Robber Mugabe gate-crashes the Pope’s funeral
Robber Mugabe is utterly unbelievable. Is there anyone in the world who has a bigger ego than he does?
Today he jetted off to Rome to attend the funeral of the Pope, defying EU travel sanctions and thereby rubbing the world’s noses in the fact that he has recently stolen elections - again - and apparently managed to get away with it - again. Zimbabweans are condemned by SADC and South Africa to more years of the same misery under ZANU-PF rule: poverty, unemployment, inflation, hunger, violence and political reprisals.
Here we have someone who uses democratic processes to varnish his twisted political aims with a transparent coating of legitimacy. A Dictator attending the funeral of a Holy man - a man who is currently being held up as an icon because of, among other things, his resolute stance against totalitarianism and people like Mugabe himself.
You may be thinking that Mugabe, a Catholic schooled by Jesuits, is deeply moved by the Pope’s death and wants to be there. I don’t think so.
Let’s not forget that Mugabe was very anti-Catholic for a long time. Why? Because those dastardly Christians had the audacity to criticise him for horrendous human rights abuses in Matabeleland during the 1980s. In fact, the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace (CCJP) even went so far to draft a report 
, one of the few that records those horrendous days, chronicling in detail the crimes that Mugabe’s 5 Brigade committed against the people of Matabeleland – crimes that can only be described as pure evil. (The Zimbabwean has been doing a good job recently of reminding us of that time period). Mugabe’s outrage at the CCJP report was such that he apparently persuaded his friend, Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa, to suppress the report for a while - the Archbishop obliged.
But lets put things like torture, state sanctioned starvation, rape and near genocide aside for a moment. Mugabe’s alignment to the Catholic faith is also heavily undermined by his very ‘un-Catholic’ behaviour.
This is a Catholic who had a long-term adulterous affair with his secretary - a woman 40 years his junior - while his wife, Sally, was gravely ill with a kidney ailment. In fact, he married his secretary, Grace, in an African ceremony two years before Sally died, claiming that traditional law allowed him to take a junior wife. The couple already had two children despite the fact that Grace was still married to another man, Stanley Goreraza, by whom she had a son.
After Sally died, Mugabe and Grace got married, in a Catholic Mass, presided over by, you guessed it, Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa! You have to marvel at Mugabe’s cheek. He has an adulterous affair, while his wife is dying, and two illegitimate children, but he can still convince a Catholic Archbishop to marry him to a divorced woman, in a Catholic Church?! Incredible - almost as incredible as persuading Thabo Mbeki and SADC that the recent election in Zimbabwe were totally free and fair.
Back to the Pope though, a man who fought totalitarianism. What would he have thought of Mugabe jetting off to attend his funeral as if all was well and normal?
I think the clues are there in what the Pope did after Archbishop Patrick Chakaipa died two years ago from cancer.
The CCJP quote the Pope Paul VI on their site: “lf you want peace, work for justice”.
The Pope did just that when he appointed Robert Ndlovu as the new Archbishop of Harare. Archbishop Robert Ndlovu was born in Matabeleland, more particularly, in Lupane, an area that saw some of the worst atrocities committed against it during the Gukuruhundi. He was ordained a priest in 1983, at the height of the Gukurhundi. At his installation speech in August last year, the new Archbishop affirmed his position with regards human rights atrocities: he said “The role of a bishop and of the church in general is to stand up for human dignity, and from human dignity flow human rights.” He also confirmed that free expression, association and assembly were rights the church supported.
The Tablet wrote at the time:
In a signal that he wants the Catholic Church in Zimbabwe to take a firmer line with the country’s dictator, Robert Mugabe, the Pope this week appointed a member of the Ndebele people as Archbishop of Harare. The appointment means that the country’s two leading Catholic bishops are linked to the Matabeleland provinces which Mugabe has done most to alienate.
The Pope had peace and justice in mind, and Zimbabweans thank him for it with all our hearts.
When Robber Mugabe attends the Pope’s funeral, he’ll be fooling nobody. The Pope knew what he was, and Zimbabweans know what he is: a moral lightweight who lies and steals and hurts innocent people. Apparently all-powerful, yet at the core of his being craving respectability and legitimacy in the eyes of the world.
He’ll leave the same person he was when he arrived, an aging dictator with his nose pressed up against the window of the world, longing to join in, but never accepted: an isolated outsider.
But while he’s trying to be the big-guy at the Pope’s funeral, let all Zimbabweans remember Pope John Paul II’s simple truthful words and take them to heart:
Violence is a lie, for it goes against the truth of our faith, the truth of our humanity, the life, the freedom of human beings. Violence is a crime against humanity, for it destroys the very fabric of society.
