About a hundred members of the Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) and other organisations picketed the gates of Parliament in Cape Town on Saturday morning to protest against rising food prices and call for freedom in Zimbabwe.
The event was to have been a march through the city, starting at Keizersgracht at 10am.
However, shortly after 11am, Cosatu Western Cape provincial secretary Tony Ehrenreich announced to the scattering of people gathered there that they would drive to Parliament and picket instead.
”We expected a bigger turnout given the centrality of the issues,” he said.
Cosatu had commitments from the African National Congress, the South African Communist Party, the Treatment Action Campaign and other organisations that were represented at the picket.
”But clearly we haven’t been able to bring the masses of the people along with us,” he said.
Announcing the march earlier this week, Cosatu had said it would be a significant event ”because it will be the first time in years that the alliance has marched together on the same issues and signifies the kind of unity and common purpose that has emerged from our people after Polokwane”.
In a memorandum distributed at the picket, Cosatu and the SACP said they were demanding an end to ”super profits” and massive salaries for executives, an immediate reduction in basic food prices and a freeze on future increases.
”We want that a state-owned enterprise — or more of those, operating across the value chain of staple food products such as maize meal, bread, milk, some vegetables et cetera — be set up within the next two years,” the memorandum said.
The memo repeated Cosatu’s demands for nationalisation of the mealie-meal, bread and milk value chains.
A memorandum on Zimbabwe called on the Southern African Development Community to deepen its diplomatic efforts to prevent a deterioration of the situation in that country. The African Union should also intervene immediately, and send a high-level delegation to Zimbabwe to halt the current escalation of violence.
”Progressive forces” worldwide should initiate discussions on an arms embargo, the memorandum said.
Also on Saturday, a Cosatu-organised march was held in central Johannesburg to protest against the past week’s xenophobic attacks in Gauteng townships, as well as high food prices and the crisis in Zimbabwe. — Sapa