Free-Zim threaten demo against Zuma during her London tour

By Lance Guma
23 October 2006

A planned address by South Africa’s Foreign Affairs Minister, Nkosazana Zuma, in London on Wednesday promises to turn into an ideal opportunity for Zimbabwean activists to vent their anger at her governments so called ‘quiet diplomacy.’ Zuma is scheduled to address a public meeting at the London School of Economics on reforms for the United Nations to adopt. Free-Zim Youth UK, a group lobbying for pressure to be exerted on Mugabe’s regime, has said it will be demonstrating at the venue. One of the coordinators Wellington Chibanguza says they have secured permission to demonstrate outside the venue from 6pm onwards. He however says they intend to take the protest into the venue itself.

Chibanguza explained to Newsreel that key activists will be planted in the audience and will interrupt Zuma’s address at different intervals. He says they anticipate the hecklers will be thrown out of the meeting and this is why they plan to heckle her throughout the address via several of these activists. The group say they are not happy with South Africa taking a back seat on the Zimbabwean crisis, despite the fact it was now a regional crisis. Chibanguza says they want Thabo Mbeki’s government to sympathise with the plight of ordinary Zimbabweans rather than with Mugabe and his government.

He cited examples such as Operation Murambatsvina where over 700 000 people were made homeless in what the government sugarcoated as a
clean-up operation. The torture of trade unions activists and various other human rights abuses were all issues the South African government had chosen to ignore. Free-Zim say this attitude is in stark contrast to the regional support South Africa received during the apartheid era. Further incensing the youths is the active role South Africa is trying to play in areas like Iran, Sudan and reforms for the United Nations, while ignoring the major problems on their border. The youths say they also want Zuma and her government to take an active interest in the plight of Zimbabwean refugees in South Africa, who face many problems related to xenophobia.