Govt vs NCA – confrontation looms

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Madhuku spoke as government intensified a brutal crackdown on the opposition, capped by the vicious assault on 15 arrested activists for militant pressure group Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) last week protesting against their exclusion in SADC-led mediation efforts in resolving Zimbabwe’s deepening crisis. Human rights lawyers, journalists, opposition and civic leaders have also been bashed for daring protest against government repression.
“There is no other way except civil disobedience and mass action to deal with this arrogant government which is surviving by brutality to silence activists,” said Madhuku, who was recently removed from plaster after sustaining a fractured ulna during a beating by police. “We have to keep putting pressure if we genuinely want constitutional reform.”
Madhuku said hundreds of campaigners were now expected to spill into the streets soon, demanding a new constitution.
Madhuku said the NCA had completed its consultations over a “people friendly” constitution that it hoped to sell to government soonest. He said civic society was also eager to put this issue high on President Thabo Mbeki’s mediation efforts.
“We need a new constitution that lays out a proper bill of rights, limits the presidency, promotes freedom of expression, assembly, association and gives women in this society equal rights,” Madhuku said.
“The NCA has to be one of the broadest-based organisations in the country, and if anyone is capable of putting real sustained pressure on Mugabe its them,” a political scientist at the University of Zimbabwe told The Zimbabwean. Trade unionists, academics, church groups, youth organisations, gender activists, business people and farmers are all represented under the NCA ambit.
“I think things will move quite rapidly now,” he said. “The NCA wants a new constitution in place before next year’s harmonised poll, and there’s bound to be confrontation because government are totally opposed to the NCA and what it stands for,” he added.