May 16, 2008
Zimbabwe’s Rulers Unleash Police on Anglicans
By CELIA W. DUGGER
JOHANNESBURG — The pari****oners were lined up for Holy Communion on
Sunday when the riot police stormed the stately St. Francis Anglican
Church in Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital. Helmeted, black-booted officers
banged on the pews with their batons as terrified members of the
congregation stampeded for the doors, witnesses said.
A policeman swung his stick in vicious arcs, striking matrons, a girl
and a grandmother who had bent over to pick up a Bible dropped in the
melee. A lone housewife began singing from a hymn in Shona, “We will
keep wor****ping no matter the trials!” Hundreds of women, many dressed
in the Anglican Mothers’ Union uniform of black skirt, white ****rt and
blue headdress, lifted their voices to join hers.
Beneath their defiance, though, lay raw fear as the country’s ruling
party stepped up its campaign of intimidation ahead of a presidential
runoff. In a conflict that has penetrated ever deeper into Zimbabwe’s
social fabric, the party has focused on a growing roster of groups that
elude its direct control — a list that includes the Anglican diocese of
Harare, as well as charitable and civic organizations, trade unions,
teachers, independent election monitors and the political opposition.
Anglican leaders and pari****oners said in interviews that the church was
not concerned with politics and that it counted people from both the
ruling party and the opposition in its congregations. Yet the ruling
party appears to have decided that only Anglicans who follow Nolbert
Kunonga — a renegade bishop in Harare who is a staunch ally of President
Robert Mugabe — are allowed to hold services.
Over the past three Sundays, the police have interrogated Anglican
priests and lay leaders, arrested and beaten pari****oners and locked
thousands of wor****pers out of dozens of churches.
“As a theologian who has read a lot about the persecution of the early
Christians, I’m really feeling connected to that history,” said Bishop
Sebastian Bakare, 66, who came out of retirement to replace Mr. Kunonga.
“We are being persecuted.”
Church leaders say the struggle in the Anglican diocese of Harare is not
only over its extensive, valuable properties, but also over who controls
the church itself in a society riven by political divisions, especially
since the disputed elections of March 29.
Mr. Kunonga, who broke with the church hierarchy late last year and
recently called Mr. Mugabe “a prophet of God,” is known in Zimbabwe as
an avid sup****ter of the ruling party and a proponent of its seizures of
white-owned commercial farms, often accomplished violently. In fact, he
appears to have benefited richly from the policy himself.
While such strong allegiances have clearly played a role in the attacks
on pari****oners, Anglicans beyond Zimbabwe have also taken steps likely
to have enraged Mr. Mugabe and the ruling party, known as ZANU-PF.
The worldwide Anglican Communion issued a statement in January
expressing “deep concern” about Mr. Kunonga’s close ties to Mr. Mugabe.
Then on April 21, amid the postelection intimidation of opposition
sup****ters, the communion called on all Christians to pray for
Zimbabwe’s rescue “from violence, the concealing and juggling of
election results, deceit, oppression and corruption.”
And three weeks ago, an Anglican bishop in South Africa persuaded a
judge there to halt the delivery of Chinese-made ammunition to
Zimbabwe’s military — bullets the bishop warned could be used to repress
Zimbabweans.
This is not the first time that a church has felt the ruling party’s
fury. Last year, state-controlled television showed photos of one of Mr.
Mugabe’s most ferocious critics, Archbishop Pius Ncube, a Roman
Catholic, in bed with a married woman, effectively neutralizing him as
the leader of the clerical opposition to Mr. Mugabe’s rule. This month,
the state-run newspaper, The Herald, re****ted that the woman had died
“lonely and miserable after being abandoned by Ncube.”
Now Bishop Bakare’s followers, who include most of the city’s Anglicans,
say that Mr. Kunonga has falsely told the government that they are
politically aligned with the opposition — an accusation the ruling party
seems to be taking seriously.
Despite a High Court order requiring that Anglican churches be shared
among the wor****pers, church officials say that only people who attend
services led by priests allied with Mr. Kunonga have been allowed to
pray in peace.
This week, the Supreme Court dismissed Mr. Kunonga’s appeal of the
sharing order, but church leaders say they are far from sure that the
law will be enforced.
A widowed mother of five who sings with the choir at St. Francis Church
in Waterfalls — and who was too frightened to be quoted by name — asked
despairingly this week where she could seek solace now that her church
was no longer sacrosanct.
“I go to church to talk to the Lord and feel better,” the woman said.
“Now, I don’t know where to go.”
Neither Mr. Kunonga nor his spokesman, the Rev. Morris Brown Gwedegwe,
has returned repeated calls seeking comment.
When Chief Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka, a police spokesman, was
asked about police assaults on Anglican pari****oners, he said he was
unaware of such episodes and asked for the names of those complaining.
“Give me names, because without those I will not comment,” he said.
“Thank you and bye.” Then he hung up.
At the heart of the conflict with Mr. Kunonga is more than property and
power, but also some of the church’s core values. Mr. Kunonga told
Anglican officials last year that he was withdrawing from the mother
church because of its sympathy toward homo***uals, they said. By
October, the Anglican Province of Central Africa said Mr. Kunonga had
“severed” his relation****p with the church.
Bishop Bakare said Mr. Kunonga had preached hatred of gays and lesbians,
contrary to the Harare diocese’s stand. “We believe in a church that is
inclusive, a church that accepts all people,” Bishop Bakare said.
But even a spokesman for an alliance of conservative bishops who oppose
“the ordination of practicing homo***uals as priests,” distanced them
from Mr. Kunonga. Arne H. Fjeldstad, head of communications for the
alliance, the Global Anglican Future Conference, said in an e-mail
message that Mr. Kunonga was not part of the conference, but “rather
that he’s one of Mugabe’s henchmen.”
Mr. Kunonga appears to have gained much from that loyalty. In 2003, the
government gave Mr. Kunonga a 1,630-acre farm outside Harare and a
seven-bedroom house that sits on it, according to Marcus Hale, who said
the farm, bought by his family in 1990 for $2 million, was confiscated
without payment.
Mr. Kunonga’s influence has been felt in church after church in recent
weeks as well. Anglican pari****oners said they found themselves shut out
or driven out by police officers who claimed to be acting on orders from
their superiors to allow only Mr. Kunonga’s priests to preside.
At St. Paul’s Church in the Highfield suburb of Harare, the congregation
refused to budge and kept singing “Gloria in Excelsis Deo” when a dozen
policemen entered the church on May 4. But the commander radioed for
backup, and soon more than 50 riot police officers arrived, the church’s
wardens said.
Hundreds of pari****oners were then drummed out of the church to the
deafening beat of baton sticks banging on pews. People began taking out
their cellphones to photograph the policemen who had forced them out.
The officers then charged into the scattering crowd, batons swinging.
“Even myself, they hit my hand,” said a stunned seamstress. “They said,
‘Go back to your homes. You are not supposed to be here.’ ”
A journalist in Harare, Zimbabwe, contributed re****ting.
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