Iden Wetherell
Ignoring government threats of dire consequences, Zimbabwe’s workers this week stayed at home in response to calls for a peaceful protest against tax increases from trade union leaders who have proved once again that they represent a powerful challenge to President Robert Mugabe’s arthritic regime.
The capital Harare and other major centres were deserted on Tuesday as hundreds of thousands of workers affiliated to the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) defied orders from Minister of Labour Florence Chitauro to report for work. Although Wednesday saw a partial return in some areas, industry remained at a standstill.
Mugabe had earlier reminded workers that “we have many degrees in violence”, and threatened to “let them have it” if trouble erupted.
Demonstrations organised by the ZCTU last December turned violent after police attempted to disperse gatherings, and in January there was unco-ordinated looting during food protests.
The ZCTU wants a recent 2,5% hike in sales tax reversed, and a long-standing 5% development levy scrapped.
When it was clear the stayaway had succeeded, Minister of Industry Nathan Shamuyarira said the government would punish workers who had not reported for work and employers who had closed their businesses.
“We are looking into all mechanisms possible to deal with employers who turned workers away,” an angry Shamuyarira said. He appeared piqued that government and parastatal workers had joined the strike.
But ZCTU secretary general Morgan Tsvangirai, victim of a vicious assault in December, retorted that workers wanted to show the government that “they are not going to succumb to intimidation”.
Threats, many of them in conflict with constitutional guarantees of freedom of association, have featured prominently in the state’s response to this latest confrontation with the unions.
Mugabe and his ministers claim that Zimbabwe’s 80 000 whites are fomenting unrest as part of a sinister alliance with the unions to bring down the government, a view not supported by evidence and rejected with contempt by the ZCTU.
Mugabe has suggested that workers should be asking their employers for more money rather than trying to get taxes reduced. “They cannot try to be government and say no to this tax and yes to that tax,” he indignantly insisted earlier this week.
Chenjerai Hunzvi, leader of the veterans of Zimbabwe’s liberation war whose co-operation has been secured by large government handouts, promised this week to “attack the whites for inciting the boycott”, a threat which ministers appear to have overlooked.
The government’s invective has made little impact on the Zimbabwean public which increasingly holds Mugabe responsible for the economic crisis the country faces. Letters to the press have suggested the president make asylum arrangements while he still can.
Others draw comparisons between Mugabe’s bile in dealing with the protest and the statesmanship shown by ZCTU leaders Tsvangirai and Gibson Sibanda.
Speaking at ceremonies to mark his 74th birthday last month, Mugabe lashed out at the two, who he accused of wanting his job. “People must weigh themselves and see what they are good at,” he inveighed in remarks which led editorial writers to ask what he was good at.
“He seems to be entering a new phase of persecution-mania as his grip on power slips,” said veteran commentator Bill Saidi. “What haunts him seems to be the likelihood of Tsvangirai and Sibanda doing a Chiluba on him.”
It is a moot point. While the union leadership looks more like a viable alternative to a regime in terminal decline, the government’s resort to threats and intimidation reveals a leadership divorced from political realities and unwilling to change.
‘Public enemy number one’ in a rumpled suit, PAGES 20 to 21