By Jan Raath
The Times
July 18, 2007
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/africa/article2092803.ece
Zimbabwe's opposition was in shock yesterday after the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, the Most Rev Pius Ncube, one of President Mugabe's most outspoken opponents, was pictured by state media apparently naked and with a woman.
In what appeared to be a carefully orchestrated sting, the cleric was shown undressing with the woman, in photographs presumed to have been taken by a secret camera installed in his bedroom.
Nine pictures were spread across a page in The Chronicle, the Government's mouthpiece in the western city of Bulawayo, where Archbishop Ncube is based.
The only photographs indisputably of Archbishop Ncube picture him alone. Others are blurred, and one — allegedly of him standing naked — does not appear to resemble him at all. Given their circulation, though, they left his supporters questioning whether he could retain his authority as one of President Mugabe's most fearless and credible critics.
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| Photographs in the Daily Herald purportedly showing Archbishop Pius Ncube taking off his shirt with a woman in the background. Inset shows him on his own. Other, apparently more explicit photos, were published in another state newspaper |
Archbishop Ncube was served with an £80,000 civil adultery case on Monday, claiming that he had a relationship with a secretary from his diocesan office. It was served by the deputy sheriff of Bulawayo, accompanied by a group of journalists and photographers from the government media.
Archbishop Ncube's lawyer has described the case as an "orchestrated attempt" to embarrass him and said that the cleric would deny the charges.
Archbishop Ncube, 61, has won huge respect internationally for his vociferous condemnation of human rights abuses under President Mugabe, despite constant harassment by government secret agents, who have threatened his elderly mother at least once. Friends have feared for his life. He regularly denounced President Mugabe as "an evil and corrupt dictator," remarks that could have had him imprisoned. He said that he prayed for President Mugabe, 83, to die, as the only way to end the tyranny.
He was increasingly looked to as Zimbabwe's version of the South African Nobel laureate Archbishop Desmond Tutu, and the only person able to rouse Zimbabweans and lead them to confront the regime. In March he declared that he was ready to march "in front of the blazing guns".
He was unavailable for comment yesterday. Father Frederick Chiromba, the spokesman for the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishop's Conference, said that a decision whether to issue a statement would be taken when the Roman Catholic Archbishop of Harare, the Most Rev Robert Ndlovu, the president of the conference, returned from a retreat.
State television filmed Archbishop Ncube saying on Monday, when the lawsuit was served on him: "We all have weaknesses. That's why when we pray we ask God for forgiveness."
Observers said that the pictures echoed an attempt by President Mugabe's secret police to entrap Morgan Tsvangirai, the opposition leader, in 2003. They videoed him secretly at a meeting where hired agents tried to lure him into making treasonous statements. The judge in his two-year treason trial found that the film presented as evidence had been doctored.
David Coltart, an opposition MP and a close friend of Archbishop Ncube, said: "Even if the pictures haven't been digitally altered, which could have been the case, it was clearly a CIO [Central Intelligence Organisation, Zimbabwe's state security body] sting operation.
"It was designed to silence the foremost critic of this regime. They have not been able to silence him using any other means. They know they can't kill him or detain him, so they think they can silence him by embarrassing him."
The state press published the story at length, under the headline "Pius Ncube shamed". Lawyers said that even if the allegations were correct, there were doubts that an affair would have been adulterous.
Rosemary Sibanda, the woman in the alleged relationship, was quoted as saying that she began to visit Archbishop Ncube at his residence two years ago, after her husband had separated from her and married another woman. She said that they would have sex "once every three or four months".
Mr Coltart asked: "In the context of what is going on in Zimbabwe now, what is worse: a leader committing genocide against his own people, or a person who has had some moments of weakness? On the scale of sins, especially in this country, this comes pretty low."
President Mugabe married his secretary, Grace Marufu, about 35 years his junior, in 1996 after a lengthy affair while his Ghanaian-born wife, Sally, suffered a kidney disease that proved fatal.
"This is hypocrisy in the extreme," Mr Coltart said. "The head of state stole his secretary from another man, was engaged in an adulterous relationship, in a country with one of the highest incidence of Aids in the world, while his wife was dying. My respect for Pius is undiminished."
President Mugabe had to be granted a special papal dispensation to be able to marry Mrs Marufu.
Pulpit rebel
1946 Pius Ncube was born in Gwanda, one of four children
1952 The family moved to Bulawayo, where he was educated at the Jesuit St Patrick's School
1973 He was ordained as a priest and worked in rural areas of what was Rhodesia during the civil war
1980 Robert Mugabe came to power. Ncube was a young Catholic priest in Matabeleland
1980's Mugabe's Gukurahundi campaign, launched against his former rivals in Matabeleland, killed about 20,000 people
1998 Ncube became the first black archbishop of Bulawayo
2002 The Amanu Trust, of which Ncube was chairman, suspended operations after Ncube's complaints against human rights violations provoked threats
2003 Ncube received a human rights award from Human Rights First, for speaking out against torture under Mugabe
2005 Called for a mass uprising to remove Mugabe from power, in the belief that the parliamentary elections would be fixed
2006 Received the Robert Burns International Humanitarian Award
Sources: Times archives; www.humanrightsfirst.org ; billboard.anu.edu.au
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