Abel Muzorewa, African Cleric and Politician, Dies at 85
Bishop Abel T. Muzorewa, once a central player in white minority plans to blunt black majority rule in what is now Zimbabwe, died on Thursday in Harare, the capital, the state-controlled Herald newspaper said Friday. He was 85.
Bishop Muzorewa enjoyed brief renown as prime minister of an unrecognized white-dominated government before history, war and diplomacy moved on without him.
In a career as a cleric and political activist in what was then called Rhodesia, Bishop Muzorewa initially attracted a following as a nationalist leader, thwarting British plans to strike a deal in the 1970s with former Prime Minister Ian D. Smith.
But the nationalist struggle splintered into many factions. A fundamental divide opened between those black politicians, like Bishop Muzorewa, who chose to remain inside the country to pursue a political settlement, and those, like Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe — now president of independent Zimbabwe — who went on to conduct a guerrilla campaign from exile....
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Bishop Muzorewa enjoyed brief renown as prime minister of an unrecognized white-dominated government before history, war and diplomacy moved on without him.
In a career as a cleric and political activist in what was then called Rhodesia, Bishop Muzorewa initially attracted a following as a nationalist leader, thwarting British plans to strike a deal in the 1970s with former Prime Minister Ian D. Smith.
But the nationalist struggle splintered into many factions. A fundamental divide opened between those black politicians, like Bishop Muzorewa, who chose to remain inside the country to pursue a political settlement, and those, like Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe — now president of independent Zimbabwe — who went on to conduct a guerrilla campaign from exile....