UK labour group urges Zuma to remain firm on Zim sanctions

By Alex Bell
03 March 2010

A British labour group has urged South African President Jacob Zuma not to call for targeted sanctions against Robert Mugabe’s inner circle to be lifted, saying that a relaxation of the measures would be seen as a relaxation of support for human rights in Zimbabwe.

Zuma began his state visit to the UK on Wednesday and is expected to raise the sanctions issue with British Prime Minister Gordon Brown on Thursday. Responding to questions from London newspaper editors at the start of his three-day state visit to Britain, Zuma said he disagreed that more pressure in the form of sanctions was necessary to force a political settlement in Zimbabwe. Zuma told South African journalists recently that sanctions were ‘undermining’ his efforts to push Mugabe and Prime Minister Morgan Tsvangirai to agree to an electoral framework that could guarantee a free and fair vote.
“We want to create a conducive environment so that they can have elections to choose their own government, but the continuation of sanctions is undermining the agreement,” Zuma said.

The European Union (EU) last month extended the targeted sanctions on Mugabe and his inner circle by another year citing lack of progress in implementing the Global Political Agreement (GPA). Zuma’s statement on the sanctions has since attracted criticism from analysts who say the person to blame for Zimbabwe’s woes was none other than Mugabe himself, as well as his ZANU PF party, the very same people that would be rewarded if the measures were dropped.

The UK’s Trades Union Congress (TUC) echoed this sentiment in a letter delivered to the South African High Commission in London on Wednesday. In the letter TUC General Secretary Brendan Barber says: ‘Despite the formation of the Government of National Unity, human rights violations have not stopped. Relaxing sanctions would be seen as a relaxation of support for human rights in Zimbabwe.’

The TUC said it is particularly concerned by two reports, namely a dossier of recent attacks on unions published by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), and a damning report from the Agricultural workers union GAPWUZ. The GAPWUZ report details the plight of farm workers who have been the silent victims in the continuing farm seizures which have left tens of thousands of workers beaten, homeless and unemployed. In response to the GAPWUZ report, security forces raided the union’s offices twice in the last week, arrested two of its leaders and forced Gertrude Hambira, the General Secretary, into hiding.
Brendan Barber’s letter concludes: ‘What the two union reports demonstrate is that, prevented from printing money by the dollarisation of the economy, ZANU PF are now looting the remaining natural resources of Zimbabwe - e.g. farms and mines - while millions of their fellow Zimbabweans go hungry. And they are using the repressive apparatus of the state to prevent anyone opposing them or even revealing their larceny. Given this situation, I hope that you will agree that the pressure on the ZANU-PF leadership needs to remain in place rather than be relaxed.’

Zuma is already being urged to take a decisive stand on Zimbabwe, a topic set to be high on his agenda while he is in the UK. Athol Trollip, the parliamentary leader for South Africa’s main political opposition the Democratic Alliance (DA), on Monday said Zuma needed to clarify South Africa’s stance on the ‘shopping’ sanctions. Trollip told SW Radio Africa on Monday that these are considerations critical to stabilising Zimbabwe’s tenuous political situation. He said the Global Political Agreement between the MDC and ZANU PF, which was meant to address the numerous crises facing Zimbabwe, had not resulted in any meaningful change by the country's administration. Trollip said there “remains no sufficient political reason for the sanctions imposed on Mugabe to be lifted.”

“In the light of few real steps taken by the Zimbabwean administration towards truly democratic governance, President Zuma needs to support the European community’s decision to reconstitute sanctions against President Mugabe,” Trollip said.