The secessionist opposition party, Mthwakazi Republic Party (MRP), claims to have discovered dangerous traditional weapons and other objects during its raids on bush churches mostly run by apostolic sects in Bulawayo.
MRP activists launched what they call a clean-up campaign sometime last month in Bulawayo targeting open-air religious sects that they accuse of polluting the environment.
Speaking to the Southern Eye, MRP spokesperson Velile Moyo, said they are spreading the clean-up campaign to Matabeleland North and South provinces. Said Moyo:
We have realized that our bushes are dirty because of these bush shrines. We are happy that the Bulawayo City Council (BCC) is also positively responding to our campaign by sending municipal rangers to deal with the littering of our bushes by the churches.
We discovered weapons such as spears, swords, piles of underpants, wrapped pieces of wool, and piles of other people’s pictures and we advised them (church members) to burn them.
Some have complied with our advice because we are going to them in peace.
Moyo said the ritual cloths and flags that they found at the shrines violated local cultural norms and values. He added:
We are telling them that they must go and see the council so that they are allocated stands on which to operate.
Bulawayo United Residents Association (BURA) chairperson Winos Dube said that the clean-up campaign was welcome “If it is done without any other sinister motives”. He added:
We always appreciate such moves as residents but we do not want it done in a manner that will infringe other people’s rights.
Just like Murambatsvina, it was a clean-up campaign but it ended up infringing other people’s rights.
However, Zimbabwe Republic Police (ZRP) spokesperson in Bulawayo Metropolitan Province, Inspector Abednico Ncube said they had not heard about the clean-up campaign being conducted by the MRP activists.
