Kunonga Blamed for Persecution in Zimbabwe

By Matthew Davies,

Episcopal News Service
June 3, 2011

The 16 Anglicans who were illegally arrested in Zimbabwe this week for resisting eviction and protecting their homes from intruders associated with a rival church have been released on bail following a failed attempt by local police to embellish the details and augment the charges brought against them.

"The trumped-up charges were amended several times as they could not come up with charges that could stick," Bishop Chad Gandiya of the Diocese of Harare wrote in a June 3 e-mail to ENS. "First they were charged with unlawful entry, then that was changed to theft, and finally public nuisance. It's very sad indeed."

Gandiya, who was elected to lead the Harare diocese in May 2009, also bemoaned the treatment of some of the Anglicans detained, two of whom are diabetic and were refused medication. "Thank God that their sugar levels have now stabilized," he said, adding that one priest failed to sit a graduate exam because he was incarcerated.

Zimbabwe's Anglicans have faced repeated harassment and violence from President Robert Mugabe's police forced since renegade bishop Nolbert Kunonga was officially excommunicated by the Church of the Province of Central Africa in May 2008.

A Mugabe ally, Kunonga still claims ownership of the diocese's Anglican churches and backs the persecution of the country's loyal Anglicans who are routinely intimidated and prevented from worshipping in their own church buildings.

Meanwhile, Mugabe continues to cling onto his 30-year rule as the country's infrastructure crumbles and its law and order deteriorates.

The Rev. Petero Sabune, Africa partnerships officer for the Episcopal Church, noted that June 3 marks the commemoration of the Ugandan martyrs who in 1886 marched to Namugongo singing songs of praise.

"They were united by their faith and they gave their lives with humility and fierce determination," he said. "Sadly the events of those days are being experienced by our brothers and sisters across our beloved continent of Africa. People gathering for worship are beaten and imprisoned in Harare ... Those martyrs of Uganda of long ago, gave us the seeds for a continent of thriving faith. Let us pray for our brothers and sisters currently living with fear that Jesus who ascended will be with them in their hour of need."


---Matthew Davies is an editor/writer of Episcopal News Service.

Another Tragedy for the Tsvangirai Family

The four-year-old grandson of Zimbabwe's Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai has drowned in a swimming pool at the family's home in Harare.

The death of the child, Sean, comes less than a month after Mr Tsvangirai's wife Susan died in a car crash.

The prime minister had been at a ministerial meeting in Victoria Falls at the time of the drowning, but left to be with his family.

He had only recently returned to work after mourning his wife's death. Mr Tsvangirai was injured in the March crash that killed his wife of 31 years.

Sean Tsvangirai was the son of the prime minister's second son, Garikai, who lives in Canada but had been in Harare since his mother's death.

Ministers from Zimbabwe's power-sharing government had been meeting for a three-day bonding session in a luxury hotel in the resort of Victoria Falls.

The exercise was intended to help the former rivals trust each other and work together after years of division.

Mr Tsvangirai was sworn in on 13 February as part of a new power-sharing government with President Robert Mugabe.

The unity government is tasked with reversing years of economic decline in the country.

Read it here.

Thousands Mourn Susan Tsvangirai

Thousands of people have turned out to see Susan Tsvangirai, wife of Zimbabwe's prime minister, buried at their rural home in Buhera. She died in a car crash last Friday in which her husband was injured.

Supporters of Mr Tsvangirai's MDC party were joined by diplomats, government officials and African heads of state.

Her death has triggered an unlikely political truce between President Robert Mugabe and the MDC, to "unite us in spirit" according to one MDC leader.

Speaking at a church service for Susan Tsvangirai on Tuesday, Mr Mugabe said the "hand of God" was behind the crash.

After Mr Mugabe's comforting words Tendai Biti - MDC secretary-general and finance minister in the unity government - said the president was "after all a human being".

"I think if there is one thing that Mrs Tsvangirai has done, it is not to unite us as that document purported to do - the document of the 15th September - but to try to unite us in spirit, " Mr Biti added, referring to the power-sharing agreement recently implemented.

Morgan Tsvangirai was sworn into office last month as part of the deal which is intended to rescue Zimbabwe's collapsed economy.

The Tsvangirais, who had been married for 31 years, were travelling to Buhera from the capital, Harare, when their car collided with an aid lorry near Beatrice on Friday afternoon.

The crash occurred about 50km (30 miles) south of the capital.

The prime minister was first treated in a Harare hospital and later flown to neighbouring Botswana for rest and medical tests.

The driver of the lorry has been charged with culpable homicide. His lawyers says he will plead not guilty.

The police have said the lorry side-swiped the prime minister's vehicle.

Read it all here.

Tsvangirai's Wife Killed

Zimbabwe's new prime minister was slightly injured and his wife killed Friday when their car collided with a truck on one of the nation's notoriously bad roads, officials with his party told reporters outside the Harare hospital where he was being treated.

Morgan Tsvangirai, 56, was sworn in last month as prime minister of a unity government in the troubled southern African nation after years in opposition to the regime of President Robert Mugabe. Tsvangirai and his wife, Susan, were en route to their rural home in the eastern district of Buhera, where a rally was planned for Saturday, when the crash occurred.

Information about how the accident happened and the nature of the prime minister's injuries was sketchy, but a party aide said Tsvangirai's life was not at risk.

Party officials at the hospital in Harare, the capital, confirmed the death of Susan Tsvangirai unofficially but said the family and doctors would release a formal statement later.

Mugabe, who lost his first wife, Sally, to kidney failure in 1992, visited Tsvangirai at the hospital for more than an hour. The president was accompanied by a high-level delegation that included his current wife, Grace, Defense Minister Emmerson Mnangagwa and Reserve Bank Gov. Gideon Gono.

James Maridadi, a spokesman for Tsvangirai's Movement for Democratic Change, or MDC, told journalists at the hospital that the prime minister was in a three-car convoy when a truck narrowly missed the leading car but hit the second, which was carrying Tsvangirai and his wife. The couple's vehicle rolled three times, he said, and Susan Tsvangirai was thrown out of the car.

He would not comment on reports that an aide was also injured in the crash.

The couple had been married 31 years, with six children.

________________________________________

May God comfort the Prime Minister in this tragic loss.

Journalists Suspended for Not Supporting Mugabe

Zimbabwe's Retrenchment Board has ruled against the state-owned Zimbabwe Broadcasting Holdings' (ZBH) bid to retrench six of its journalists who were suspended in June 2008 on allegations of "acting in a manner inconsistent with the fulfillment of the implied conditions" oftheir contracts.

Monica Gavela, Patrice Makova, Garikai Chaunza, Bright Paradza, Robert Tapfumaneyi and Sibonginkosi Mlilo were suspended following allegations that the state broadcaster had failed to adequately campaign for President Robert Mugabe in the run-up to the 29 March 2008 elections.

The board ruled that ZBH failed to follow proper retrenchment procedures and should have met with the Works Council before coming up with thedecision to retrench them. ZBH was then advised to start the process afreshif they still wished to retrench the journalists.

Their suspensions came barely a month after the dismissal of the then-chiefexecutive officer Henry Muradzikwa on 14 May for refusing ministerial orders to deny the opposition Movement of Democratic Change (MDC) favourable coverage in the run-up to the elections. MISA-Zimbabwe's investigations indicated that the journalists were being victimised for not showing enough enthusiasm in supporting the government of President Robert Mugabe. The ZBH is run under directives of the Ministry of Information andPublicity.

Updates the case of suspended journalists at the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation: http://www.ifex.org/en/content/view/full/96018

Mugabe Not Trusted to Fulfill Terms of Agreement

The agreement by President Robert Mugabe and opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara to form a power-sharing government that would bring and end to the political violence that has wracked Zimbabwe, has elicited words of caution from the Bishop of Harare, Dr Sebastian Bakare.

Speaking to the media at the 14th Lambeth Conference in Canterbury on July 22, Dr Bakare warned that Zimbabwe’s history did not bode well for the success of the Memorandum of Understanding signed on July 21 by President Mugabe and the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leaders brokered by South African President Thabo Mbeki. A similar agreement signed by President Mugabe and Joshua Nkomo to end the civil war in Matabeleland between Mugabe’s ZANU-PF party and Nkomo’s ZAPU party, which made Nkomo a member of the government in 1982, served to eliminate the last significant opposition to the regime.

“We are very fearful coming from our history,” Dr Bakare said. “The other Memorandum of Understanding [between Mugabe and Nkomo] swallowed up the other party."

“I want to believe that the opposition side is aware that Mugabe is not there just to hand in power,” the bishop warned.

President Mugabe has held power since Zimbabwe’s independence in 1980. However on March 29 ZANU-PF lost its majority in parliament, and independent observers report Mugabe lost the popular vote for president. However, the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission held that Tsvangirai failed to achieve an outright majority and ordered a run-off for June 27.

A widespread campaign of murder, violence and intimidation mounted by the police and ZANU-PF cadres against the MDC led Tsvangirai to pull out of the election, leaving Mugabe the winner of the uncontested presidential race.Popular unrest and pressure from the overseas community, however, led to negotiations between the two parties overseen by South Africa’s Thabo Mbeki.

The Memorandum of Understanding calls for an end to hate speech and political violence, the lifting of the ban on humanitarian organisations to enable them to distribute relief, and setting the objectives and priorities for a new government that will address the economic decline and political malaise, among other things, all to be agreed within two weeks.

Source: Religious Intelligence News

For related stories on the situation in Zimbabwe, go here, here and here.

US Resolution to Sanction Mugabe's Regime

A US draft resolution would slap a UN arms embargo on Zimbabwe as well as financial and travel sanctions on President Robert Mugabe and 11 of his aides, according to the text seen by AFP Wednesday.

The text also demands that the Harare government "begin without delay a substantive dialogue between the parties with the aim of arriving at a peaceful solution that reflects the will of the Zimbabwean people as expressed by the March 29 (first-round presidential) elections."

The US draft would require all member states to take the necessary measures to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale or transfer to Zimbabwe "of arms or related material of all types, including weapons and ammunition, military vehicles and equipment, paramilitary equipment and spare parts."

The text, not yet formally introduced in the 15-member Security Council, would also impose a travel ban and an assets freeze on Mugabe, Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, Justice Minister Patrick Chinamasa and nine others for their role in abetting the state-sponsored violence against the opposition, repressing human rights or undermining democracy.

The draft is virtually certain to be watered down as South Africa, the main mediator in Zimbabwe's domestic political crisis, and veto-wielding China, a key ally of Harare, oppose its tough provisions.

US Ambassador to the UN Zalmay Khalilzad said he was continuing consultations on the text Wednesday, adding: "We should be in a position to introduce something (formally) relatively soon."

Khalilzad also told reporters that the Security Council would hear a briefing on Zimbabwe developments next Tuesday.

The US delegation proposed that UN Deputy Secretary General Asha-Rose Migiro, who attended the just-ended African Union (AU) summit in Egypt, and UN troubleshooter Haile Menkerios, who unsuccessfully sought to mediate an end to the Zimbabwe crisis last month, brief the council.

But Vietnam's Ambassador to the UN Le Luong Minh, who chairs the council this month, said there was no agreement yet among members on the format of that briefing. "There was consensus on the need for such a briefing or meeting, but there was no agreement yet on the format," he added.

The Vietnamese envoy also stressed that the US draft resolution has not yet been formally submitted to the council.

Tuesday AU leaders capped their summit in Sharm el-Sheikh by adopting a resolution calling for a power-sharing deal in Zimbabwe with the opposition.

But Wednesday, opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai rejected calls to form a national unity government, saying it would not solve the country's crisis after Mugabe's widely condemned one-man election.

He said such an arrangement would merely accommodate Mugabe after much of the world had labeled his regime illegitimate.

Read it all here.

Tsvangirai: No Political Bandaid on Zimbabwe's Wound

Zimbabwe's opposition leader on Wednesday rejected calls to form a national unity government, saying it would not solve the country's crisis after Robert Mugabe's widely condemned one-man election.

Speaking the day after an African Union summit called for a unity government, Morgan Tsvangirai said it would merely accommodate Mugabe after much of the world had labeled his regime illegitimate.

"A government of national unity does not address the problems facing Zimbabwe or acknowledge the will of the Zimbabwean people," Tsvangirai told reporters.

"The resolution does not recognise the illegitimacy of the June 27 election and the fact that most African leaders refused to recognise Mugabe as head of state."

The Movement for Democratic Change leader added that it does not acknowledge "that the MDC, as the winner of the last credible election, on March 29, should be recognised as legitimate government of Zimbabwe."

Tsvangirai defeated Mugabe in the first round of the presidential election in March, but official vote totals showed him just short of an outright majority.

The opposition leader subsequently pulled out of last Friday's run-off, saying nearly 90 of his supporters had been killed and thousands injured in violence he blamed on pro-Mugabe militia.

His comments Wednesday came after Mugabe's regime hailed the AU resolution, describing it as an echo of the 84-year-old leader's call for dialogue.

"Government is ready for dialogue with whoever, a dialogue for national unity in Zimbabwe," Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said.

Read it all here.

Catholic Bishops Urge Consensus Govt in Zimbabwe

CAPE TOWN, South Africa -- The Southern African Catholic Bishops' Conference has called on the international community to work with leaders in the region to resolve the political crisis in Zimbabwe.

"We are deeply concerned at this situation and warn that unless there is a unified effort from the international community, with the leadership of southern African countries, the hopeless situation of violence, famine and uncertainty will result in a vast humanitarian crisis that will engulf the whole southern African region," bishops from South Africa, Botswana and Swaziland said June 24.

In the statement issued by South African Cardinal Wilfrid Napier of Durban, conference spokesman, the bishops called for "a consensus model of government that involves all Zimbabweans" to be established by the international community in cooperation with the Southern African Development Community.

While the conference "passionately supports" the "legitimate aspiration" of Zimbabweans to choose their president in a fair election, "the politically motivated violence, intimidation and torture have made a just and fair runoff presidential election virtually impossible," the bishops said."A 'winner-takes-all' solution that rewards the ruling party for its atrocities and criminal mismanagement will only entrench the sufferings of the most vulnerable," they said.

The crisis was magnified June 22 when Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, said his party decided to withdraw from the June 27 presidential runoff against President Robert Mugabe because violence in the country had made a fair vote impossible.

Citing the growing violence and the action of Tsvangirai's party, the bishops said the election has "degenerated into a sham."

The opposition's choice "to try to protect the lives of supporters and others who have been targeted is understandable," they said."

The alternative would have been an undeclared civil war," they said.

Independent human rights groups say 85 people have died since the March 29 elections when Tsvangirai outpolled Mugabe but did not receive a majority of votes. Tens of thousands, most of them opposition supporters, also have been displaced from their homes."

We, together with other organizations, warn that the atrocities and barbarism of (Mugabe's ruling party) ZANU-PF are being documented," the bishops said in the statement. Mugabe's "actions and those of his generals, their wives, his thug supporters and the so-called war veterans are offensive in the eyes of God. Judgment awaits," they said.

People must continue to ask who is benefiting from Zimbabwe's crisis, the bishops said.

"We, the Catholic bishops of southern Africa, believe that the actions of the incumbent ruling elite deserve rigorous censure. They are a blight on every African," they said."

We call on the member states of the African Union to register their commitment to democracy in Zimbabwe by rejecting the legal fiction that this election has become and by not recognizing Robert Mugabe and his party as the legitimate government," they said.

Source: Catholic News Service

Tsvangirai Leaves Dutch Embassy

Zimbabwe's opposition leader left the Dutch Embassy for the first time since fleeing there over the weekend and called on African leaders Wednesday to assist in negotiating a solution to his country's political crisis.

Morgan Tsvangirai repeated his rejection of a presidential runoff set for Friday.
"What is important is that both parties must realize the country is burning and the only way is to sit down and find a way out of it," Tsvangirai said.

Tsvangirai looked relaxed as he addressed reporters at his home after leaving the embassy.
Tsvangirai pulled out of the runoff against President Robert Mugabe, saying attacks on his supporters by police, soldiers and militant Mugabe party members made a free and fair vote impossible.

Tsvangirai sought refuge at the embassy following after getting a tip soldiers were headed to his home.

During the news conference he said pre-election violence in Zimbabwe amounted to war, and called on African leaders to assist in negotiating a solution.

"We need a force to protect the people," Morgan Tsvangirai wrote in an opinion piece published Wednesday in London's The Guardian newspaper.

Tsvangirai sought refuge at the Dutch Embassy in Harare following the announcement of his withdrawal on Sunday.

"We do not want armed conflict, but the people of Zimbabwe need the words of indignation from global leaders to be backed by the moral rectitude of military force," he said. "Such a force would be in the role of peacekeepers, not troublemakers. They would separate the people from their oppressors and cast the protective shield around the democratic process for which Zimbabwe yearns."

Mugabe, by all indications intent on extending his nearly three-decade rule, insists Friday's vote will go ahead and he has grown only more defiant in the face of growing international pressure.

Read it all here. For background on this story, go here.

Mugabe Opponent Pulls Out

Tsvangirai had hoped to address his main campaign rally ahead of the runoff against 84-year-old President Robert Mugabe, who has held power since independence from Britain in 1980. But the Movement for Democratic Change claimed the militants were beating opposition supporters who were trying to reach the venue Sunday and said at least two were seriously injured.

It said the militants attacked journalists and forced African election monitors near the rally site to flee. Election monitors could not immediately be reached for comment and there was no independent confirmation of the opposition claims.

Tsvangirai won the March 29 vote but not by an absolute majority. Campaigning for the first round election was generally peaceful, but the runoff has been overshadowed by violence and intimidation, especially in rural areas.

Independent human rights groups say 85 people have died and tens of thousands have been displaced from their homes, most of them opposition supporters.

Police, state media block oppositionTsvangirai's attempts to tour the country have been stymied by police at roadblocks, and the state-controlled media have banned opposition advertisements, claiming they "contain inappropriate language and information." The media cited one ad that claimed that Tsvangirai won the election, "which is not the case, hence the runoff."

Tendai Biti, the opposition party's No. 2, was arrested within minutes of his return from South Africa last week and is being held on treason charges.

"It is evident that the Mugabe regime has disregarded regional and continental opinion that has been calling for an end to disruption of MDC election campaign programs, state sanctioned brutality, violence and harassment of the people of Zimbabwe," the opposition said in a statement.

At a rally in the western city of Bulawayo on Friday, Mugabe said that the opposition was lying about the violence and said everywhere he visited was peaceful. His powerful police chief pinned the blame firmly on the opposition and said that police would clamp down.

Mugabe was lauded early in his rule for campaigning for racial reconciliation. But in recent years, he has been accused of ruining the economy and holding onto power through fraud and intimidation.

The economic slide of what was once the region's breadbasket has been blamed on the collapse of the key agriculture sector after often-violent seizures of farmland from whites.
Mugabe claimed he ordered the seizures, begun in 2002, to benefit poor blacks. But many of the farms instead went to his loyalists.

Read it all here.

For more on Mugabe reign of terror and intimidation go here and here:

Mugabe Regime Blocks Humanitarian Aid

CHRISTIAN AID has condemned the arrest and court appearance of staff in its partner organisations in Zimbabwe. The intimidation of workers from the Christian Alliance, the Student Christian Movement of Zimbabwe (SCMZ), and the Ecumenical Support Services occurred after the government’s decision last week to suspend all food distribution by the humanitarian agencies.

The SCMZ sees the arrest and detention of five of its staff, the ransacking of its offices, and the confiscation of computers, digital cameras, and even a minibus, as a move to incapacitate the organisation and as part of the broader campaign of orchestrated intimidation. The organisation has been encouraging Christian students and youth to exercise their rights and responsibilities in the run-off presidential election next Friday.

“This is the time for the whole world to see and judge for itself the true characteristic of a government which has many times tried to convince the world that it is not only legitimate but democratic,” a statement from SCMZ said. “The government has abdicated its duties by declaring war on its own people, and by creating an atmosphere of general insecurity among the populace.”

Four million people in the country are dependent on food aid, and the Zimbabwe Christian Council (ZCA) has condemned its use as a political weapon. “We have hunger here, and things are just getting worse,” said Useni Sibanda of ZCA, whose offices were also raided. “The most vulnerable will be the most affected. There is a general food shortage, there is no food in the stores, and these people have no alternative — they are totally dependent on the food agencies.”
Shocking accounts of murder, torture, and violence against thousands of opposition supporters continue to be reported, with raids extending from poor townships to the suburbs.

The Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Thabo Makgoba, declared after a visit to Zimbabwe last week that the country was now a police state. “The levels of intimidation I witnessed underlie the crucial importance of deploying large numbers of both international and local-election monitors for the 27 June presidential run-off,” he said.

President Mugabe has warned that his self-styled “war veterans” are ready to go to war if Morgan Tsvangirai should win the election. Members of the armed forces and police have already been forced to cast ballots in favour of Mugabe before polling day. Tens of thousands of voters have had to flee the violence, effectively disenfranchising themselves, as they can vote only in the wards where they are registered.

Zimbabwean women have warned the United Nations that they are watching “a silent genocide” unfurl in their country. A delegation of women to the World Council of Churches (WCC) in Geneva called in a submission last week for an end to the violence, and the protection of women and girls in the post-election catastrophe.

“The violence persists and is real. No election observers are yet in the country, despite our calls, appeals, cries to the Southern African development community, the African Union, and to the United Nations,” they said. “We are watching a silent genocide of the poor and powerless, due to politically induced murders, criminal actions, and the collapse of basic services, resulting in deaths due to lack of health care, food, and shelter for the displaced. Most of the affected are women and children.”

Women’s Watch, another campaigning group in Zimbabwe, reports: “Burning plastic on skin, rape, torture, and even murdering rival party supporters have become familiar outrages. As the presidential run-off approaches, the volume of political violence has been turned up, the brutality is far more intense than it has ever been before, and the force used has been ratcheted up to incredibly high levels.”

Roman Catholic bishops have called for the base camps from which militias terrorise defenceless rural populations to be disbanded as a matter of urgency. They appealed for immediate deployment of regional, African Union, and other independent monitors throughout the country to observe the elections, and declared: “We insist on the principles of a credible election process.”
The WCC has called on churches to observe a season of prayer for the people and government of Zimbabwe, beginning on Sunday. “It is impossible to overstate the importance of this election — its fairness, its outcome, and its aftermath. Events in the coming weeks will challenge the people of Zimbabwe and the world to find means of overcoming violence in the exercise of democracy, and the results will influence the future of the nation and the region,” a letter to WCC member churches said.
Related Stories

Source: Church Times

International Pressure on Mugabe

President Robert Mugabe, campaigning for re-election in a presidential runoff June 27, warned he would not cede power to Western-backed opponents, the state media reported Monday.

"We shed a lot of blood for this country. We are not going to give up our country for a mere X on a ballot. How can a ball point pen fight with a gun?" the Herald, a government mouthpiece, quoted Mugabe as saying.

Speaking in the local Shona language in the central Silobela district Sunday, Mugabe said, that the nation threw off colonial domination in a guerrilla war in 1980, and his party was ready to fight again to stop the pro-Western Movement for Democratic Change from gaining control of the government, the paper reported.

Meanwhile, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown, speaking in London with U.S. President George W. Bush, warned Monday that international election monitors must be allowed to monitor the runoff or risk having Mugabe's "criminal regime" steal the election.

"(Mugabe's) criminal cabal ... threatens to make a mockery of free and fair elections in Zimbabwe," Brown said.

Bush said the U.S. would work with Britain and others to make sure the runoff poll is conducted to international standards.

"The people of Zimbabwe have suffered under the Mugabe leadership and we will work with you to ensure this process leads to free and fair elections, which obviously Mr. Mugabe does not want to happen," Bush said.

Read it all here.

Mugabe Regime: The Face of Evil

The men who pulled up in three white pickup trucks were looking for Patson Chipiro, head of the Zimbabwean opposition party in Mhondoro district. His wife, Dadirai, told them he was in Harare but would be back later in the day, and the men departed.

An hour later they were back. They grabbed Mrs Chipiro and chopped off one of her hands and both her feet. Then they threw her into her hut, locked the door and threw a petrol bomb through the window.The killing last Friday – one of the most grotesque atrocities committed by Robert Mugabe’s regime since independence in 1980 – was carried out on a wave of worsening brutality before the run-off presidential elections in just over two weeks. It echoed the activities of Foday Sankoh, the rebel leader in the Sierra Leone civil war that ended in 2002, whose trade-mark was to chop off hands and feet.

Mrs Chipiro, 45, a former pre-school teacher, was the second wife of a junior official of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) burnt alive last Friday by Zanu (PF) militiamen. Pamela Pasvani, the 21-year-old pregnant wife of a local councillor in Harare, did not suffer mutilation but died later of her burns; his six-year-old son perished in the flames.
Yesterday about 70 local MDC supporters gathered in Mr Chipiro’s small yard in Mhondoro, 90 miles south of Harare, to protect him. Inside the hut where his wife of 29 years died, women sang softly to a subdued drum beat next to the cheap wooden coffin. The thatched roof had been destroyed in the fire so they sat under the open sky. The lid could not be closed because Mrs Chipiro’s outstretched arm had burnt rigid.

Mr Chipiro, 51, a small, determined man, arrived from Harare on Friday afternoon to find his three brick huts ablaze. “I was trying to put the fire out,” he said. “I thought my wife was hiding in the bushes.”

His four-year-old nephew, Admire, heard him calling her. “He ran to me. He said, ‘Auntie has been beaten and they threw her in the fire’.”

Read it here.