ZCTU plans street protests

streets.
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) secretary general Wellington Chibebe last week said the umbrella union would call nationwide street protests by workers for better pay in the last week of July, putting the labour group on a collision course with the government.
Chibebe – who for strategic reasons refused to disclose the exact dates of the protests – spoke as main Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, ordered provincial leaders of his party to hasten mobilising support for mass protests to force Mugabe to accept sweeping political reforms.
The new-found energy appeared to have been set in motion after Mugabe last month deftly avoided international censure when United Nations Secretary General Kofi Annan cancelled a trip to Harare after being told by Mugabe that former Tanzanian leader Benjamin Mkapa was mediating between Zimbabwe and Britain.
Annan was expected to use the Harare trip to pressure Mugabe to agree to step down in return for substantial international aid for crisis-weary Zimbabwe and immunity for the veteran President from prosecution for human rights crimes committed while in office.
The analysts said Chibebe and Tsvangirai’s calls last week rallying workers and MDC supporters for mass action was a sign the opposition movement could be slowly mustering the courage to confront the government after months of hesitation.
Chibebe said the labour union had resolved to go on strike after the Employers Confederation of Zimbabwe, grouping employers in the country, refused to adjust wages in line with the country’s galloping inflation, which is the highest in the world at 1 184.6 percent.
The crisis has fanned anger among ordinary people, most of whom are without jobs and have to do with a single meal a day. The government’s Central Statistical Office last week said an average family of five would now require Z$68 million for basic goods and services per month, against an average salary of $15 to $20 million a month for most workers.
The analysts said the recent moves proved that the opposition forces could be starting to converge on the need for a stronger anti-government alliance but warned that despite a litany of economic problems fuelling public anger against the government many Zimbabweans appeared reluctant “to lose life or limb” by taking to the streets to confront Mugabe’s army and police.
“I should think the action by the opposition and the ZCTU is meant to test the waters. Their problem is that they have not yet secured the critical mass. They have a broad mass of passive supporters who I think have not reached that threshold of anger,” leading UZ political commentator Eldred Masunungure told ZimOnline.
“Until they reach that stage when they can transform anger into public action, we will continue to see these sporadic protests and threats of winters of discontent,” Masunungure added, referring to threats by Tsvangirai earlier this year to mobilise mass protests this winter to force Mugabe to give up power to a transitional government.
The transitional authority would be tasked to write a new and democratic constitution for Zimbabwe and to organise fresh elections under international supervision, Tsvangirai said.
Mugabe, who has in the past sent armed soldiers and police onto the streets to crush dissent, has repeatedly vowed to be ruthless with the opposition-led mass protests and has warned Tsvangirai that such protests would be a “dice with death”.
But opinion is divided on whether security forces, which Mugabe has relied on to keep the opposition in check, would this time round use force to break up protests – especially if they were huge and well organised.
Zimbabwe’s police and army have not been spared from the economic rot and despite salary increments earlier in the year, economic analysts say their earnings have been whittled away by raging inflation. – ZimOnline