Zimbabwe Hiding Truth Behind Attacks on Trade Unionists

by James Parks, Sep 28, 2006

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Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) President Lovemore Matombo and First Vice President Lucia Matibenga were among trade unionists badly injured during the government’s Sept. 13 attack on a peaceful demonstration by the nation’s unionists. AFSCME Secretary-Treasurer William Lucy, who traveled to Zimbabwe says “the police just went crazy” in their attack in the capital Harare.

Lucy described his experience today during a meeting with union members at the AFL-CIO building in Washington, D.C., where he showed a 12-minute video of the Sept. 13 assault given to him on their trip. (Note: The date of the attack is incorrect on the video. The attack occurred Sept. 13.)

When Lucy, along with a delegation of members from the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU) and a representative from the Solidarity Center, went to Zimbabwe to meet with the unionists, they were denied entry. 

On Sept. 13, some 1,500 ZCTU activists were peacefully protesting the nation’s abysmal economic conditions. Witnesses say police attacked the crowd and brutally beat many of the union members and arrested 265. Matombo and Matibenga were among those arrested, as was ZCTU General Secretary Wellington Chibebe, winner of the AFL-CIO’s 2003 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award. (Last night, Ela Bhatt of India received the 2005 Human Rights Award for her efforts in improving the lives of impoverished women in India.)

Lucy, who also is a member of the AFL-CIO Executive Council, where he chairs the AFL-CIO Committee on International Affairs, says he believes the Zimbabwean government sought to bar the delegation because they would relate the real conditions in the country. In fact, after denying U.S. unionists entry, President Robert Mugabe of Zimbabwe said the Zimbabwean leaders deserved the beating.

The trade unionists took to the streets of Harare, Lucy says, to demand a raise in the nation’s minimum wage for universal access to antiviral drugs to combat HIV/AIDS. Here’s why:

• 50,000 children in Zimbabwe under five years old die each year from various causes.
• The average income is about $4,800 a year in U.S. dollars or less than $100 a week. In fact, 56 percent of the country lives on less than $1 a day and 85 percent to 90 percent live below the official poverty line. Yet inflation is running at 1,204 percent as of last month.
• Seventy percent of the workforce is unemployed.
• HIV/AIDS is devastating the country, with some 1.6 million people living with the disease. Last year, 3,000 people, on average, died from AIDS each week. New drug-resistant strains of tuberculosis have broken out and now TB kills most of the people suffering from AIDS.

As Lucy put it:

When you look at those statistics, it doesn’t take a genius to figure out why the workers were demonstrating, it is not legitimate for a government to beat folks up for raising their concerns.

Lucy, president of CBTU, one of six AFL-CIO constituency groups, says he and the five other CBTU members in the delegation received visas to enter Zimbabwe three or four weeks ahead of their visit.

They planned to visit the southern country in Africa after attending a meeting in Johannesburg, South Africa. The others in the delegation included Harold Rogers of AFT, Miriam Poe of UAW, Henry Nicholas of AFSCME, Marguerite Morrison of the unaffiliated 1199: The National Health Care Workers’ Union and Bob Wilson of the unaffiliated United Food and Commercial Workers and Marc Bayard of the Solidarity Center.  

When they arrived at the Harare airport, the passport control officer told the group the foreign ministry had sent a memo that they were not to be allowed into the country.

In its annual report on workers’ rights violations, the International Confederation of Free Trade Unions (ICFTU) cited Zimbabwe for arresting and torturing hundreds of union protestors. On Sept. 22, trade unionists around the world marched and rallied in an International Day of Action on Zimbabwe. Marchers in Washington, D.C., also demonstrated in front of the Zimbabwean Embassy that day and on Sept. 18.

AFL-CIO President John Sweeney sent a letter to Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe urging him to release the ZCTU leaders and to enforce workers’ rights. AFL-CIO Executive Vice President Linda Chavez-Thompson and ICFTU President Sharan Burrow also sent a joint letter on behalf of a global coalition of women union leaders, as well.

The U.S. State Department denounced Zimbabwe’s last-minute denial of entry to the delegation. Zimbabwe has been cited in the U.S. Department of State’s annual Country Reports on Human Rights Practices for its repression of workers’ rights. In its most recent report, released March 8, the State Department pointed to a host of blatant human rights violations, including:

restrictions on freedom of speech, press, academic freedom, peaceful assembly, association, and movement … and harassment and interference with labor organizations critical of government policies and attempts to supplant legitimate labor leaders with hand-picked supporters.

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