South Africa’s main labour federation, whose fact-finding mission to Harare was booted out last year, should confine itself to domestic issues and not seek to return, Zimbabwe’s labour minister said in remarks published on Thursday.
Paul Mangwana said the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) is overstepping its brief in wanting to stage a second mission, and warned that Zimbabwe is not an outpost of its powerful southern neighbour.
”Really, what is the problem of this animal called Cosatu?” he told The Financial Gazette weekly.
”We are not a province of South Africa and as such Cosatu should confine its labour politics in that country … Cosatu should stay in South Africa.”
”We have our own labour unions and I don’t think we need foreign labour unions to solve our problems,” he added.
President Robert Mugabe’s government deported a 13-member fact-finding mission from Cosatu in October, saying it was pursuing a ”political agenda” after it arranged to meet with civic groups.
Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven said the organisation had written to Mangwana for permission to return but had not received a reply.
The botched trip caused a war of words between Cosatu and its political ally, South Africa’s African National Congress government, after the trade-union movement criticised President Thabo Mbeki’s approach of ”quiet diplomacy” towards Zimbabwe, which means that he does not criticise Mugabe in public.
Mugabe, in power since independence in Zimbabwe in 1980, has been accused of rigging elections and cracking down on the opposition, the media and civic groups to maintain his Zanu-PF’s hold on the government. — Sapa-AFP