State agents threaten striking teachers (18-09-07)

s to go on a nationwide sit-in to demand an immediate review of their salaries and allowances, which have fallen way below the country’s poverty datum line, currently believed to be around Z$8 million.
Teachers earn around Z$3,5 million, inclusive of both monthly basic salaries and allowances, before deductions.
The strike is pushing for a basic salary Z$15 million, Z$5,2 million housing allowance and Z$3 million eache of transport and retention allowances.
Both teachers in Bulawayo and Raymond Majongwe, the PTUZ secretary-general, have accused the government of deploying members of the spy Central Intelligence Organisation (CIO), soldiers and the police to threaten teachers who have engaged in the sit-in.
“The government of Robert Mugabe has never respected teachers, yet he (Mugabe) himself is a product of the teaching profession. That is why he identified nurses as professionals and paid them retention allowances, leaving teachers behind. We are being trailed everyday and threaten with death for calling for this sit-in. The government does not want us to live a descent life that we deserve as professionals,” said Majongwe.
Teachers in Bulawayo confirmed that soldiers and police officers had visited their schools last week, asking for names and residential addresses of those that were not performing their duties.
“They have been coming here since Tuesday last week. After we had told them that we were all teaching our classes, they told us that we should not listen to the PTUZ. They said that they would take measures against us if we engaged in the sit-in, saying that we should leave employment and go to Britain and Australia if we feel that the government is not paying us well. At times they just talk to the pupils, compiling names of teachers who would have been teaching and those that would have been absent from school,” said a teacher at a secondary school in Bulawayo.
Although most teachers confirmed that they were involved in the sit-in, others said they had not for fear of victimisation by the state.
Majongwe said that this was the case nationwide, although there have been no arrests and torture of the teachers and PTUZ members.
“This seems to be a government strategy to intimidate us, but we will not give in to such intimidation until we get what we want. We are professionals and must be treated as such,” said Majongwe.
Police sources also told TheZimbabwean that members of the Police Internal Security Intelligence had been deployed at schools to check on striking teachers.
“They are compiling names on the teachers and where they work and stay. The information they compile and their reports are then handed over to the bosses, who will in turn give them to the government. I think those who strike will either be fired or denied pay,” said a source.
Education Minister, Aeneus Chigwedere, refused to comment on the harassment, saying he did not know that there was a sit-in.
“That sit-in or strike, whatever you call it is not taking place. We are not harassing anyone because there is no sit-in or strike,” said Chigwedere, adding that the government was working at plans to reward teachers for their “hard work” in the country.
Police spokesman, Oliver Mandipaka also denied the reports.
“There is nothing like that the police are doing. We have not received any such harasment reports either from the teachers,” said Mandipaka.