War veterans shut down sports club over Tsvangirai address

By Lance Guma
14 March 2006

The African News Dimension (AND) network reports that a group of war veterans shut down a sports club owned by the National Railways of Zimbabwe last Friday, for allowing opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to address a meeting there earlier in the month. Tsvangirai was a guest at the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) silver jubilee celebrations and addressed the gathering at Raylton Sports Club.

The war veterans are said to have travelled all the way from Bulawayo arriving at the club in the morning where they allegedly began assaulting patrons. Club manager Norman Ushe was manhandled and beaten up. The group had been drinking heavily and shouted obscenities saying Tsvangirai was a ‘dog and should not have been allowed the platform to speak’. According to the AND news network ‘they started demanding food and went ahead and looted the canteen’. The police failed to attend to the incident despite calls by worried patrons.

Raylton is a members only club that groups together mostly NRZ workers although outsiders are free to join. The Zimbabwe National army’s Major General Engelbert Rugeje is reported to be a frequent visitor to the club. No link has however been established between his visits and the raid by the war veterans. Premier soccer league champions Caps United also use the clubs facilities.

Last Tarabuku, a projects officer with the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, says apart from the raid by the war veterans, workers at the sports club are still undergoing continued harassment for availing the ZCTU of its facilities. He says the labour body now struggles to get venues for its meetings because venue owners are demanding clearance letters from both the police and local councils.