The Daily Agenda
High Alert:
A Catholic Bishop Marko Mnkandla was arrested in the evening yesterday (Wednesday 13 April 2011) in Lupane. Lupane Agenda iorking with the Roman Catholic Church had organized a prayer service under the theme of national healing and transitional justice at Silwane Primary School, Jiba-Jiba ward, in Lupane East. The Bishop as well as the co-Minister of the Organ, Honorable Moses Mzila Ndlovu, had addressed this meeting for National Healing and Reconciliation. Mnkandla has since been transferred to Hwange police station. Bulawayo Agenda has since referred the case to the Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights who have dispatched a legal team to work on the case.
Bulawayo Agenda is still trying to establish what charges have been laid against the Bishop. This meeting had been deliberately organized as a prayer service in order to avoid seeking permission from the police, which was unlikely considering the current developments where there is an effort to frustrate or dilute the genuine process of national healing that will produce truth recovery.
In a related incident prior to this meeting, there are reports that the co-Minister had been scheduled to address a meeting (not organized by Bulawayo Agenda) on the same subject in Bidi Centre, Matobo south constituency but when he arrived he found police officers had already dispersed the crowd arguing that they got orders not to allow the meeting to take place. This meeting therefore did not take place.
In another related incident, Bulawayo Agenda’s Victoria Falls chapter has combined efforts with 7 other organizations to organize a meeting to discuss issues of national healing where the co-Minister of the Organ for National Healing is supposed to address the stakeholders tomorrow, Friday 15 April 2011, at 10 am. This meeting was cleared by the police and is scheduled to take place at Chinotimba Hall. There will be an update on how the meeting in Victoria Falls goes.
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