A SOUTH African-born Presbyterian missionary who accused the Zimbabwean government of involvement in the killings of two white parishioners has left the country after authorities revoked his permit to work in the country and ordered his deportation.
The Rev Paul Andrianatos entered South Africa safely after a campaign of threats and intimidation from state security agents, his family and colleagues said.
Andrianatos, 44, said he and his family were put under surveillance, the telephone at his church-owned house in the second city of Bulawayo was tapped and their “letters were intercepted and opened.”
Agents of the state Central Intelligence Organisation constantly followed him and questioned him at home and at his church, the cleric told reporters before his departure.
“I was told there was a decision at Cabinet level my work permit was not going to be renewed and I was being thrown out,” said Andrianatos, who worked as a cleric in western Zimbabwe for 10 years.
He was given until Sunday to leave the country. The Presbyterian church is to reassign him to the town of Barking in southern England, where he will be joined by his Zimbabwean-born wife, Joy-Anne.
Andrianatos has not minced his words about Mugabe and recently told a church congregation that only “divine intervention could save Zimbabwe from sliding down the abyss”.
Andrianatos claimed that remarks he made at the funeral of slain white farmer Martin Olds last April triggered the government’s campaign against him.
At the funeral, Andrianatos called President Robert Mugabe “a criminal and a murderer” who ordered political violence against his ruling Zanu-PF party’s opponents. The cleric told mourners “a vote for Zanu-PF is a vote for the devil.”
Olds, a known supporter for the opposition Movement for Democratic Change party, was shot by suspected ruling party militants who illegally occupied his farm and other white-owned farms in the western Matabeleland province ahead of parliamentary elections in June.
Olds’ mother, Gloria Olds, 72, was also gunned down in a hail of automatic gunfire at her farm north of Bulawayo March 4 by suspected ruling party militants. She was hit by 15 bullets.
Though police said the motive appeared to be robbery, her stolen pickup truck was found abandoned a day later and money was left untouched in the homestead. No suspects have been charged.
At Gloria Olds’ funeral – Andrianatos’ last service in Zimbabwe – the cleric described the widow’s killers as “cowards and scum”.
“It is a sad day when leaders tolerate and even encourage lawlessness,” he said.
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