Zimbabwean Bishop Urges Peaceful Revolt

One of Zimbabwe’s most outspoken church leaders called Sunday for a peaceful uprising against President Robert Mugabe’s autocratic rule, days before a parliamentary election that rights groups say has been tainted by years of violence and intimidation.

Roman Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube of Zimbabwe’s second-largest city, Bulawayo, said he was willing to put on his vestments and lead a march to Mugabe’s residence, but feared that “if I do it, I do it alone.”

“The people are so scared,” he said in an interview. “You are not going to get that where people are so cowardly.”

Police arrested nearly 200 opposition supporters after a rally Sunday in Harare, the capital, the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change said.

Mugabe, a former guerrilla leader, has led Zimbabwe since the end of white rule in 1980. Ncube believes that Mugabe’s Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front party will easily win Thursday’s poll, which he said is certain to be rigged.

“I hope that people get so disillusioned that they really organize against the government and kick him out by a nonviolent, popular, mass uprising,” Ncube said in a separate interview with a South African newspaper.

Ncube accused the government of denying food aid to rural opposition supporters.