Bishop brought change

Press, 26 April 1979, Page 8

Bishop brought change

NZPA Salisbury, Bishop Abel Tendekayi! Muzorewa, elected yesterday as Rhodesia’s first black ! Prime Minister, was thrust! into politics in the early! 1970 s by the guerrilla movements that now call! him a traitor. Bishop Muzorewa, who is; 54, head of the Americanbacked United Methodist) Church in Rhodesia, has, been denounced often by) externally based black' Rhodesian guerrilla leaders! as a puppet of a whiteminority that has dominated the country for nine : decades. - “They can say what they like, do what they like,” Bishop Muzorewa once told a cheering crowd of 1 thousands “They have brought only suffering. I have brought black rule.” His chief foes, the') Mozambique-based Robert Mugabe and the Zambiabased Joshua Nkomo, were excluded from the Constitutional accord Bishop Muzorewa and two other moderate black leaders reached with the white Prime Minister (Mr lan! Smith) in March, last year. I It signalled the end to ) white superemacy in a country where the blacks outnumber other races 29-1! (6.7 million blacks and 230,-1 000 whites). 1 1 Bishop Muzorewa, hailed l

I by supporters - as the man' I who forced the white minority to relinquish their: 'political grip, was born on! 'April 14, 1925. of a typical! j African peasant family in! the picturesque eastern! 'highlands bordering Mozambique. He was the eldest of nine! ■children, six boys and three! j girls, all of whom were) ) taught at mission schools. ! j “He was a serious, often! ) humourless, student who | was totally dedicated to school work.” a former teacher recalls. “He was always a cut above the others.” Ordained as a minister of the United Methodist Church in 1953, Bishop Muzorewa went to the United States five years later to study at religious centres in Missouri and Tennessee. , Bishop Muzorewa returned in 1963 to a Rhodesia afire with interfactional political turmoil and gripped by laws that thrust hundreds of black politicans into detention without trial and banned their parties. In 1968, he was Iconsecrated as the first black bishop of the United) Methodist Church in! Rhodesia. But it was not; until 1971 that Bishop! -Muzorewa became widely' known — when the! Government, charging that} 'he was stirring up trouble,'

i’banned him from visiting ‘Church followers in tribal reserves. !| At the time Britain, the '! recognised authority over 'j Rhodesia despite Mr Smith's j unilateral declaration of independence in 1965', was J making a renewed bid for a ; | constitutional settlement to all Rhodesians. ! But Bishop Muzorewa, J then a political newcomer, pfeared that a settlement proposed by the . Conservative Government in j London and favoured by the. , Rhodesian whites would only allow for black rule after a lengthy period of i continued minority control. i At the urging of Mr > Nkohto’s Zimbabwe African : People’s Union and the Rev. i Ndabaningi Sithole’s Zimbabwe African People’s I National Union, be formed ! the African National Council Ito fight the proposed i formula. j “Muzorewa was ideal,” I Willie Musarurwa, one of Mr Nkomo’s advisers, said , later. “He was a man of the ’ Church and advocate of [ peaceful change, but he was J a staunch African nationalist Ito boot.” i! Bishop Muzorewa d campaigned for months. He iimore than anyone forced the : I British Government to abandon its plans.