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Church document not what I signed up to says Pius Ncube
Violet Gonda, SW Radio Africa
November 13, 2006

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news131106/churchdoc131106.htm

Bulawayo Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube has described the much talked about church discussion document as "soft as decaffeinated tea". The cleric alleges that some areas were altered while several pages were removed from the document that was originally signed by the clergy in Zimbabwe.

"You see I think someone leaked – among the three bodies from the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops’ Conference – somebody leaked it to the government and the government was demanding that before it’s published certain pages should be removed and I see its really toned down. It’s not the original document that we agreed upon as churches."

The outspoken cleric was speaking during an exclusive interview on SW Radio Africa’s Hot Seat programme on the ongoing National Vision document launched recently by the three main church groups in Zimbabwe.

The Archbishop said although the document is very soft it may still be usable but he castigated the meddling by the state. He said; "But I don’t like the bullying of the government. This government has done enough harm, enough bullying. They are causing suffering on people and now they must come over and bully us the churches. That was supposed to be our document. Not their document. I am pretty angry about this."

Although he said he hadn’t finished comparing the launched document with the original the Bishop believes the critical areas were toned down. For example there was a whole paragraph on the media illustrating how there is no free media, but the cleric claimed the government cut the whole paragraph and just added one sentence that says the media is polarised and not working for national unity.

When asked if he thought the church was trying to confront wrong without offending the Mugabe regime, he responded by saying; "As a church we are too soft in such a way I wonder if we are going to make any headway."

He also agreed with sentiments that outspoken critics like himself may have been used to legitimise what some have described as a Mugabe sponsored initiative. He said he truly hoped it was their (church’s) initiative but was not aware that the government would pull out certain pages from the discussion document. "I am extremely disenchanted having seen how they have done a lot of damage to our original document."

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