Our man in Zimbabwe sends word of a brief recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Zimbabwe. The court dismissed an appeal from a High Court judgment in 2004, which upheld a still earlier ruling by a magistrate at Mutare, in Zimbabwe's eastern highlands.
The decision means a spell in the crowbar hotel for ten members of the Johanne Marange Apostolic Faith sect. Their crime? Fighting fighting over the dead body of Oliver Marange, son of the sect's founder.
This goes back just over 11 years, to July 2001, not long after Walt moved from Zimbabwe to a place offering longer life expectancy for whities. In the midst of Oliver Marange's funeral at Taguta village, in Chief Marange's district, a fight broke out over the question of who owned the corpse.
True believers started pelting each other with rocks. Then -- apparently figuring that sticks and stones may break bones, but the Word is mightier still -- they substituted Bibles. According to court records, things got really nasty when the coffin broke, dumping the body onto the ground, after which one of the brawlers set the casket alight. Armed police were called in to quell the ensuing riot.
The ten church members, all from the same Taguta family, were sentenced to 36 months in jail, each. The dismissal of their appeal means the magistrates court can now issue an arrest warrant for Samson, Titus, Ambrose, Ellakim, Esrom, Elmon, James, Zibert, Arizori and Stephen Momberume.
In upholding the lower court ruling, Justice Bhunu said, "Their conduct on that day was not only unlawful, but contrary to the norms, values and tenets of all Christian teachings and morality." So it would seem.
When asked why it took so long for the court case to be decided once and for all, our man said simply, "This is Africa."
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