Zimbabwe Supreme Court to Hear Union Leaders’ Case

by James Parks, Sep 24, 2008

Wellington Chibebe

Zimbabwe’s Supreme Court will decide if charges against that country’s two top union leaders are constitutional. Lawyers for Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) President Lovemore Matombo and Secretary-General Wellington Chibebe requested that the high court rule on the constitutionality of the law under which they are charged. They say the law, the Criminal Law Codification Act, infringes on their right to freedom of expression.

At a hearing last week, a local magistrate in the capital of Harare held the case over to Dec. 5 to give the Supreme Court time to rule.

Zimbabwe’s discredited President Robert Mugabe has launched a national campaign of intimidation, with union members as major targets. Mugabe has a long record of violating workers’ and human rights. In addition, the nation has an 80 percent official unemployment rate, which Chibebe says is closer to 95 percent when underemployed workers are counted.

In May, the Zimbabwean government arrested and released on bail Chibebe and Motombo and charged them with “inciting the public to rise against the government and communicating falsehoods” in the midst of that country’s runoff presidential election. They were detained for questioning after Chibebe, winner of the AFL-CIO’s 2003 George Meany-Lane Kirkland Human Rights Award, told a May Day rally in Harare that post-election violence was increasing. As a condition of their bail, Chibebe and Motombo are not allowed to “address any political gathering until this matter is finalized,” the judge said. If convicted, the two men could be sentenced to 20 years in prison.   

Speaking at the AFL-CIO in Washington, D.C., last month, Chibebe said the Zimbabwe’s union movement is still strong, despite the government’s reign of terror and oppression. He credits the global union movement with providing much needed help and training for the ZCTU and its members.  

Definitely, we have received a great deal of support from the international community, particularly from the trade union movement. This support has been both political and moral. And to some extent, trade unions have given us material support. In solidarity, they are saying an injury to one is an injury to all. We are part of the world trade union community. 

The AFL-CIO Solidarity Center, along with the international union movement, has been working with ZCTU for many years to build a strong union movement in Zimbabwe.

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