US labour activists protest torture of ZCTU leaders

By Lance Guma
19 September 2006

Over 50 trade union activists marched outside the Zimbabwean embassy in Washington, the United States on Monday to protest the police arrest and torture of ZCTU leaders in Zimbabwe. According to a report by the Washington File, the American protesters chanted ‘stop the beatings, stop the torture,’ and ‘ZCTU, American workers support you.’ Some of the activists carried placards reading ‘Promote workers rights worldwide’ and ‘Mugabe: Free unionists.’ The demonstration was organised by the AFL-CIO, a major labour union in the US.

Barbara Shailor, an AFL-CIO program officer told Washington File, ‘It is very important that we come here today because this is the day Mugabe is coming to New York to attend the annual meeting of the U.N. General Assembly. And we need to tell the embassy that we will not stand for the violation of trade union rights in Zimbabwe.’ Shailor added, ‘What these people have gone through must not go unnoticed as Mugabe moves about the streets of New York.’

An officer with the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), David Claxton, ‘read out a number of demands for Mugabe, including investigation of the September 14 attacks, medical care for all those injured, protection of the right of labor to organize and active government engagement with the ZCTU to resolve the economic crisis in Zimbabwe.’ Another CBTU member Tony Baker, told the marchers, ‘Almost 20 years ago, CBTU led a demonstration to the South African Embassy protesting apartheid. There is nothing different about South Africa then and Zimbabwe now. The only difference was that (South Africa) was a white regime oppressing black workers and this (Zimbabwe) is a black regime oppressing black workers.’

David Dorn, director of international programs for the American Federation of Teachers (AFT), said, "We are here because this suppression of labor in Zimbabwe has just gone on far too long. "Our organization has been working with the teachers' union in Zimbabwe for a number of years now, actually with help from the State Department. But the problem is people are suffering so much it's hard to sustain an education program in a country where people are scrabbling just to get by from day to day.’

ZCTU spokesman Mlamleli Sibanda told Newsreel they were grateful for the messages of solidarity coming from all over the world since their Wednesday protest last week. He says their colleagues in the AFL-CIO trade union in America have always supported their efforts and their demonstration would help strengthen the ZCTU resolve to fight on.