Church in the World

Cracks open in African wall of silence on Mugabe

Zambia

Robert Mugabe must stop blaming "colonialists and imperialists" for misery caused by his own and other African leaders' mistakes, Zambia's Catholic bishops have said in their first statement concerning the violence visited on the population by the Zimbabwean President's ruling Zanu-PF party and its militias since the 29 March elections.

In the 10 June statement, the bishops of Zambia - which borders Zimbabwe - also called on the African Union and the Southern African Development Community (SADC) to make clear to Mr Mugabe that the call for democracy and the promotion of justice and peace came from his own continent.

They said that the UN should be allowed to monitor the run-off elections, which are due to take place on Friday, as well as SADC and the African Union, which failed to condemn widespread fraud in the 2002 elections.

While President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa has neglected to condemn the actions of Robert Mugabe's Zanu-PF party, African statesmen, including the former presidents of two of Zimbabwe's other neighbours - Botswana and Mozambique - as well as those of Nigeria, Malawi, Tanzania and Benin, and Kofi Annan, the former UN Secretary-General - last week signed a declaration expressing concern at the violence and calling on African leaders "at all levels" to oversee the election. On Tuesday the Kenyan Prime Minister Raila Odinga called on President Mugabe to step down. He said the run-off vote  had already been rigged and Zimbabwe was "an eyesore". SADC has begun deploying the first of more than 400 monitors it has pledged for the run-off elections - more than double the number it sent in March.

Zambia was seen as Zimbabwe's poorer neighbour before the latter's economy began plummeting in 2000.

The Zambian bishops also congratulated Zimbabweans for resisting the violence worsening around them, writing: "We applaud the fact that our brothers and sisters in Zimbabwe have shown great resilience and restraint in the midst of an extremely volatile political situation, harsh economic conditions and untold misery as a result of physical abuse."

But Zimbabwe's own bishops issued a note of caution in a statement issued two days later, saying that Christians were taking part in the violence, and urging them not to. "It is sad to see Christians, including Catholics, among the perpetrators of such violence. Where are our Christian principles and values?" they wrote.

The Zimbabwean bishops said: "People are being force-marched to political re-orientation meetings and are told that they voted ‘wrongly' in the presidential poll on 29 March 2008 and that on 27 June 2008, they will be given the last opportunity to ‘correct their mistake', [or] else the full-scale shooting war of the 1970s will resume."