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Zimbabwe's Mugabe lays into Tutu and Catholic bishop Ncube
Peter Fabricius, Ecumenical News International
May 24, 2004

Johannesburg - Former South African Anglican leader Archbishop Desmond Tutu has declined to comment on Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's attack on him as "an angry, evil and embittered little bishop".

As well as attacking Tutu and Bulawayo's Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube as "unholy men", Mugabe also denied his country needed food aid and he rejected charges that his government inflicts human rights abuses.

The South African Press Agency (Sapa) on Monday quoted Tutu's secretary Lavinia Crawford-Browne as saying the Nobel Peace Prize winner was not prepared to comment on Mugabe's remarks made in interview with Britain's Sky TV.

The usually outspoken Tutu was a trenchant critic of South Africa's apartheid regime but has also stung the current African National Congress government with some sharp criticism as well as lambasting Mugabe for his policies. He had in the past called Mugabe "bonkers" and a "caricature of an African dictator".

In an interview aired on Monday, Sky TV's Stuart Ramsay asked Mugabe why "a well respected man of the church [like Tutu]" would describe him as "a cartoon figure of the archetypal African dictator".

Mugabe retorted: "He is an angry, evil and embittered little bishop, you see, who thinks that his own view should hold." When the interviewer said Tutu had been referring to the fact that Zimbabwe was not observing the rule of law and democracy, Mugabe added: "So one little bishop becomes the proponent of our political system here?"

Ramsay; " No, but he is widely respected throughout the world."

Mugabe, "Respected for his religion perhaps."

Ramsay; "No, respected for the [South African Truth and] Reconciliation Commission, for being a man who was able to go through the whole of the apartheid era and still speak out against a repressive regime. He has identified a repressive regime."

Mugabe: "He was a frightened man during the apartheid era and the little he did was perhaps just to criticise and criticise, even in an innocent way, apartheid. When called upon to do something, something that would distinguish him as supporter of the ANC, he didn't. He didn't, he wouldn't go that way."

In the interview Mugabe denied fears expressed by international aid agencies that many Zimbabweans face starvation, saying, "We are not hungry."

When asked about fears about food supplies expressed by Bulawayo's Archbishop Ncube, Mugabe said: "Why foist this food upon us? We don't want to be choked, we have enough." He noted about the Bulawayo bishop, "That's another Tutu, the bishop, an unholy man, he thinks he is holy and [is] telling lies all the day, every day."

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