Pretoria News (SA), 18 July: Zimbabwe's state-controlled media have had a field day in publishing lurid, grainy photographs of a man they claim is Catholic Archbishop Pius Ncube, allegedly taken inside his bedroom with a naked woman. Archbishop Ncube, an outspoken critic of President Robert Mugabe, has been sued by a lowly-paid public servant who said the cleric has destroyed his marriage. When shown the photographs, the woman admitted to having had a sexual relationship with Ncube. Ncube sounded weary on the telephone from his home in Bulawayo on Tuesday. He said the pictures claimed to be of him naked, were part of "a long-term strategy". The pictures, taken by a secret camera, show a naked man, which the state Press says is Pius Ncube, and a woman in a bed in the same room. A summons was served on the archbishop at St Mary's Cathedral on Monday and about a dozen journalists from state media were on hand when the sheriff of Bulawayo delivered the papers to him. A colleague of the archbishop, who asked not to be named, said on Tuesday the cleric had agreed to have an interview with the SABC's Supa Mandanwanzira, who also freelances for the state-controlled Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation. Ncube agreed to the interview to talk about the effects of the price cuts imposed by the government which have led to widespread shortages of essential foods. The summons was served on behalf of Onesimus Sibanda, a technician at the bankrupt National Railways of Zimbabwe, who claimed his wife Rosemary, who worked in the Catholic Church in Bulawayo, was having a two-year long affair with the archbishop. Sibanda has demanded about R700 000 in damages from the Archbishop. Ncube said he was "very stressed" but many people had shown him support and he was "praying a great deal" during this time.
David Coltart, founding legal secretary for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, and a long standing human rights lawyer, said the revelations in the media and the summons appeared to be what he described as "a well co-ordinated campaign". Coltart said he did not believe a state-employed railway technician could have afforded a sophisticated operation like the one which produced the explicit pictures taken with a concealed camera and were published in the state Press and on television. He said Ncube was President Mugabe's most consistent critic, and the state had felt restrained from "arresting, torturing or killing him, as happened to many others" who opposed the present government. "President Mugabe had obviously known in advance about this, as he referred to priests on July 7, saying 'some of them have sworn to celibacy but they sleep around'. It was hypocritical of the present regime, which was involved in genocide, to focus on this issue in the way it has. Archbishop Ncube tries to feed hungry people while the present government tries to starve them."
Coltart also said Mugabe had children with a married woman while his first wife, Sally, was dying. Mugabe went on to marry his present wife Grace after Sally died. Coltart said he and many of his colleagues and friends would support Ncube, "regardless of whether the allegations proved to be true or not". Rosemary Sibanda, the woman with whom the archbishop is alleged to have had an affair, told the Zimbabwe state media she was separated from her husband at the time she began a sexual relationship with the archbishop. Nicholas Mathonsi, a lawyer for Ncube, said he was still discussing the matter with his client and would make a statement later. He said in his years as a lawyer in Bulawayo he had never seen a summons delivered with a crowd of state journalists in attendance.
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