johninnit

The labour movement in Zimbabwe is being kept silent for yet another critical month, as Zimbabwean Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) leaders Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo turned up in court to face charges of “speading falsehoods prejudicial to the state”, only to find the prosecutor had again not turned up for the trial.

The human-rights infringing bail conditions of no public appearances for Wellington and Lovemore remain in force now until a new trial date of 17 September – no doubt strengthening Mugabe’s hand by keeping the ZCTU out of public opinion on the current power-sharing talks. (more…)

A quick, and getting rather late, plug for the new ITUC website, We Are ZCTU (www.wearezctu.org). It’s set up in support of Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo of the Zimbawe Congress of Trade Unions, who are due in court in Harare this Wednesday (30 July).

They’ve been charged with “spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state”, which translates as telling the truth about the state-sponsored violence in the run up to the sham elections in their country. They were originally supposed to be in court last month, but the case was postponed, most likely so as to keep the punitive bail conditions in force for as long as possible, effectively shutting up the unions’ public voice whilst Mugabe got about stealing the election.

Unionists all over the world are coming out in support of the pair online, with a giant photo mosaic that you can pan and zoom on the new site, and other ways to show your support. (more…)

As if things couldn’t be bad enough in Zimbabwe, we’ve just had reports this morning that plain-clothes police have raided the offices of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (9.45 Zim time), demanding they hand over publicity materials for the planned strike on 3/4 April or face a beating.

Staff at the top of the building managed to get out, but a lot of them have been locked into the building, and are being threatened to make them hand over the materials.

General Secretary Wellington Chibebe was out of the office in court at the time, facing charges over his last arrest, when he and other colleagues were severely beaten in police custody after staging a peaceful demonstration (a fate which also seems also to have met Morgan Tsvangirai and MDC leaders this week). I don’t know any more about who’s been detained in the offices, but given what they were willing to do to the high profile figures of the movement, I’m worried about the rest of their staff.

Zimbabwe’s UK Embassy’s email is zimlondon@yahoo.co.uk and their fax is 02073791167 (The Ambassador is Mr Gabriel Mharadze Machinga) – I’m off now to give him an email earful. If you want to waste some of Mad Bob’s fax paper, it’s 002634703858. He likes to be addressed as ‘your Excellency’ if you’re writing to him, though I don’t imagine too many people would give him that title if they didn’t know.

See you at Zimbabwe Vigil’s special demonstration outside the Embassy on the Strand 1-4pm tomorrow (Wed 14 Mar) – www.zimvigil.co.uk

UPDATE 11:00 GMT: Just heard that the police have gone from the office for the moment, though staff fear they will be back. They beat two staffers and then took away printed materials and equipment. One ZCTU staff member was taken into custody.