A member of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) delegation to Zimbabwe, which was thrown out of the country on Tuesday night, has talked of the group’s seven-hour ordeal at Harare International airport.
The 13-strong delegation, which went to Zimbabwe on a fact-finding mission, arrived back in South Africa on Wednesday after being deported from Zimbabwe.
Simon Boshielo, Cosatu’s international affairs secretary and a member of the delegation, said the Zimbabwean government kept them at the airport for seven hours without food while they expected to be taken to their hotel in Harare.
”They [Zimbabwean police] attempted to beat us when we asked for food and they told us that this is not South Africa. They told us that we are not going to get food. They said in fact they want to take us back to our country,” Boshielo said.
He added that when they arrived at the Harare airport on Monday, they were shown a letter from the Zimbabwean government warning them not to talk to ”organisations like Zimbabwean Lawyers for Human Rights, the Crisis Coalition and churches” if they wanted to remain in the country.
”The problem started when we defied their rules and organised to talk to those organisations. Then we were told that we will be taken back to our country by force. And we refused to leave the country, instead we demanded that they’d better arrest us.
”We demanded to meet with the government to explain to them but it was fruitless. Later, we were told that the Cabinet has decided to take us back to our country,” Boshielo said.
When they were meeting the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), a large contingent of police arrived and escorted them out of the building to a bus.
”While were on the bus, we were under the impression that we were being taken to our hotel, only to find that we are being taken back to South Africa. And we were dumped at the Beitbridge border at 5am and it was then that we took taxis to Pietersburg [Polokwane] airport,” Boshielo said. — Sapa