Harare - A group of church leaders from Europe has stirred debate in crisis-ridden Zimbabwe by coming to ask forgiveness for past wrongs committed by Western countries, it emerged on Monday.
The leaders knelt on Friday before officials including the former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano and the head of Zimbabwe's traditional chiefs, Fortune Charumbira, to ask for forgiveness for ills committed during the slave trade era as well as during colonial times, reports the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
The delegates, from an organisation calling itself the European African Reconciliation Process, said Zimbabwe's former colonial power Britain had dehumanised Africans.
"We repent for taking rather than giving," said Briton Chris Seaton at the event in Harare.
'We ask forgiveness in *****' name'
"We repent for robbing Africans of their history and identity. Today we ask forgiveness in *****' name before you and God," Seaton was quoted as saying in a front-page report in the official daily.
The gesture has aroused mixed reactions in a country struggling amid sky-high inflation and spiralling prices. President Robert Mugabe's government blames Britain and the West for his country's economic crisis, saying Zimbabwe's enemies have imposed illegal sanctions on the poor.
A columnist in the official Sunday Mail ridiculed the church leaders confessions, saying Western countries had continued with their destabilisation tactics well after Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=qw1157367601665B256
The leaders knelt on Friday before officials including the former Mozambican president Joaquim Chissano and the head of Zimbabwe's traditional chiefs, Fortune Charumbira, to ask for forgiveness for ills committed during the slave trade era as well as during colonial times, reports the state-controlled Herald newspaper.
The delegates, from an organisation calling itself the European African Reconciliation Process, said Zimbabwe's former colonial power Britain had dehumanised Africans.
"We repent for taking rather than giving," said Briton Chris Seaton at the event in Harare.
'We ask forgiveness in *****' name'
"We repent for robbing Africans of their history and identity. Today we ask forgiveness in *****' name before you and God," Seaton was quoted as saying in a front-page report in the official daily.
The gesture has aroused mixed reactions in a country struggling amid sky-high inflation and spiralling prices. President Robert Mugabe's government blames Britain and the West for his country's economic crisis, saying Zimbabwe's enemies have imposed illegal sanctions on the poor.
A columnist in the official Sunday Mail ridiculed the church leaders confessions, saying Western countries had continued with their destabilisation tactics well after Zimbabwe's independence in 1980.
http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=68&art_id=qw1157367601665B256
