under Mugabe.
Asked whether he was concerned for his safety in light of his outspoken political views, Archbishop Ncube said he prayed every morning for his well-being.
"But I will not allow them to intimidate me," he said. "Zimbabwe is my country, I have a right to it. I have a right to speak for my people who are being oppressed. I have the right to be sensitive to the suffering of my people. My position as churchman demands that I stand up for the rights of the people."
He said he had received greater solidarity from the bishops of South Africa than he had from the Zimbabwean bishops, whom he said had "gone in for quiet diplomacy," rather than outspoken criticism.
The Zimbabwean bishops' conference has asked its southern African counterpart not to make statements criticizing the Mugabe government, so the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference has criticized the South African government for its policy of "quiet diplomacy" or appeasement.
Archbishop Ncube said that the policy might have worked "if the Zimbabwean government and Mugabe were honest people ... but they are tricksters, saying one thing but doing another."
"Quiet diplomacy can work with people who listen and who are sensitive to the people's suffering, who look for solutions. But Mugabe's attitude is that he's the one in power, and nobody can tell him anything," he said.
He said he does not believe that Mugabe, a baptized Catholic and reportedly regular churchgoer, should be excommunicated, a call voiced by many opponents of Mugabe within the Catholic Church.
"I don't think it would help. He is so stubborn and power hungry, it might only worsen the man. It wouldn't do any good," he said.
However, he said he would not "feel at ease" administering Communion to Mugabe should he present himself. "I'll let others do it."
Asked what areas of ministry he would have liked to concentrate on instead of politics, Archbishop Ncube pointed out that he "never planned to be outspoken."
"I'd very much like to fight the AIDS crisis. In Zimbabwe it is extremely pernicious and destructive. Every day 700 Zimbabweans are dying of AIDS. That's a quarter of a million a year. So I'd like to work on stopping this whole madness and preach the Catholic ethos to change people's behavior," he said.
Archbishop Ncube said that he would like to retire when he reaches his mid-60s, "to live a life of contemplative prayer."
"I would have liked to do that when I was young, before I became a student. But you can't live twice -- unless you're James Bond," he said.
END
Copyright (c) 2005 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250
|
|
|
|
