Zimbabwean union and civic leaders vowed on Monday to take to the streets to protest worsening hardship under President Robert Mugabe’s rule, and asked police to refrain from beating them.
”If we don’t get a living wage of Z$35-million [about R2 100] for the lowest-paid worker we will take to the streets,” Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) president Lovemore Matombo told thousands of people at a stadium in Harare to mark May Day.
”I urge you, police, soldiers and Central Intelligence Organisation operatives and your commanders, when we go out of the streets over the wage issues, please don’t block us or beat us up.”
Matombo said plans for the protest strikes and dates will be discussed at the union’s congress later this month.
Zimbabwe National Students’ Union secretary general Promise Mkwananzi blamed the government for the country’s woes and urged Zimbabweans to join the opposition and engage in mass strikes to force Mugabe to relinquish power.
”When the Movement for Democratic Change [MDC] calls for democratic resistance, we will join them,” Mkwananzi said, referring to protest calls by Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of a faction of the divided MDC.
The calls came a few weeks after Mugabe accused his opponents of plotting to topple him and issued a stern warning to activists planning protest action.
”I want to warn those who say they no longer want to follow democratic principles and reject elections and want to topple the government by gathering people to stage strikes, burn businesses and destroy our wealth,” he said at celebrations marking Zimbabwe’s 26th anniversary of independence in mid-April.
”I want to warn them they are playing with fire which will burn them,” said Mugabe, who has been in power since independence from Britain in 1980.
ZCTU leader Matombo deplored the growing poverty, and the lack of services in major cities including erratic power supplies. He urged Zimbabweans to stop paying utilities bills to pressure authorities.
”At independence 25 years ago, 30% of the population lived below the poverty datum line; now, in 2006, it’s over 90%,” he said. ”Unemployment was between 15% and 20%; now it’s over 85% if we want to be conservative and use government statistics.”
Matombo called for a price freeze and wage increases as the government, labour and business prepare to conclude a series of negotiations to alleviate the plight of workers.
Lovemore Madhuku, leader of the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA), a coalition of organisations demanding a new Constitution for Zimbabwe, urged civic groups to confront Mugabe’s government.
”Our hardships are not caused by God but by the Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front [Zanu-PF] government, and if we unite and confront them, they will give in,” he said. ”Democracy is not about elections, it’s about the will of the people. If elections fail, we resort to other means and demonstrations are the only way we can ever succeed.”
”We as the NCA, ZCTU and the MDC should go out on the streets of Harare and other towns and tell Mugabe to go,” he said.
Zimbabwe is in the seventh year of economic recession characterised by world-record inflation galloping towards 1 000% and an unemployment rate hovering at more than 80%, while the majority of the 13-million people live below the poverty threshold.
Poor workers are resorting to cutting down on their daily meals and walking or cycling to work in order to make it to the next pay day.
Street protests have in the past been swiftly and brutally broken up by police enforcing the country’s tough security laws. — Sapa-AFP