Pastors play role in Zimbabwe’s change of power
A priest mediated. The council of churches called for national dialogue. And a Pentecostal pastor organized a large-scale protest.
Fidelis Mukonori prays inside the sacristy at Chishawasha mission church in Zimbabwe on November 26, 2017. AP Photo/Bram Janssen.
Shortly after Zimbabwe’s generals put President Robert Mugabe under house arrest in November, a Jesuit priest—who has been close to the first family for all of Mugabe’s 37 years in office—began mediating.
Many hoped that Fidelis Mukonori, 70, who aided in the birth of Zimbabwe as its founding was negotiated in 1979 in London, would help bring into being a nation without Mugabe as its leader.
He knew it was “the end of the road,” the priest told the Associated Press. When Mugabe signed his resignation letter, he had an expression of relief, as though to say, “It’s done.”
