Supporters of Robert Mugabe launched a move on Tuesday to oust anti-government union leaders as a new report by a rights group slammed the violence used to suppress opposition to the Zimbabwean president.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has been at the vanguard of the opposition to Mugabe’s 26-year rule for more than a decade and the divisions between the two sides have grown ever more bitter.
But a new motion filed by Mugabe’s own nephew in Parliament demands the removal of trade union leaders who try to foment unrest against the government and shows the 82-year-old president is now gearing up for a final confrontation.
Leo Mugabe, MP for the western Makonde constituency, said in a notice to Parliament that he would ask Labour Minister Nicholas Goche to dissolve the entire executive of the ZCTU for ”unethical business practices”.
The motion was formally lodged in Parliament and is now expected to be debated later this week.
The lawmaker said a government inquiry had exposed gross mismanagement and abuse of funds by ZCTU officials, adding that ”a new-look ZCTU” was needed.
”The new-look ZCTU should concentrate on its core business of representing workers rather than stayaways that have failed to address bread-and-butter issues,” Leo Mugabe said.
While legislation is on the statute books to allow the government to dismiss the ZCTU executive, Mugabe has never before sought to invoke the power.
Under the stewardship of the man who went on to become leader of the opposition, Morgan Tsvangirai, the ZCTU first proved itself a thorn in the side of Mugabe with a series of mass street rallies in the late 1990s.
More recently, the government has invoked the Public Order Act to prevent any ”unauthorised” rallies and has shown a willingness to clamp down hard on those who refuse to toe the line.
A mass rally organised by the ZCTU last month was stopped in its tracks by the security forces who rounded up dozens of organisers, including ZCTU secretary general Wellington Chibebe and president Lovemore Matombo.
Allegations that the unionists were subsequently brutally beaten were detailed in a report released on Tuesday by the New York-based Human Rights Watch, which also claimed the use of torture and arbitrary arrest was on the rise.
”When Zimbabweans engage in peaceful protest, the government responds with brutal repression,” said the group’s deputy Africa director Georgette Gagnon.
”The authorities use torture, arbitrary arrest and detention to deter activists from engaging in their right to freely assemble and express their views.”
A doctor, Reginald Machaba Hove, who examined some of those arrested told the report’s authors he was shocked by the extent of their injuries at the hands of the security services.
”I have never seen anything like this before. They were denied medical access for more than 24 hours. The beating was so callous and hard,” he said.
The government trashed the report, saying it was part of a campaign by the West to tarnish Zimbabwe’s image.
”They have been saying that for the past six years and as government we don’t give a damn about it,” said Junior Information Minister Paul Mangwana.
Mugabe, in power since Zimbabwe’s independence from Britain in 1980, has been unapologetic about the use of force against those who stage unauthorised demonstrations.
”When the police say move, move. If you don’t move, you invite the police to use force,” he said of September’s protests.
While it was one of Africa’s best-performing countries in the first decade after independence, Zimbabwe has since seen its inflation rate rocket to a world-record high and about 80% of its people are unemployed.
A controversial land-reform programme, which saw thousands of white farmers evicted, and contentious parliamentary polls led to the European Union and United States imposing a travel embargo on Mugabe and his inner circle. — Sapa-AFP