Several hundred South Africans picketed at the Zimbabwe border to show solidarity for Zimbabwe’s struggle for democracy and human rights, the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said on Thursday.
Cosatu’s Limpopo provincial secretary Jan Tsiane said the protesters from the unions and members of the South African National Civic Organisation and the Limpopo Young Communist League gathered at the Beitbridge border post between South Africa and Zimbabwe on Thursday.
Cosatu is backing the Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions’ demand for minimum wages and salaries linked to the poverty datum line (PDL), reduction of income tax to a 30% maximum, no tax for workers earning below the PDL, free access to antiretrovirals, stabilised pricing on basic commodities and a stop to state harassment of informal-economy workers.
Tsiane said the gathering also called for open dialogue between all political formations and civil society in Zimbabwe, aimed in particular at a new constitution ahead of democratic elections next year.
”The constitution must allow for the passage of a new electoral law based on the SADC [Southern African Development Community] protocols on the conduct of free and fair elections,” said Tsiane.
A conducive climate for elections, free of state violence and repression, also need to be created, he said,
”We urge President [Thabo] Mbeki, on behalf of SADC, to vigorously pursue these objectives,” said Tsiane. — Sapa