Militias drive priest from parish
2002-08-29 10:34
Harare - An Irish Catholic priest is in hiding in Zimbabwe after being forced to flee for his life when members of President Robert Mugabe's lawless militia of so-called war veterans drove him out of his parish in eastern Zimbabwe.
Reverend Patrick Kelly (60) born in the village of West Tubber
Curry in county Sligo, Ireland, on Wednesday accused his Zimbabwean bishops of being cowed by Mugabe's regime and of failing to defend him when he was ordered to abandon his church in the mountain village of Nyanga on Zimbabwe's eastern border with Mozambique last week.
Before the group of seven war veterans arrived at his home in
the village on August 17, he was interrogated three times, for two hours on each occasion, by agents of Mugabe's secret police.
They and the war veterans accused him of supporting the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change. "When the war vets came, I had to leave," he said in a telephone interview on Wednesday.
"They shouted at me, accused me of being a member of the
opposition. They gave me until August 22 to leave, or else I would face unspecified action," he said.
He immediately reported the threat to police, who said they were
not able to help. "Police could provide no protection, so I had no choice but to leave. I feared for my life.
"We know this kind of thing has been happening with white
commercial farmers, teachers and civil servants. But this is
probably the first time a priest has been told he cannot work in
his area."
Widely criticised
The senior hierarchy of the Catholic Church is widely criticised
for its apparent closeness with the regime and Mugabe, who is a
Catholic and was granted a special dispensation to marry his
divorced wife, Grace, in 1996.
However, outspoken individual priests and bishops of of the
church are regularly targeted by ruling party militias.
Archbishop Pius Ncube has been publicly denounced by Mugabe for
his condemnation of ruling party violence and he has received death threats.
Father Kelly came to Zimbabwe in 1998 after spending the
previous 27 years as a missionary in southern Kenya for St
Patrick's Missionary Society, based in county Wicklow in Ireland.
On August 17 the war veterans ordered him to leave. The next day
he appealed for help to Bishop Alexio Muchabaiwa, the senior bishop in the eastern province of Manicaland and his auxiliary, Bishop Patrick Mutume.
Mutume came to preach in Kelly's church in Nyanga, but only
referred vaguely to the priest's harassment.
"This is a time when the church should have confronted the
situation ... I am very disappointed. I would rather he had not
come at all." - Sapa-DPA
- SAPA