Workers in Zimbabwe are beaten, maimed and in some cases even castrated, Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) president Willie Madisha said at this year’s Solidarity trade union congress on Thursday.
”Workers are beaten, maimed and killed. We know of instances were workers have been castrated,” Madisha said to the congress outside Johannesburg.
He said there is a ”very serious problem” with the Zanu-PF ruling party calling itself a ”party of liberation” when workers are killed and beaten.
If the Zanu-PF elite comes to South Africa, he said, workers need to make sure that they are not comfortable in their beds and do not enjoy the country’s food.
”Otherwise, history will not forgive us,” he reasoned.
Referring to Zimbabwe’s upcoming elections, Madisha said it is obvious President Robert Mugabe will win, thereby legitimising his ”dictatorship”.
Madisha stressed that Cosatu does not support the Movement for Democratic Change, Zanu-PF or any other party.
”What we support are the working class and the poor.”
There is a need to focus on the ”hundreds of thousands” of farm workers who have been displaced as a result of Mugabe’s land-reform programme, rather than one or two farm owners, Madisha said.
”Cosatu supports land redistribution in Zimbabwe, but we do not support the way it is done.”
The fact that two Cosatu delegations have been ”chased away” from Zimbabwe does not mean that the union federation will not go back.
He said that pickets and demonstrations at the Zimbabwean high commission in Pretoria and Beit Bridge will be intensified.
He then threw down the gauntlet to Solidarity.
”Are we going to Beit Bridge?” he asked.
This was followed by murmurs of ”yes”, and applause from the audience.
Solidarity spokesperson Dirk Hermann stood up after Madisha’s speech and said: ”Beit Bridge, here we come.”
In his speech, Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) spokesperson Mlamleli Sibanda said it is difficult for trade unions in Zimbabwe to carry out their activities in a free and fair manner.
”The situation for workers is horrible,” he said.
He lamented that a rival Zimbabwean trade union organisation, the Zimbabwean Federation of Trade Unions, is allowed free reign due to its support of Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party.
”With that kind of scenario, industrial relations in Zimbabwe are in a sorry state,” he said.
The ZCTU, on the other hand, in its defiant role of watchdog of the Zimbabwean government, saw the arrest of 455 of its members in 2003 during various meetings, demonstrations and strikes.
Draconian laws such as the Public Order and Security Act have been used to curtail the activities of civil society groups and trade unions.
The solution lies in changing the country’s Constitution, he said.
”We need to go back to the Constitution to normalise the situation.”
Sibanda estimated that 80% of the country’s workers live below the poverty line and, as a result, travel to South Africa to find work. The output of the country’s economy has dropped by 19,3% in the past four years, he said.
A mere quarter of Zimbabwe’s once-productive commercial farms are still productive.
”It’s not a situation we are proud of,” he said. — Sapa