Delegation of U.S. Bishops visit Zimbabwe

Bishop Wester is chairman of the USCCB Committee on Migration (COM), Bishop Ricard is Chairman of the USCCB Subcommittee on Africa, Anastasia Brown is Director of refugee programs for Migration and Refugee Services (MRS), and Kevin Appleby is the director of Migration Policy and Public Affairs, who all participated on this trip.

The delegation visited Harare, Zimbabwe, the capital, from Aug. 26-28. Catholic Relief Services-Zimbabwe hosted and helped facilitate the delegation visit to Harare.

"The trip in general was a trip that combined several committees of the USCCB," said Bishop Wester. "It combined the Subcommittee on Africa, the Committee on International Justice and Peace, the Committee on Migration, and Catholic Relief Services (CRS). The Committee on Migration is headed by The Most Rev. Howard Hubbard of Albany New York."

Bishop Wester is a member of all four of the committees including CRS, Migration, the Committee on Africa, and he is a consultant on the Committee for National Justice and Peace.

"The main purpose we were there was because the Catholic Church in the United States is very involved in the Catholic Church of Africa," said Bishop Wester. "The Catholic Church has a Pastoral Solidarity Fund, and the Church of Africa brings proposals to us. We review those proposals, and then offer a subsidy to them. Going to Zimbabwe gave us a chance to see firsthand how the monies were being used and how affective the program has been. It gave us a deep admiration of how much the Church in the United States does for the Church in Africa."

Bishop Wester said some of the purposes of the Church in America subsidizing money is to assist the local Church in Zimbabwe by offering the money to Zimbabwean Catholic Bishops Conference (ZCBC). The ZCBC is assisting in the writing of the new constitution of Zimbabwe. This is extremely important because they need a new constitution in order to protect the rights of the people, and to provide for a government that can serve the people.

"Also, for example, the Church in South Africa is working very hard in assisting people with HIV/AIDS," said Bishop Wester. "Of course, the PEPFAR money in the United States is the major player in that. (In 2003, the U.S. President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) was launched to combat global HIV/AIDS - the largest commitment by any nation to combat a single disease in history.) This money is used to educate and treat people with AIDS.

Bishop Wester said it is not just a question of handing out medicine, you also have to explain to people how to use the medicine. It is also visiting people in their homes, and offering clinics for them to come and get their medicine, and have their blood and vital signs checked. The United States gives money to the Church in South Africa to help in some of those parish and diocesan programs.

"It was good to see how our money is being used in South Africa, but we also came away with some concerns," said Bishop Wester. "It is reciprocal. It is not a question of us just going over to dole out money, but rather we see ourselves as brothers and sisters in Christ, and we learn from one another in a variety of ways. We can learn how they deal with people with HIV/AIDS, and that helps us reach out to people in our country.

"We met with Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai, representatives from the government, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, the Charged Affair of the United States Embassy in Harare, Zimbabwe, and we saw many displacement camps. We met about the humanitarian needs of the people, including the displaced refugees.

"The situation is very dire in Zimbabwe now," said Bishop Wester. "There is 86 percent unemployment. Millions of Zimbabweans are leaving the country. We did discover that there is a mixed flow of refugees. It is not simply economic migration. There are some who are fleeing because they cannot economically survive, but they also are being persecuted. (In the June 2008 elections, Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party lost to Tsvangirai’s Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) and political violence broke out, resulting in a negotiated settlement and shared power.) The Zanu-PF party still harasses people, threatens, and imprisons them, and possibly tortures them.

"I do not know if the NPC party, which is the party of Tsvangirai who should be in power, could also be harassing people as well, although to a lesser degree," said Bishop Wester. "We did hear some reports of that on both sides, but it is hard to tell without evidence.

"We talked to people in displacement camps in Zimbabwe and in South Africa, and talked to government officials, and the refugees will tell you they are looking for jobs or for an education for their children," said Bishop Wester. "But if you dig beneath the surface, you find those are stock answers. They are true answers, but they are also fleeing persecution. We do have people here who are asylum seekers, refugees, and persons of concern. We also have women and children/orphans who are persons of concern.

"A lot of that activity is moving from the border into South Africa itself," said Bishop Wester. "As Zimbabweans move into the interior of South Africa, they are more susceptible to being victimized.

"For example we visited the Central Methodist Church in Johanesburg, South Africa, that is housing about 3,000 immigrants and refugees," said Bishop Wester. "The people are out in the streets all day begging and getting odd jobs, doing what they can to survive, and then they come back to sleep in the church at night. It is a real problem."

This is the first in a three or four-part series on Bishop Wester’s trip to Zimbabwe and South Africa. He will also talk about immigration and refugees, human trafficking, HIV/AIDS, crime, and unemployment.