Archbishop in meeting with Mugabe
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10 October 2011
Last updated at 10:35 ET
Rowan Williams will hold a press conference after the Harare meeting
The Archbishop of Canterbury is meeting Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe, Lambeth Palace has confirmed.
It ends doubts the men would meet after Rowan Williams criticised “mindless and Godless assaults” in a sermon in Zimbabwe’s capital, Harare, on Sunday.
There are no details about the agenda for the meeting.
However, Mr Mugabe’s spokesman said he intended to raise the issue of Western sanctions and question Dr Williams on his church’s attitude to homosexuality.
Dr Williams is to hold a news conference at the Bronte Hotel, in Harare, after the meeting.
Nolbert Kunonga, a renegade bishop who backs President Mugabe, has been accused of inciting violence against Anglicans who do not support him.
During the Eucharist sermon on Sunday, Dr Williams pointedly criticised what he said was the “lawlessness” that characterised Zimbabwe.
Continue reading the main story
Analysis
Robert Pigott
In publicly seeking a meeting with Robert Mugabe, Rowan Williams is taking something of a risk.
The Zimbabwean president, who routinely blames his country’s history as a British colony for its problems, has no reason to favour the Archbishop of Canterbury.
Dr Williams has questioned Mr Mugabe’s political legitimacy, and written an open letter holding him responsible for the persecution of Anglicans.
The archbishop has been warned that Mr Mugabe might simply use a meeting as a way of boosting his standing, making political capital without making significant concessions.
Dr Williams might feel that being received by the president would further boost the status of his oppressed followers in Zimbabwe as authentic Anglicans.
But the archbishop is taking no chances. If there is a meeting he intends to hold a news conference afterwards, to put his own interpretation on the event.
BBC religious affairs correspondent Robert Pigott said the meeting between the archbishop and the 87-year-old president would take place against the background of Dr Williams’ intense and sustained criticism of Mr Mugabe’s regime and was likely to be tense.
Anglicans accuse Mr Mugabe of helping Mr Kunonga, the former bishop of Harare dismissed by Dr Williams, to carry out assaults on them.
Congregations have been beaten by Mr Kunonga’s supporters and attacked with tear gas.
Dr Williams has questioned Mr Mugabe’s political legitimacy and held him responsible for the persecution.
In his sermon on Sunday to an estimated 15,000 Anglicans, Dr Williams, apparently in response to Mr Kunonga’s claim that he represents “neo-colonial interests”, acknowledged that British colonialism had been motivated by greed.
But he said it was tragic this illegitimate rule had been replaced by “another kind of lawlessness”.
Article source: http://www.bbc.co.uk/go/rss/int/news/-/news/uk-15235812
