Mugabe Threatens To
Arrest Pro-Gay Clergy
25 Feb 2006- Thousands of people, including hundreds of school children,
crammed into a stadium Saturday in the eastern city of Mutare to
celebrate the birthday of Zimbabwe's strongman Robert Mugabe and listen
to a rambling denunciation of the West and gays in particular.
The 82 year old
Mugabe accused Western nations of preparing to declare war on the
country. "Bear in mind that the monster of imperialism is continuously
and dangerously lurking in the bush awaiting a more favorable
opportunity to devour our national sovereignty," Mugabe told the crowd.
He then
launched into a tirade against gays, a familiar strain for him. Speaking
in Shona, one of Zimbabwe's two major tongues, Mugabe denounced
homosexuality. "Leave whites to do that," he declared. Mugabe told the
cheering throng that same-sex marriage is a threat to mankind and
condemned churches that bless gay unions.
He said his
government would jail and clergy who performed a blessing ceremony for
gay couples in Zimbabwe. Zimbabwe is heavily Anglican and the speech was
applauded by Anglican priests in the crowd. Mugabe routinely refers to
gays as dogs and has on two occasions ordered police to round up and
imprison gays.
His regime is
one of the bloodiest in Africa, and in 2001 the Commonwealth suspended
Zimbabwe over questions of fraud concerning his election. British LGBT
civil rights campaigner has on several occasions attempted citizen’s
arrests of Mugabe.
In 1999, he and
other activists from the gay activist group OutRage! ambushed Mugabe’s
motorcade and attempted to seize him in a London street. In 2001, he
swooped on the President as he was leaving the Hilton Hotel in
Brussels. Tachell was beaten unconscious by Mugabe’s bodyguards. In
2004 a British court refused to issue an arrest warrant for the
Zimbabwean leader.
Tatchell
presented a 52 page brief that outlined a regime of brutality,
homophobia, and repression of civil rights. It detailed accounts of
political opponents being rounded up and imprisoned and quoted
extensively from reports made by more than a half dozen international
human rights groups and contains interviews with victims of the regime.
The judge ruled that Mugabe is immune from foreign arrest since he is a
head of state
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