Mugabe has 'lost moral right to rule': bishops

Zimbabwe’s Roman Catholic bishops today said President Robert Mugabe has lost the moral right to govern by permitting violence and lawlessness for political gain.

In a pastoral letter to be read out in churches across the country, the nine bishops said Mugabe, who is a Catholic, and other holders of political power had abused their countrymen by denying them ‘‘the inherent right’’ to take part in political activities.

‘‘We are telling them these things they are doing are wrong and that they hold no morality at all,’’ said Bishop Patrick Mutume, head of the Catholic Commission for Justice and Peace.

‘‘There is no other sanction we can give them except the sanction of Hell,’’ he said.

The letter particularly denounced the seizure by ruling party militants of white-owned farms and a resulting escalation of political violence over the past year.

Violence during elections in June killed at least 32 people, mostly opposition supporters.

‘‘There was no need for anyone to die. We should be able to live together ... and not victimise, instill fear, mutilate people and kill them,’’ Mutume said.

Mugabe, 77, has refused repeated requests over the past four years to meet with a delegation of bishops.

In 1996, Mugabe received a blessing from the pope when he married his former secretary in a Catholic Mass.

Father Oskar Wermter, a spokesman for the Catholic Bishops Conference, said a head of state can only be excommunicated by the Pope.

‘‘But if a politician clearly does things against basic justice and charity he in effect excommunicates or excludes himself from the Christian community,’’ Wermter said.

Catholics account for about one fifth of Zimbabwe’s 12.5 million people.