wfn.org | Zimbabwe President Renews Attack on Homosexuals

[PCUSA.NEWS@pcusa.org]

29-April-1998 
98147 
 
    Zimbabwe President Renews Attack on Homosexuals 
 
    by Ecumenical News International 
 
HARARE, Zimbabwe-Zimbabwe's president, Robert Mugabe, launched a new attack 
on homosexuals April 22 and criticized the World Council of Churches (WCC), 
which, he claimed, 
intended to discuss homosexuality during its Eighth Assembly in Harare in 
December this year. 
 
    In an emotional eulogy at the home of Charles Chikerema, the late 
editor of a government newspaper, "The Herald," who died on April 21, 
President Mugabe said that homosexuality was evil and was not justifiable 
by any means. 
 
    "Animals in the jungle are better than these people because at least 
they know how to distinguish between a male and a female," said the 
Zimbabwean leader, speaking in the Shona language.  He repeated his views - 
which caused international controversy several years ago - 
that homosexuality was completely unacceptable and neither African nor 
Christian.  "Will God not punish us for such practices?" he said to 
applause from the mourners. 
 
    "The World Council of Churches is even coming here to debate 
homosexuality, even though it's known internationally that Zimbabwe is 
opposed to it," Mugabe said. 
 
    Observers in Harare said today that in his speech yesterday Mugabe was 
almost certainly reacting to reports in the Zimbabwe press that a 
homosexual organization in Zimbabwe would be allowed to attend the WCC 
Assembly.  According to high-ranking government sources, the reports have 
caused consternation. 
 
    A WCC spokesman in Geneva told ENI today that the organization, Gays 
and Lesbians of Zimbabwe, will not be taking part in the Assembly as a full 
participant but has received accreditation for a special section of the 
Assembly, known as the Padare (a Shona word for meeting place). The WCC 
spokesman also said homosexuality was not on the official agenda for the 
Assembly, but the delegates could, for example, commission a future study 
on the issue of sexuality. 
 
    Government officials in Harare also said that Mugabe was likely to 
refuse to open  the WCC Assembly if homosexuality was to be discussed.  "It 
would be self-contradictory of him to address a meeting that will 
deliberate on matters he has very strong views against," one senior 
official said. 
 
    The issue of homosexuality has been a controversial one for the WCC's 
332 Protestant, Orthodox and Anglican member churches. Following statements 
three years ago by Mugabe denouncing homosexuality, several WCC member 
churches, in the United States and Western Europe, expressed concern about 
holding the Assembly in Harare. The WCC then signed with  Mugabe's 
government a "Memorandum of Understanding" guaranteeing that the WCC would 
be 
able to hold its Assembly without interference from the Zimbabwe 
authorities. 
 
    In his eulogy for Chikerema, who was related to the president and often 
condemned homosexuality in newspaper articles, Mugabe praised Chikerema for 
writing "positive" articles about his own people. 
 
    He criticized sections of the independent media which, he said, were 
being used to impose new cultures on the Zimbabwean people.   "In Britain 
you will never find a paper that speaks bad about that country; why then in 
Zimbabwe do we not adopt a common ideology?" 
 
    Western journalists, he said, wrote positively about homosexuality, but 
he called on Zimbabwean journalists to be loyal to their country and 
condemn homosexuality. 

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