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ZIMBABWE: Charges dropped against bishop
Church of England Newspaper
January 6, 2006
Archbishop Bernard Malango of Central Africa has declared a mistrial in the Court of Inquiry for the Bishop of Harare, Dr Nolbert Kunonga. The decision to end the trial came on technical grounds and does not exonerate the controversial bishop, however he will not be retried.
Dr Kunonga was alleged to have “publicly and deliberately maintained doctrines or opinions which are contrary to the teaching of the Church”; diverted Church funds and assets for his private use; falsified records; purged the diocese of its white clergy; and violated a host of church laws and procedures.
The most serious charge against Dr Kunonga, however, was that he asked members of the Zimbabwe secret police — the CIO [Central Intelligence Organisation] — to “have certain people, whom he named, killed”. The Bishop allegedly marked for death 10 troublesome priests and lay people.
The seven-page complaint was filed with the Church of the Province of Central Africa — covering the Anglican Churches in Zimbabwe, Zambia, Botswana and Malawi — in Nov 2003 and served upon Dr Kunonga in Jan 2004 by the diocesan chancellor, Robert Stumbles.
He was brought before the tribunal on Aug 23, but the trial collapsed after three days when the Presiding Judge withdrew from the case. On Dec 24, The Herald, Zimbabwe’s government-controlled newspaper, published an extract of a December 19 letter to the Bishops of the Province that it claims was written by Archbishop Malango.
The letter states, the Prosecutor in the ecclesiastical trial “decided to ignore a clear order of the provincial court to furnish further and better particulars to the court. We shall appoint another prosecutor to conduct any future prosecution should the need arise. But as far as the case against Bishop Nolbert Kunonga is concerned, the matter is closed and cannot be revived.” A close ally of Zimbabwe strongman Robert Mugabe, Dr Kunonga has been banned from travel to the EU and US for his complicity in the crimes of the Mugabe regime. In 2003 he was given a farm confiscated from a white settler as a reward for his services to the regime.
In 2001 Dr Kunonga was elected Bishop of Harare in an election critics charge was manipulated by the secret police. An outspoken supporter of the government, he endorsed President Mugabe’s urban depopulation campaign, Operation Murambatsvina, [“Drive out Rubbish”], which has left over 375,000 people homeless.
In a July 16 interview Dr Kunonga said a delegation from the South African Council of Churches that criticised the campaign were colonialist “stooges” and “part of the British attempts to destabilise the country by painting a false picture of developments here for the international world”.
Dr Kunonga declined to comment on the proceedings as we were going to press.
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