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May 9, 2008

Zimbabwe churches and hospitals ‘forced to close’ in post-election violence

by Harare correspondent and Moses Chitendwe
Ecumenical News International

HARARE/LUSAKA — Churches and church hospitals are being targeted by supporters of Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe who want to ensure their compatriots do not vote against the ruling Zanu-PF party in any future elections.

Representatives of the Christian Alliance, a loose grouping of Roman Catholic, Protestant and Evangelical churches and organizations, issued a recent warning of increasing violence by pro-government forces against individuals, families and communities accused of supporting Zimbabwe’s political opposition in elections held at the end of March.

“People are being abducted, tortured, humiliated by being asked to repeat slogans of the political party they are alleged not to support, ordered to attend mass meetings where they are told they voted for the ‘wrong candidate’ ... and, in some cases, people are murdered,” the churches stated.

Video footage, mostly shot by citizen journalists and distributed by the Solidarity Peace Trust, a Christian-backed group registered in South Africa, shows victims of violence recounting attacks.

Some church members have told Ecumenical News International they believe that groups such as the Zimbabwe Council of Churches, which is linked to the World Council of Churches, no longer issue statements because they are themselves deeply divided or frightened.

Supporters of  President Mugabe forced a church and two hospitals to suspend their operations recently, church and civil society groups are reporting.

The Zimbabwe Human Rights Association said in a report released on May 2 that at least five people had been beaten up at the Driefontein Sanatorium and the Muvonde Hospital in Mvuma, central Zimbabwe, by ruling party supporters. The attackers accused people at the mission of voting for the opposition in the elections.

The mission includes a school and one of the country’s best hospitals for tuberculosis patients. Members of the gang raided their victims' homes at night and broke doors with metal bars to force their victims to come out.

The Zimbabwe Peace Project, a coalition of rights and faith-based groups, said in a separate report that the Driefontein mission was “paralyzed.” It added, “The two mission hospitals are currently dysfunctional since the three resident doctors were forced to stop work.”

In Zimbabwe’s second largest city of Bulawayo, a grouping of pastors said on May 6, that the Assemblies of God church in the southern Bubi district was closed down after the resident pastor fled following attacks by militants belonging to the Zanu-PF ruling party.

The attackers from the ZANU-PF accused the pastor of supporting the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change party.

The MDC says at least 24 people from within its ranks have been killed in revenge attacks mainly by youth militia from Zanu-PF and by soldiers following the defeat of Mugabe’s party in the March 29 parliamentary elections.

Referring to attacks on the Bulawayo church, Josephat Amuli, the spokesperson for Churches in Bulawayo, told journalists: “This is an infringement of our constitutional right to freedom of worship.” He noted, “The pastor, a prominent Christian leader in the area, is currently hospitalized, as he was traumatized by the threats and accusations."

In Lusaka, in neighboring Zambia, Bishop John Mambo of the Church of God in Zambia endorsed concerns expressed by the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace in Zimbabwe that the prevailing situation in Zimbabwe is not conducive to a free and fair presidential runoff.

In an interview with Ecumenical News International, Mambo said, “The whole world is aware that a dangerous political turmoil has engulfed Zimbabwe because President Robert Mugabe wants to remain in power.”

Mugabe’s party, which has ruled Zimbabwe since 1980, was narrowly beaten by the MDC in the March 29 parliamentary elections. The electoral commission he appointed declared on May 2 that the 84-year-old president had also lost the presidential poll.

Mugabe’s opponent, Morgan Tsvangirai, was given 48 percent of the presidential vote, while Mugabe got 43 percent. Zimbabwe’s election law stipulates 50 percent plus one vote is required to avoid a runoff, but the MDC says it won the presidential poll outright and that it garnered 50.3 percent of the vote.

Mambo said he supported the concern of the Catholic justice and peace group in Zimbabwe about violence “perpetrated by the State police and military forces against supporters and sympathizers of the opposition.”

Zimbabwe has draconian laws against free reporting, and it has excluded almost all foreign journalists from the country since the run up to the March election.