Church in the World

Leaking of church plan angers archbishop

Zimbabwe

A pioneering document that was to have spelled a new era in more outspoken lobbying of Robert Mugabe's dictatorship by Zimbabwe's Churches had been tampered with, leaving it as "soft as decaffeinated tea", Pius Ncube, Archbishop of Bulawayo has said, writes Abigail Frymann.

Speaking on Zimbabwe's SW Radio Africa on Monday he said he suspected that the document, "The Zimbabwe We Want", had been leaked to the Government ahead of publication. "It's not the original document that we agreed upon as Churches. I think someone - among the three bodies from the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference - leaked it to the Government." The archbishop said critical areas had been toned down and several pages taken out that had been signed by the country's three main Churches. A paragraph on the lack of free media had been replaced by a sentence saying the media was polarised and not working for national unity, he said.

"This Government has done enough harm, enough bullying. They are causing suffering and now they must come over and bully us, the Churches. That was supposed to be our document, not their document. I am pretty angry about this," said the archbishop.