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The tyrant and the archbishop: How a good man was silenced by scandal

Pius Ncube was one of Africa's most respected churchmen. Then he dared to challenge Robert Mugabe's tyranny. Now his life is in ruins. Basildon Peta on a nasty tale of Zimbabwean realpolitik

Published: 13 September 2007

When Pius Ncube lamented what he perceived as the lack of an inspirational Zimbabwean leader in the mould of Nelson Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi, a visionary who might lead the people in a revolution against the tyranny of Robert Mugabe, many of his countrymen wondered why he needed to look any further than himself.

"Why don't you emulate [the priest] Jean Bertrand Aristide's example in Haiti and lead this revolution. We will all follow you," a Zimbabwean journalist in exile at one of the Archbishop's regular press conferences in Johannesburg, suggested.

As the Catholic Archbishop of Bulawayo, the second highest Roman Catholic official in a predominantly Catholic country Ncube's word certainly carried immense influence. And with his fierce criticism of Mr Mugabe, the cleric had become, in the place of a weakened and fractured political opposition, the most articulate and outspoken figure of resistance to the regime, frequently condemning the 83-year-old President as a "megalomaniac" and encouraging worshippers to pray for Mr Mugabe's death. World leaders hailed his courage. The former US secretary of state Colin Powell called the Archbishop "one of the bravest men I have ever met".

The Archbishop said he would not hesitate to face Mr Mugabe's blazing guns and lead a revolution when Zimbabwean people showed themselves willing to sacrifice their lives for their freedom. But that was before grainy video images aired on Zimbabwean state television of a man who appeared to be the 60-year-old Archbishop naked in bed with a married parishioner, in what the state newspapers called his "love nest".

On Tuesday, two months after the scandal broke, the Archbishop of Bulawayo tendered his resignation. A brief statement from the Vatican said that Pope Benedict XVI had accepted his resignation. Mr Ncube, who said he would remain a bishop in Zimbabwe, said he was resigning because he did not want to drag the name of the Church through the mud as he fights off a £328,000 adultery lawsuit brought against him by Mrs Sibanda's husband, Onesimus Sibanda. Whether or not Zimbabwe's High Court will eventually find Bishop Ncube to be the man filmed enjoying sex with Rosemary Sibanda, who worked for the diocese, hardly matters. What matters is that Zimbabwe's resistance movement has lost a key spokesman at a crucial stage of the anti-Mugabe struggle.

His alleged sin of the flesh has effectively cost him the moral high ground required to sustain his place at the forefront of Zimbabwe's resistance. Once again, it seems, Robert Mugabe has seen off an arch-foe.

While the jury is still out on whether Bishop Ncube indeed infringed his Catholic vow of celibacy, there is almost universal consensus in Zimbabwe that Mr Sibanda, a lowly rail worker, would not have financed and overseen the operation that brought down the Archbishop on his own. Ncube, has it seems fallen victim to one of the regime's carefully orchestrated stings.

Ironically, the last high-profile victim of a Mugabe sting was Morgan Tsvangirai, the trade unionist and opposition leader that Bishop Ncube derided for being "visionless". Back in 2002, Mr Tsvangirai was secretly filmed discussing a "plot" to kill Mr Mugabe.

Those grainy images constituted the state's key evidence in a marathon treason trial that confined Mr Tsvangirai to the courtroom - and effectively rendered him politically impotent at a time when his country and party needed him most - while Mr Mugabe consolidated power.

Fortunately, Mr Tsvangirai was later spared the hangman's noose by a High Court judge who did not find the evidence convincing enough to warrant a treason conviction. But the episode sapped Mr Tsvangirai's energy and he has not fully recovered to be the potent opponent he once was. His opposition party has since split into factions.

It was in the light of the weakened state of the opposition, that Pius Ncube emerged as a symbol of the opposition. In the case of the bishop, evidence of the state's involvement was there from the beginning. The camera that captured the damning footage was placed in the ceiling of the cleric's bedroom, apparently by Mr Mugabe's Central Intelligence Organisation.

When Mr Sibanda's lawyer's first confronted Bishop Ncube to deliver an adultery summons at his Parochial House, they were accompanied by television, radio and print news crews from Zimbabwe's tightly controlled state media. Soon after Bishop Ncube signed for the summons, the state media journalists led by close Mugabe supporter Supa Mandiwanzira played the incriminating images on a laptop and asked Archbishop Ncube to confirm whether he was the man appearing. A state television cameraman was on hand to film the perplexed priest. The cleric's alleged lover Mrs Sibanda claims she agreed to have sex with the Archbishop in exchange for money to look after her family.

Sources allege that Mr Mugabe's intelligence operatives had been tracking Archbishop Ncube for some time.

Mrs Sibanda is alleged to have facilitated the smuggling of recording equipment into the Archbishop's parish home, since she kept spare keys.

The state media later said it could not publish some of the more brazen pictures of an allegedly naked Archbishop Ncube to protect children in this hugely conservative society and to comply with laws that govern public decency. Still some of these pictures found their way on to ubiquitous Zimbabwean independent websites.

The hugely popular anti-Mugabe new.zimbabwe.com website carried many of the pictures and said it had no doubt the man shown was the Archbishop.

The former prelate may have done his case a great disservice by his failure to issue either a firm denial or clear response immediately. His rather inconsistent replies about the illegal invasion of his privacy conveyed an image of a man with something to hide.

For a man who had become a darling of the international media through his sharp tongued criticisms of Mr Mugabe at regular Johannesburg press conferences Bishop Ncube also let himself down by not immediately calling the rest of the media to address the allegations. In fact he fled the limelight altogether.

Perhaps these were all actions of an innocent but perplexed and confused man caught unawares. Perhaps these were actions of a man who genuinely needed time to first recover from a shocking episode.

Ahead of the Archbishop's resignation, the state media said it was preparing to publish more damaging allegations against him. It was then speculated in the private Zimbabwean media that the new "exposes" would centre around allegations of Bishop Ncube's sexual involvement with nearly a dozen other parishioners and possibly allegations about children he had fathered and his HIV status. He quit before any further embarrassment.

The former Archbishop has vowed to continue with his crusade against Mr Mugabe's human rights abuses. He said: "I will continue to speak out on the issues that sadly become more acute by the day. I have not been silenced by the crude machinations of a wicked regime."

The Mugabe regime has been rubbing its hands in glee at their opponent's demise. Yesterday's state newspaper headlines claimed the Vatican forced Bishop Ncube to resign. Mr Mugabe's information ministry also berated him for having "lived a lie". And Mr Mugabe has not missed an opportunity to dismiss Bishop Ncube as "an immoral snatcher of other people's wives".

Bishop Ncube's record as an opponent of Mr Mugabe reaches back to the early 1980s when Mr Mugabe was acclaimed by the British as a visionary leader and a guest of Margaret Thatcher at Downing Street. It was Bishop Ncube who spoke loudly about the 25,000-plus civilians Mr Mugabe's North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade was murdering in southern Zimbabwe. Back then, no one seemed to listen.

The Archbishop Pius Ncube Solidarity Coalition, formed to support him after the adultery allegations first surfaced, rejected the Zimbabwe government's interpretation of his resignation as an "admission of guilt".

"He is a democrat at heart and down to the soul. Rather than undermining and harming his democratic credentials, his resignation enhances them," said the coalition in a statement.

But with Morgan Tsvangirai severely weakened, and the disgraced Archbishop's moral authority severely compromised, Zimbabwe's civic rights movement desperately needs a new spokesman. With the Mugabe regime having perfected the art of subterfuge, whoever assumes that role must live a saintly life.