Mugabe "responsible" for Zimbabwe

On Sunday 13 September Andrew Marr interviewed Dr John Sentamu, Archbishop of York.

Please note 'The Andrew Marr Show' must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, says that President of Zimbabwe Robert Mugabe must be accountable for the situation in his nation.

ANDREW MARR:

Now this morning, the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, attacked the bankrupt political correctness which underplays the role of the Church of England and other churches. His new Youth Trust, which he launched this weekend, which will give grants to young people in deprived areas, is presumably an example of the kind of church work he's talking about. Well Dr Sentamu joins me now from his official residence in York. Welcome, Archbishop. Tell us a little …

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

Good morning, Andrew.

ANDREW MARR:

Good morning. Tell us a little bit about this Youth Trust. This is to encourage leadership, in particular, in youth groups.

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

Yes. What became very clear to me is that if you really want to change the lives of young people, the best way of doing it is getting them involved and creating responsibility in them. Instead of us doing things to them, they should be encouraged to do things for themselves and for their neighbours and their friends. And the four awards which were received yesterday by a school in Warrington, by the street pastors in Newcastle, by a youth group in Hull as well as in Leeds - these are young people that have actually transformed the lives of their neighbourhoods and the lives of their friends. So the trust was giving out some money yesterday and launching it. We also gave an award to President … to Archbishop Desmond Tutu, who unfortunately couldn't be with us because he's suffering from a prolapsed disc, and he encourages all of us to actually be more positive on the way in which we treat young people and not demonising everybody. Yes, there are some bad, young people that get into trouble or get off the rails, but the vast majority of our young people need to be more encouraged to excel and do well and they actually rise to the challenge. That's why this trust was set up.

ANDREW MARR:

This is, this is a church based movement. You said in the Mail on Sunday that you are fed up to the back teeth - or some similar phrase - with the political correctness which down values or downplays the role of the Church of England and other churches. Is that something that could be laid at the blame of the feet of the government or the media? Who's to blame for that?

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

I think, I think there is a very general climate of confusion and mistaken understanding. These youth groups that are actually helping a lot of their friends, they are not doing it in order to make them Christian. They're doing it out of compassion and out of care. So when a charge project for example applies to a grant to a local council, questions are going to be asked and most of the time those grants are turned down because they think they are proselytising, which actually is not part of the heart of the Christian faith. And clearly in my book, you know there are 23 million voluntary hours that actually the church does in its communities and it is not recognised most often. New things are always being set up actually instead of going to where things are working and then working with all those volunteers and encouraging this volunteering and responsibility within the community. So in the end, I just think that there has risen a confusion about what the Church of England stands for, what it actually does in our communities, and there has been this sidelining and often people think that actually what you are about is simply to convert but not actually to be good citizens.

ANDREW MARR:

Up in Yorkshire, you've got a lot of military families and you've supported the military and all those people who've lost sons, daughters, and had people maimed and so on. As a Christian, do you regard the Afghan War as a just war?

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

Well there's a sense in which that war was agreed to by the United Nations, so all the nations of the world agreed that actually the Taliban were such a menace to not only their own people but actually a lot of terrorism was growing from within it. I've visited Afghanistan and I can see the damage they did to young people, to women particularly. So the nations of the world decided that this is a very just war because the Taliban were asked to give over Omar and Osama bin Laden and they refused, so there was a sense in which the end of the road had been reached.

ANDREW MARR:

Yes.

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

And you know what amazes me. When I met for example you know Bombardier Ben Parkinson who was injured by a landmine, lost both his legs and damaged his head - he is still determined to walk. I mean he went through a hundred hours of oppression …

ANDREW MARR:

Yes.

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

… and he's still very cheerful. And I said to myself he feels the war is just, he feels the war is worth winning because of the peace of the world but more importantly for the well-being of the people of Afghanistan.

ANDREW MARR:

You are of course not wearing your dog collar still because President …

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

(over) No.

ANDREW MARR:

… is still in power in some form in Zimbabwe. And yet there seems to be the beginning of a sort of wooing going on between the European Union and Mr Mugabe. What do you think about that?

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

Well, well I think it is very remarkable. Before the EU delegation, led by the EU development officer, Mugabe had really lashed out about this imperialism, colonialism, "Zimbabwe is ours, we're never going to lose it". And then he said some astonishing things like, "I bear no responsibility for what has happened in my country. This is the responsibility of the West and the sanctions". I mean the guy must be crazy really. He bears no responsibility - a leader who has led the country in such chaos and confusion and very racist in relationship to the white farmers, to the people in the Matavai land you know because they're not part of his tribe? I can't buy any of that. So I was very glad …

ANDREW MARR:

Sure.

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

… when the EU delegation said, "Mr Mugabe, no, the sanctions must remain in place and we are also very disappointed by the slowness of the reforms that should have happened". So as for me, Mugabe says he's very young, he's going to continue forever, he will never step down the age of 85. Well he bears a lot of responsibility and the world should not be deflected because he tends to simply accuse everybody in the West of being a racist, of being white, being terrible, being awful. The problem is back at home with Mr Mugabe. The Power-Sharing Agreement was done in September 2008. You'd have expected by now to be a lot of change …

ANDREW MARR:

(over) And we haven't seen it, alright.

ARCHBISHOP SENTAMU:

… And we now have to launch a big appeal to feed the poor.

ANDREW MARR:

Okay, Archbishop, very clear. Thank you very much indeed for joining us this morning.

INTERVIEW ENDS

Please note "The Andrew Marr Show" must be credited if any part of this transcript is used.

NB: This transcript was typed from a recording and not copied from an original script.

Because of the possibility of mis-hearing and the difficulty, in some cases, of identifying individual speakers, the BBC cannot vouch for its accuracy

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