April 21, 2008

No cause for celebration on Zimbabwe anniversary

The Student Christian Movement of Zimbabwe says there is no cause for celebration on the 28th anniversary of their country's independence, due to the collapse of national health and education systems and the brutal suppression of democracy by the government of President Robert Mugabe and his supporters.

"There is nothing to celebrate from the economic collapse that our nation is faced with now. There is nothing to celebrate from a basket case which Zimbabwe is now, when in 1980 Zimbabwe was the bread basket of Africa," said the students' statement released in Harare and Geneva on April 18, the anniversary of Zimbabwe's independence from Britain in 1980.

The students in their statement said Mugabe is no different to the white minority rulers who oppressed the rights of the Zimbabwean people during a bitter civil war that preceded independence.

From Geneva the general secretary of the World Alliance of Reformed Churches, the Rev. Setri Nyomi, said, "It has been three weeks since the general elections in Zimbabwe. It is mind boggling that the results have still not been released." In a letter to Rev. Prince Dibeela, general secretary of the United Congregational Church of Southern Africa, for Zimbabwe independence day, Nyomi, a Ghanaian, said, "This is a miscarriage of justice. Let us join our sisters and brothers in Zimbabwe in praying towards and working for justice to be done."

The student Christian group, which belongs to the Geneva-based World Student Christian Federation, in its statement noted the "active role we played during the liberation struggle" and they acknowledged the "significance of the date, April 18, 1980, as the day that Zimbabweans were liberated from colonial bondage".

But they said the governance and legitimacy crisis that Zimbabwe now faces "is far from what the people of Zimbabwe were celebrating in 1980" given that Mugabe's government refuses to announce the results of the elections held on March 29.

"There is nothing to celebrate from a man-made collapse in the education and health delivery system," the student group stated. "There is nothing to celebrate from the deployment of military personnel, war veterans and youth militias to harass and brutalise civilians for voting for political leaders of their choice."

They added, "There is nothing to celebrate when the state manipulates and subverts the people's will by interfering in the announcement of the March 29th Presidential election results ... Above all, the nation can not celebrate the de facto military coup which Mugabe and his illegitimate service chiefs have imposed on Zimbabweans."

They said there is "no difference whatsoever between the conduct of [former Rhodesian prime minister] Ian Smith and Robert Mugabe in their oppression of Zimbabweans and in their insatiable appetite to go against the will of the people".

Smith headed a white minority regime in Rhodesia, as Zimbabwe was then called, that illegally declared independence from Britain in 1965 and it fought to stem a guerrilla war for majority rule being waged by sections of the majority black population.

The Christian students urged all Zimbabweans to continue with "the fight for genuine independence and freedom", and they urged the international local communities to remain united "in prayer and action to pressure Robert Mugabe to respect the will of the people".

The students cited the Book of Joel in the Bible, "His people should remember that, the Lord shall surely restore what the locust had eaten."

Many global Christian leaders have urged Zimbabwe to released the election results, and the general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev Samuel Kobia in a letter to his United Nations counterpart Ban Ki-Moon on April 11 said, "We want to register our deep concern about the implications of the current political crisis which may be not only regional but also international."