President Robert Mugabe’s government said on Tuesday that it will not let Zimbabwe’s main trade union federation monitor crucial elections this month, charging that it is an agent of former colonial ruler Britain.
Justice Patrick Chinamasa said in a statement that the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has a track record of working with British Prime Minister Tony Blair’s government, a fierce critic of the regime in Harare.
”[The] ZCTU over the years acted in league with external forces, in particular the Blair government and the British Labour Party, to cause the imposition of sanctions against Zimbabwe,” he said.
”ZCTU’s secretary general, Wellington Chibebe, has been a regular feature at the British Labour Party annual conferences and has used the platform to call for … international isolation of the country and the illegal removal of the legitimate government.”
Chinamasa said the ZCTU has not been invited to observe the March 31 parliamentary vote as it has ”biased and preconceived ideas about the outcome of the elections”.
Mugabe, who has ruled Zimbabwe since its independence from Britain in 1980, has repeatedly attacked Blair for ”interfering” in his country’s affairs and claimed Blair wants to ”re-colonise” the Southern African country.
However, Chinamasa said 29 local organisations have been invited to supervise the elections, including Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights, the Zimbabwe Council of Churches and the Zimbabwe Election Support Network.
The ZCTU, which monitored the 2002 elections won by Mugabe, further earned Harare’s ire for trying to get the main labour federation from regional giant South Africa, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, to stage a pre-poll fact-finding mission in Zimbabwe.
In 1999, the ZCTU joined forces with student unions and civic organisations to form the Movement for Democratic Change — the main opposition party that has posed the stiffest challenge to Mugabe’s 25-year rule. — Sapa-AFP