Zimbabwe

Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells Excerpts

Thursday 10th March 2011 Lords Chamber

[The Lord Bishop of Bath and Wells]

My Lords, I, too, thank the noble Lord, Lord Avebury, for this timely debate. I rise to speak in it because of an association with Zimbabwe over some 20 years. I have had the privilege of both employing and training some of the Bishops who now lead the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe, and I attended most recently the consecration of the present Bishop of Harare, the Reverend Chad Gandiya.

The Anglican Church in Zimbabwe is undergoing a sustained and brutal persecution with its origins in a dispute over church properties and the non re-election of Dr. Kunonga, the former Bishop of Harare and someone widely regarded as a plant of the Mugabe regime. When Kunonga lost the election in 2007, instead of stepping down he went on to form a rival faction. The police have consistently failed to protect Anglican congregations and clergy. This is something that I have witnessed, all too painfully, for myself in a number of places.

Police claim to be acting on orders from above. This persecution is evident across the country, most evidently in Masvingo and Matabeleland. Members of your Lordships' House will recall that in the 1980s, shortly after independence, the Mugabe Government recruited the North Korean Fifth Brigade with the specific intention of subjugating Matabeleland through a series of well documented atrocities, amounting to what has been described since as ethnic cleansing.

The noble Lord, Lord Griffiths mentioned the current death threats which have been made against the Bishops of Harare and Manicaland, and both men have recently escaped through warnings from friends when attackers have been on the way. All the congregations in Harare and Manicaland are prevented from entering their churches, or being within 200 metres of them, each Sunday, and this has been the situation since 2008. Policing this situation requires the use of hundreds of officers every Sunday. There are weekly arrests of clergy without charge.

Most recently, an 89 year-old woman, Mrs Jessica Mendeya, was killed defending the church. The Bishop of Harare described the circumstances surrounding her death, and I warn your Lordships that the description is shocking. Gandiya said:

“People came on Friday night. They raped her, they cut her mouth and genitals and pierced various parts of her body”.

Those who did this said it was something to do with the fact that she belonged to the Anglican Church. Following this killing, Gandiya said that he hoped that the police would step in this time to offer them help. He said:

“My hope is that they will do their work in terms of protecting all the citizens of Zimbabwe without singling us out as people not to be protected”.

The Bishop has also spoken of the resilience of the people, again something I have personally witnessed on a number of occasions. Reporting on a meeting a week or so ago, Gandiya spoke of another elderly woman beaten by Kunonga's supporters who had lost the use of one of her arms. She said:

“They can come and beat me and render my other arm useless but I will never give up my faith”.

Your Lordships cannot fail to notice how both the murder and the attack that I have reported signal a move to targeting the old and defenceless, indicating new levels of violence and human rights abuses.

The Anglican tradition is strong in Zimbabwe. The church has been active in peacemaking and reconciliation. Bishop Gandiya in his enthronement sermon in Harare Cathedral, an occasion itself marked by the locking and barring of the cathedral, offered an olive branch to those who supported Dr Kunonga. Bishop Gandiya is a valued member of the Archbishops international visitor programme, which I have the privilege of chairing, a body which seeks to keep conversations going across the divisions of the communion.

The oppression of the Anglican Church must be seen in the context of the wider oppression of civil society in Zimbabwe, of those perceived to be, or in fact in, opposition to ZANU-PF. Freedom of association has long been strictly limited in Zimbabwe and this has extended into restrictions on freedom of worship for many Pentecostal and Methodist groups, as well as other Anglican groups. As other noble Lords have mentioned, human rights groups—most particularly Amnesty International, of which I am a member—and Human Rights Watch, have recorded the extent of those abuses over the past few years and are due to present these at the international human rights review of Zimbabwe, which will happen in November. But November is a long time away, and things are pressing.

The prerequisites for new elections outlined in the global peace agreement have not been met, as we have heard. We also know that ZANU-PF is gearing up for a brutal election campaign of propaganda, intimidation and violence which will be funded through misused government funds, illegal diamond sales and sympathetic foreign regimes.

The persecution of Anglican Christians in Zimbabwe involves one of the most serious and sustained violations of human rights and religious freedom and demands international advocacy. The most reverend Primates the Archbishops of Canterbury and York, together with the head of the All Africa Council of Churches and the Archbishop of Cape Town, have supported the need to develop a regional advocacy strategy. The international human rights review will not take place until November, as I have said, but discussion needs to take place. As the noble Baroness, Lady Boothroyd, has said, there is an opportunity surely for the representatives of SADC to enable something of this kind to happen in the meanwhile. The support of your Lordships' House in this regard would send a strong signal to all those who are seeking an end to violence and intimidation. I hope that this debate will contribute to a better and more peaceful outcome in the beautiful country of Zimbabwe.