The demonstrations that were cleared by police and scheduled to take place in six cities including Gweru, were aimed at urging government to address the welfare of workers, put to an end to threats to freeze wages and create 2 million jobs as promised during the 2013 election campaign.
Thousands of flyers flooded Gweru city centre falsely claiming that the demo had been postponed because the union had resolved to re-engage government. They bore the forged signature of the ZCTU’s secretary-general Japhet Moyo
This is the second time mysterious flyers were found scattered in the city centre on the morning of a big event. The last time was when MDC-T leader Morgan Tsvangirai visited to meet citizens suffering from the economic meltdown. Flyers falsely claiming to be from the Gweru Vendors Association denigrated the former PM and urging people to denounce him.
“It is all the work of the CIO in conjunction with some top Zanu (PF) officials in the city. There is no one else who can bear such huge costs of printing and distributing those flyers. It is an intelligence sting operation to limit resistance to the government by the ordinary citizens,” a top source confided to The Zimbabwean.
He said more of actions were in pipeline targeting the MDC-T mayor Hamutendi Kombayi and his councillors.
“The MDC-T council has failed to pay its workers for months now and workers are staging daily protests against that. The CIO wants to take advantage of that to influence residents to join in the demonstrations and reduce the MDC-T’s esteem. The broader agenda is to discredit the MDC-T totally ahead of the next elections,” added the source.
Charles Chikozho, the ZCTU’s regional officer, said his organization was shocked when it got news of the presence of flyers on the day of the demonstration saying the event had been postponed.
“We were all shocked. I phoned our SG Moyo and he said he never signed any flyer postponing the demonstration. Though we went ahead with the demonstration, it was evident that some people had been fooled and there was already confusion. The mischief is also criminal – it is forgery,” he said.
Post published in: News