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Mugabe Regime 'Totally Unacceptable', Says Archbishop Tutu
Catholic Information Service for Africa (CISA)
February 21, 2006

http://www.cisanews.org/news_more_info1.php?newsID=1182

The regime of President Robert Mugabe is 'totally unacceptable' because of its gross human rights violations, South African Nobel Peace Laureate Desmond Tutu said.

The retired Anglican Archbishop of Cape Town said he once "admired" Mugabe, who was at one time "the brightest star in the African firmament," who had brought reconciliation and reconstruction to his country after the war which ended the rule of the white minority.

"But something happened to him, because now he oversees something that is totally unacceptable. We, and all of Africa, should be prepared to say that violation of human rights is violation of human rights, whoever does it."

The anti-apartheid crusader spoke to journalists after addressing the 9th World Council of Churches in Brazil. Its theme is a prayer: 'God, in your grace, transform the world.'

Archbishop Tutu said economic progress in Africa needed a just world economic order and good governance. "We have been our own worst enemies. Africa has had a succession of corrupt governments - though Mobutu and Savimbi were encouraged by the West. But we too have responsibility."

Archbishop Tutu in an impassioned speech to the WCC Assembly called for united Christian witness. "A united church is no optional extra," he said. It is "indispensable for the salvation of God's world".

"We can be prosperous only together. We can survive only together. We can be human only together."

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