CNS STORY: South African bishop says Zimbabwean forces detain children

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CNS Story:

ZIMBABWE-DOWLING Apr-17-2007 (630 words) xxxi

South African bishop says Zimbabwean forces detain children

By Bronwen Dachs
Catholic News Service

CAPE TOWN, South Africa (CNS) -- A South African Catholic bishop who recently visited Zimbabwe said that even children are being detained by Zimbabwean security forces.

Bishop Kevin Dowling of Rustenburg said Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's forces "are everywhere now, and they know everything."

The situation in Zimbabwe was reminiscent of the "worst days of apartheid," South Africa's former system of enforced racial segregation, he told Catholic News Service April 16.

Bishop Dowling and Archbishop Buti Tlhagale of Johannesburg, president of the Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference, joined Zimbabwean Archbishop Pius Ncube of Bulawayo at an April 12 ecumenical prayer meeting in St. Mary's Cathedral in Bulawayo.

Among the approximately 1,000 people in the cathedral were security police, Bishop Dowling said.

When Mugabe, 83, returned home from a late-March Southern African Development Community meeting in Tanzania, Bishop Dowling said, "he gave free range to his security forces," who are said to have abducted and beaten more than 600 Zimbabweans in April.

During their April 11-13 visit to Zimbabwe, Bishop Dowling and Archbishop Tlhagale met with church leaders, civil representatives and four anti-government activists "who were tortured by police and are afraid to return to their homes in Harare," the Zimbabwean capital, Bishop Dowling said.

The South Africans noted "terrible poverty and starvation, particularly in Harare," he told CNS.

Zimbabwe's economy is in free-fall with an inflation rate of more than 1,700 percent and an unemployment rate of 80 percent. The recent chaos has caused public services for health care, schools and sewage to all but shut down.

The bishops' visit was partly a response to the call by Zimbabwean bishops for Catholics around the world to join in a day of prayer for the country April 14, Bishop Dowling said.

Alouis Chaumba, head of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe, said the day of prayer "went very well."

Meanwhile, an Easter letter from the Zimbabwean bishops, titled "God Hears the Cry of the Oppressed," is posted in all the churches around the country.

The letter, which says that Zimbabweans' "anger is now erupting into open revolt" and calls for free elections, is the bishops' strongest statement against Mugabe's rule since he came to power as the country gained independence from Great Britain in 1980. Mugabe, a Catholic who often attended Mass at Harare's cathedral, has not been seen at the cathedral since the letter was posted there, Chaumba said.

Meanwhile, Bishop Dowling said, "The shift in the bishops' conference can clearly be seen in its latest statement."

Archbishop Ncube "now has more support for his stand against Mugabe," said Bishop Dowling.

Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa of Harare, who died in 2003, was a friend of Mugabe, and his support for the ruling party was seen by analysts as a barrier to the bishops' ability to speak with one voice against injustices.

After two people died when police violently broke up a March 11 prayer meeting that was banned by the government, Archbishop Ncube urged Zimbabweans to continue their protests against government oppression and said he was willing to risk his life by leading them.

Cooperation between the Zimbabwean bishops' conference and the Pretoria-based southern African conference has increased, Bishop Dowling said, adding that "visits of encouragement and solidarity are crucial" to South Africa's neighbor.

U.S. Bishop Thomas G. Wenski of Orlando, Fla., chairman of the U.S. bishops' international policy committee, expressed solidarity with Zimbabweans "as they confront a growing humanitarian and governmental crisis."

Bishop Wenski said in an April 11 letter to Archbishop Robert Ndlovu of Harare, president of the Zimbabwean bishops' conference, that the U.S. bishops offered their "profound respect" for Zimbabwe's bishops' "brave and faithful pastoral ministry in these difficult days."

END

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