THE Anglican Church yesterday led moving local tributes to the late and long-reigning British monarch, Queen Elizabeth II, who died in Scotland on Thursday.
The bishop of the church’s Harare Diocese, Farai Mutamiri, said they were greatly saddened by the death of the Queen. “As the Anglican Church, we are deeply saddened by the loss. Together with the Church of England, we regarded the Queen and the royal family as the defenders of faith. “As we cannot cut off our umbilical code from the Church of England, and as we remain part and parcel of it, this loss of life greatly saddens us,” Mutamiri said.
MDC spokesperson Witness Dube also said the main opposition party was also saddened by the Queen’s death. “The MDC joins Great Britain, the Commonwealth and indeed the whole world in mourning the passing on of an enduring and stoic monarch, whose progressive dimension of traditional leadership, of a perfect balance between politics and culture, should be emulated by all,” he said.
Zimbabwe joined the Commonwealth on its independence in 1980, and as head of the Commonwealth, Queen Elizabeth II, pictured, and Prince Philip made a five-day state visit to the country in 1991, when it hosted the Commonwealth Heads of Government Meeting that year. The late former president Robert Mugabe was later awarded an honorary knighthood by Queen Elizabeth II in 1994.
But the relationship between the two turned sour, which resulted in Mugabe being stripped of his knighthood in June 2008, over claims of human rights abuses. As relations with Britain deteriorated further, Zimbabwe was suspended from the Commonwealth in 2002 amid the concerns about a lack of democracy in the country. In a rage in 2003, Mugabe subsequently withdrew Zimbabwe from the Commonwealth. — with TimesLIVE