wfn.org | United Methodists work for peace in Zimbabwe

[NewsDesk <NewsDesk@UMCOM.ORG>]

March 22, 2002  News media contact: Tim Tanton7(615)742-54707Nashville,
Tenn.  10-21-31-71BP{125}

NOTE: A head-and-shoulders photograph of Bishop Christopher Jokomo is
available at http://umns.umc.org/photos/headshots.html.

By Dean Snyder and Jane Malone*

MUTARE, Zimbabwe (UMNS) - United Methodist pastors throughout Zimbabwe took
to their pulpits to call their nation to peace following a fiercely
contested presidential election in March.

While business pretty much continued as usual in urban areas, such as
Harare, the nation's capital, and Mutare, the eastern urban center near
Africa University, rural communities reported widespread incidents of
violence, intimidation and retribution before and after the March 9-11
election. 

District superintendents and pastors called for peace in the days after the
election, according to the Rev. Gift Machinga, superintendent of the Mutare
Central District. Most superintendents visited troubled rural communities to
be with pastors and congregations experiencing election-related stress.

In the rural congregation where he attended worship on March 17, the Sunday
after the election, Machinga said one person rose during the service to
confess his participation in violence during the election. The congregation
responded to the man's confession and request for forgiveness with "great
rejoicing," he said. 

Election observers from the World Council of Churches and the Zimbabwe
Council of Churches said, in a March 13 report, that the campaign preceding
the election included "many incidents of harassment, rape, malicious damage
to property and general breakdown in the rule of law." 

The opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, has charged that
its leaders have been subjected to violent retribution in rural communities
following the election. The party disputes the validity of the polling.
 
The ruling party, ZANU-PF (Zimbabwe African National Union - Patriotic
Front) has been accused of deploying men to intimidate voters in rural
areas. The men are designated as veterans of the liberation war that won
Zimbabwe its freedom in 1980. ZANU-PF also organizes youth brigades, trained
at the Border Gezi youth training center in Mt. Darwin in central Zimbabwe,
to intimidate rural communities through violence, according to a United
Methodist church leader. 

In a rural community in eastern Zimbabwe's low veldt, a United Methodist
layman told visitors from the United States that his truck had been
surrounded by dozens of youth in a ZANU-PF brigade on the Sunday afternoon
following the election. The youths lifted the truck, containing him, his
wife and young daughter, off the ground and compelled him to chant ZANU-PF
slogans. When he did not do so - because he did not know the words to the
slogans - they began rocking the truck so fiercely that he expected it to be
overturned or worse. A young woman in the group persuaded the youth to drop
the truck and let the family go. 

Local political leaders agreed to discuss with visitors the community's need
for international help in its continuing efforts to recover from massive
damage caused to buildings, bridges and farmland in the area by Cyclone
Ellene in 2000.

On the way to this meeting, the visitors met a man whose face was cut and
bruised and whose legs contained numerous welts and sores. Driving with his
father after the election, he had been stopped by ZANU-PF war veterans, who
shot out his car tires and then beat him, he said. The attack was motivated
by a belief that he had been a local leader of the opposition party, he
said. 

The local church member driving the visitors reported that two
schoolteachers in the same town, suspected of supporting the Movement for
Democratic Change, had had their arms broken by ZANU-PF supporters following
the election. 

Zimbabwe United Methodist church leaders and the U.S. visitors met March 19
with the local tribal chief, who is also regional head of the ZANU-PF party,
and two ZANU-PF leaders who identified themselves as war veterans. 

Speaking through a translator, the chief expressed appreciation for past
help in recovery efforts from Christian Care, the relief arm of the Zimbabwe
Council of Churches affiliated with the U.K.-based Christian Aid, and
international relief agencies such as the United Methodist Committee on
Relief. The chief asked that churches not abandon Zimbabwe's people.

The war veterans asked U.S. visitors not to fear them, despite reports of
violence. "We are all poor people," one of the veterans said. "We need the
help of the United States."  

Because it occurred primarily in rural communities, much of the violence
surrounding Zimbabwe's election was not obvious to international election
observers, who watched the voting but did not talk freely with community
leaders and other residents, said one Zimbabwe church leader. Upset by the
South African government delegation's endorsement of the election as fair
and free, the leader said that outside observers should either listen to
local leaders who have experienced the violence or "just keep quiet" rather
than endorse the status quo.

Bishop Christopher Jokomo, head of the Zimbabwe Area of the United Methodist
Church, expressed appreciation that the nation preserved peace throughout
the election, despite the deep political disagreements. The ruling party and
opposition leaders must work together for the welfare of Zimbabwe's people,
he said.

He expressed concern about questions he has been receiving from U.S.
congregations and groups, such as Volunteers In Mission, about whether
Zimbabwe is safe for travelers. Visitors to Zimbabwe's urban communities and
United Methodist-related Africa University in Mutare are in no danger, he
emphasized.  

Said Jokomo: "Zimbabwe is as safe to travel to as it was 20 years ago, I
believe."  

	
# # #

*Snyder is the director of communications for the Baltimore-Washington
Conference. Malone, a United Methodist laywoman and Snyder's spouse, is an
advocate for affordable housing. They are in Zimbabwe on a mission trip.

*************************************
United Methodist News Service
Photos and stories also available at:
http://umns.umc.org