State sponsored sex stings
If there was more to do to see the end of suffering
and deprivation brought on the people of Zimbabwe by the Grand Despot of Africa
in the gerontocratic evil hands of Robert Mugabe, 83 the time is now.
Reading Wande’s
blog [Now extinct] that explores the realities of events with the topic “Re - Zimbabwe bishop 'victim of state'” illustrates how the state apparatus works to completely
discredit and suppress any opposition to the rotten regime of Mugabe.
I left a comment on that blog which I flesh out the
more in this write-up, because this is not the first time the Mugabe regime has
used the state agencies to bring down and disgrace “men of the cloth” who pose a
threat to his kind of government.
Before the case of Bishop Pius Ncube who resigned
his post as the Archbishop of Bulawayo on the 11th of September 2007,
there was the one of the Reverend
Canaan Banana, the first president of Zimbabwe with Robert Mugabe as his Prime
Minister who after Mugabe usurped all power was accused and convicted of 11 counts
of sodomy and eventually, he served two years in prison as well as getting defrocked,
he died in 2003.
A similar sodomy charge was brought against Anwar Ibrahim the Prime Minister
and challenger to the regime of Dr Mahatir bin Muhammed
of Malaysia in 2000 which lead to a conviction until an appeals court overturned
it in 2004.
Making the most embarrassing charges
I am sure there are many other examples of political
machinations using the state apparatus to besmirch, tarnish and blackball people
who pose a challenge to the ruling class and their figureheads, usually, it is
almost impossible to successfully find justice if all the scales are tilted against
you.
So, back to Pius Ncube, there would have been too many
precedents for him not to think that he would be targeted, not by bullets for martyrdom
in the cause for humanity in Zimbabwe as he had expected, but through undermining
his credibility, authority, respect and integrity.
The reporting of the matter surrounding the shaming
of Pius Ncube is a bit sketchy as the foreign press are refused the access to report
events happening in what is becoming a recluse of tyranny – if we cannot report
we can speculate.
As a Roman Catholic bishop, one would think the bishop
is a subject of clerical
celibacy and since sodomy is taken as par for the course for such persons of
devotion (the last clause is a wild generalisation which probably has no basis in
fact but is very well an urban myth – See A Very Short
History Of Clergy Sexual Abuse In The Catholic Church), adultery would create
a greater embarrassment.
The woman the bishop is said to have been caught with
in his bedroom was the estranged wife of someone who subsequently lodged a 20 billion
Zimbabwean dollar adultery suit for redress, though now the adultery charge has
been dropped.
The dead-hand of the government must have been involved
in this quest to embarrass a strident opponent of Robert Mugabe who by reason of
his religious position was untouchable; however, if an affair did take place
amidst the protestations of the bishop, my comments on the reference blog have gone
thus.
My Comments
Whilst I feel some sympathy for the bishop in that he
was one of the few living in Zimbabwe who could speak up and not get beaten up by
the police, his error of judgment and lax moral values have compromised his integrity.
He has an uphill battle to maintain his rights struggle
without being heckled down as an adulterer whenever he speaks.
The fact is, when you set yourself aside to fight for
a humanitarian cause, you must also separate yourself from the wiles and excesses
of life - as a man of the cloth, he surely must have been well aware of that.
Finally, he has let both his cause and the people of
Zimbabwe down, I hope I have not judged him too harshly, but his cause should have
been a lot greater than sexual fulfilment with another man's wife, he did not consider
the consequences of his actions.
I really do hope all the people involved in this would
be discredited and the bishop would be vindicated, the plot, meanwhile thickens.
PS:
It would appear the comment I placed has been lost probably due to some gremlin
activity - That is beside the point, the originating blog is still part of my inspiration
for this write-up and it remains acknowledged as such. [When I checked the
originating blog in December 2019, it appears to have disappeared.]
Other references
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