The Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town, the Most Revd Dr Thabo Makgoba, said today that the dispute within the Anglican Church in Zimbabwe was “a result not of schism but of thuggery.”
In a statement issued after visiting Zimbabwe with Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury at the weekend, Archbishop Makgoba said members of a pro-Mugabe breakaway faction of the church under deposed bishop Nolbert Kunonga were being “helped to steal church property without recourse.”
Another hard-hitting and appropriate statement. I suppose that the Abp had to include the bit about sanctions and land appropriation, out of wanting to give some gesture towards having listened to Pres. Mugabe, but it is regrettable all the same. The sanctions line is pure propaganda and peddled again and again by this corrupt government. There are no sanctions against Zimbabwe, except blocks on the rich, corrupt ZANU/PF leadership transferring money overseas and going shopping at Harrods and Macys. (Even the latter becomes possible when trips to the UN are organised, and the usual ban on visiting NY has to be lifted.) There are also some arms bans, and some donor countries rigorously police aid allocation, for good reason. As for Britain stopping its support of land buying, it did so simply because the land was not going to peasant farmers but to the corrupt nomenklatura who mostly used it for weekend parties and left the land fallow.
BTW I think that the Abp of Cape Town’s ire is greater because a few years ago he was hoodwinked by a typical Mugabe propaganda initiative. He flew to Harare with a delegation of South African church leaders, and after dialogue appeared with Mugabe to say that a reconciliation deal had been arrived at through their intercession whereby Mugabe would play fairly etc and stop crushing the opposition with violence. Of course nothing happened.
I do not think that the Anglican Church in SA has the ear of the ANC leadership. Witness the recent blast by Bp Desmond Tutu who found that the government blocked his invitation to the Dalai Lama, because of course the SA govt is courting China and Chinese investment. If the ANC was listening to the Anglican Church then something would happen. But these are different days in South Africa, different from the days when the Church was a partner in the freedom struggle. Now it has served its purpose and is back on the sidelines.