From ZWNews:
Three Zimbabwean clergymen had a weekend to forget last Sunday after they were detained and interrogated by state security agents for distributing toys and sweets to children in Masvingo town. In a bizarre case highlighting deep levels of paranoia in government, the state agents accused the three, Reverend Sonykis Chimbuya, Pastor Peter Bondai and Pastor Mugondi, of distributing opposition campaign material.
The police have been keeping an eye on Chimbuya for a while, as this 2003 report shows:
Police in Masvingo summoned and questioned the former Zimbabwe Council of Churches human rights regional chair Sonykis Chimbuya over prayers alleged to be anti-government…
Chimbuya, a preacher with the Church of Christ in Masvingo, was summoned to the Criminal Investigations Department’s Law and Order Section last week and ordered to desist from saying prayers that are political. He was released without being charged.
Chimbuya said: “I was ordered not to say prayers which are political. They even told me that I should write down my prayers for them to scrutinise. They took my curriculum vitae and warned me to be careful with my prayers.”
Meanwhile, the Zimbabwean delves into the farming interests of “His Disgrace” Nolbert Kunonga, the pro-Mugabe Anglican bishop (I’ve blogged on the pro-Mugabe clerics here and here) who has been rewarded for his toadying with appropriated some agricultural land:
St Marnock’s farm, which bishop Nolbert Kunonga has taken over, is located 15 kilometres from the stone-clad cathedral of St Mary’s in central Harare, Zimbabwe’s capital, where he officiates.
A visit to St Marnock’s at the weekend revealed a classic tale of the disastrous effects the sullied agrarian reform programme. The Zimbabwean found Kunonga’s son reclining in the grabbed seven-bedroom farmhouse overlooking a dam and what were once 2,000 acres of wheat and soya bean fields, now abandoned.
This farm used to be one of the areas under the prestigious “10 ton club.” But now what remains are derelict fields with overgrown grass. Equipment is locked away and there no agriculture taking place here, despite the fact that the nation is desperately short on food.
The bishop, however, plans to use the land for development purposes.
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