March 7, 2008

US rights aide urges Zimbabweans: ‘Fight on’

A US civil rights leader, the Rev. Elbert Ranson, has urged Zimbabweans to continue fighting against an "unjust system" in the southern African country, and to engage in peaceful protests against their government.

“When the time is ripe, God will deliver the people of Zimbabwe from bondage,” Ranson said in a speech given when he presented awards to honour three Zimbabwean human rights activists and one South African. The ceremony was organised in the capital Harare by the Zimbabwe Christian Alliance, which groups church and civic organisations.

Ranson is a former aide to the late civil rights leader and Nobel Peace Prize Laureate the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr, who campaigned for African-Americans in the 1950s and 60s at a time when some US states still had statutory segregation. King was assassinated in 1968.

“I have come to inspire this great nation [ Zimbabwe] to know that God lives in men and women, loves his followers and he will prevail to the end,” said Ranson in his February 29 speech.

Zimbabwe , which is to hold presidential, parliamentary and local elections on March 29, has been ruled by President Robert Mugabe since independence from Britain in 1980. Mugabe is accused of human rights abuses, which he denies. He is also blamed for running down the once prosperous country’s economy to an extent it had inflation above 100,000 per cent for January, the highest in the world. Unemployment is estimated at more than 85 per cent and more than 3 million Zimbaweans out of a population of 12 million have fled the country.

Among those who received the awards at the ZCA ceremony was Anglican Bishop Sebastian Bakare. He was honoured for being one of the first people to call for talks between the ruling Zanu-PF party and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, to resolve the country’s crisis. Recently, Bakare was appointed to head the Anglican diocese of Harare, replacing Bishop Nolbert Kunonga, a vociferous ally of Mugabe, who has been dismissed by Anglican leaders in Central Africa.

Bishop Paul Verryn of the Methodist Church in South Africa was honoured for accommodating destitute Zimbabwean asylum seekers and economic refugees at his church in Johannesburg. The other two honoured human rights activists are the Rev. Nigel Johnson, the Roman Catholic founder of Radio Dialogue, a community radio in Zimbabwe’s second largest city of Bulawayo, and Joice Dube, director of the Southern African Women’s Institute for Migration.

The four were honoured for their promotion of peace and justice in Zimbabwe and in the southern African region.