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Anti-Mugabe sermon lands clergyman into serious trouble
Zimbabwe Youth Forum
June 08 , 2008

Reverend Mhlanga, the outspoken and well-known Mt Selinda mission chaplain was abducted on Monday night following his powerful sermon on the injustice, corruption, misgovernance and the illegitimacy of the Mugabe regime from 1980 to date. This sermon was received well by the teachers and students who were in heavy attendance, nonetheless a war veteran who also works at the mission reported the matter to a ZANU PF base located about 3km away from the school leading to the invasion of the mission and the subsequent abduction of Rev Mhlanga by the ZANU PF militia.

This drew the wrath of students, culminating to a counter raid the following day at 7pm, students whose majority constituted the upper six visited the base armed with stones, smelling death the militia temporarily abandoned the base, not to be outdone they regrouped, organized themselves and raided the mission again armed with matchets, spears, knobkerries and riffles. This brutal attack saw 20 students being injured and by the time of going to print 17 of them were hospitalized at the mission hospital. The number of those who fled from the school has not yet been verified. Three teachers were also brutalized in the scuffle, on allegations that they incited students. In a separate incident soldiers in military regalia today force marched students into a lecture theatre and addressed them to the effect that if they do not vote ZANU PF in the presidential runoff this country will be rocked by a war. With the blessings of the governor and resident minister an unidentified uniformed general who spoke just after Chiwewe, promised blood and thunder in the event of an MDC victory. He described MDC as conduit for regime change agenda and unequivocally stated that it is only Cde Mugabe who has the capacity to defend this nation from being put under the impending British domination.

Youth Forum views this as a continuation of state sanctioned violence meant to cow the electorate into intimidation ahead of the June 26 presidential runoff by ZANU PF .We salute the brave Chaplain, teachers and students at Mt Selinda for standing up against all odds for what is good. Democracy will obviously prevail regardless of the evil efforts by the regime to suppress it, history buttresses this well. We also fully welcome the intervention of high school students in this fight for the democratization of this country, they have proved that it is their country too despite their usual exclusion from issues of national importance and as Youth Forum we urge all pro-democratic organizations to consider involving these youths of school going age in their programmes.

We also condemn the illegal and unnecessary harassment of UK and USA diplomats at the hands of the state which occurred on Wednesday, the same day when Morgan Tsvangirai, his deputy Thokozani Khupe and Lovemore Moyo, the MDC national chairman were arrested and released without a charge. This shows that ZANU PF is determined to do anything, which facilitates its illegitimate stay in power, no matter how unethical, immoral, and illegitimate it maybe. We demand that ZANU PF bases be disbanded for we are not in a war situation. If ever there is going to be a government of national unity as suggested in some media circles it must reflect the will of the people as highlighted by the March 29 harmonised election. Talks for such a critical national issue must not be restricted to few politicians as what happened in the so called 1987 unity accord. A government of national unity at such a time in Zimbabwe will be a bad precedent and a grave negation of the will of the people as unequivocally stated on the 29th of March. The opposition, and indeed all Zimbabweans should draw a lesson from the Unity Accord of 1987 which premised the vanquishing of PF ZAPU and that is something we know very well will not undo the crisis in Zimbabwe. A government of national unity will surely perpetuate ZANU PF and continue with the culture of impunity to perpetrators of human rights violations as is evidenced in the post-colonial rule of ZANU PF. Sustainable peace and development can never come out of a government of national unity without bringing to book all the human rights violators to book.

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