ZCTU round up (19-09-07)

The strike was a major flop with dire consequences for the organizers who were rounded up and taken into police custody. There were fears they had been brutalised in custody.
Traffic was clogging the city centre with usual long queues for the elusive gallon of fuel.
The strike was called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, ZCTU, a locus of opposition to President Robert’s government. The police accused the organizers of seeking to cause unrest and declared the industrial action illegal.
After failing to get hold of senior labour leaders Wellington Chibebe and Lovemore Matombo, who told The Zimbabwean they were still in hiding, police arrested Reason Ngwenya, the Matabelend regional chairman of the 200,000, strong Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU),
Other unionists that were arrested include ZCTU Matabelend regional secretary Ambrose Sibindi, Midlands chairman Charles Chikozvo, and regional secretary Isaac Teveteve. In Chinhoyi police arrested the ZCTU Mashonaland West regional secretary Wilson Kambanje and his organizing secretary Wellington Chiparamakura.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said it fully supported the stay away. No marches were planned for fear of sparking a police clamp-down.
Some workers said the stay away had not been well organised, while others said they feared losing their jobs amid unprecedented unemployment levels.
“I fully support what the ZCTU is trying to do, but I cant risk my job by participating in this stay away. I will lose my job,” said Kumbirayi Nyamunda, a father of three.
“The problem is that there are no daily newspapers to tell us about these strikes. I only knew about the strike when I got to work today,” said Sheila, a waitress in a restaurant in Harare city’s centre.
Chibebe said he was not disappointed and called the stay away a success. He said police had arrested the gardener and brother of ZCTU president Lovemore Matombo and taken them into custody. He said the strike was a success given the panicky reaction of the police.
“We don’t look at the numbers per se, we look at the impact,” he said. “We are actually happy that some people took heed of our call, given the political culture of intimidation in this country,” added the fiery labour leader.
Tough security laws which outlaw public gatherings and impose long prison terms have made it difficult to organise strikes, say union leaders.
A police spokesman told State radio that nine people had been arrested for disorderly conduct, putting up barricades and organizing an illegal strike.
He alleged the ZCTU had paid people in foreign currency obtained from the black market to set up barricades, blocking roads into the city centre.
Zimbabwe is suffering its worst economic crisis in more than 27 years with record high unemployment, hyperiflation and crippling fuel and food shortages.
Critics blame President Robert Mugabe for running down a once prosperous economy through his controversial land grab programme and poor economic policies.
Mugabe denies this, and blames the dramatic economic collapse on an imaginary Western-backed international plot, pointedly by Britain , to bring down his government.
Way back in the late 1990s, strike calls by the ZCTU were met with overwhelming public support.