‘Pastor funded’
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Tuesday said an activist pastor behind anti-government protests this month was being sponsored by foreign countries set on destabilising his administration.
On July 8, a ‘stay away’ protest movement led by church minister Evan Mawarire shut down most businesses, government offices, schools and hospitals in the biggest act of public defiance against Mugabe in a decade.
Mawarire, who rallied followers under his #ThisFlag Twitter campaign, was arrested last week and formally accused of treason but was freed when a court threw out the charges.
In his first public comments on Mawarire, the 92-year-old Mugabe accused the pastor of urging Zimbabweans to engage in violent protests, questioning whether he was a “true preacher”.
“You can’t urge people to adopt violence, violent demonstrations as the way of life or a way of solving grievances, no. We will say no, forever no,” Mugabe said at the burial of a senior politician in Harare.
“The Mawarires, if they don’t like to live with us, let them go to those who are sponsoring them, to the countries that are sponsoring them,” Mugabe added. (RTRS)
of their number, local activists said on Tuesday.
Hundreds of civilians have died in interethnic violence and a series of massacres by armed groups in Democratic Republic of Congo’s conflict-ravaged east, which
borders Rwanda and Uganda.
An ethnic Nande militia group, the Maimai Mazembe, killed a Hutu on Sunday in Kibirizi, leading to the reprisal attack by the Democratic Forces for the Liberation of Rwanda (FDLR), said Innocent
Gasigwa, spokesman for Civil Society of Rutshuru.
The FDLR “came to take vengeance .... There were clashes last night and into this morning,” Gasigwa said by telephone, adding that the army restored calm this
morning.
An FDLR spokesman denied that his forces were involved in the attack. An army spokesman said he was aware of the incident but declined to give details. (RTRS)