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Youth Forum workers' day message
Zimbabwe Youth Forum
April 30, 2008

Youth Forum joins the workers in commemorating Workers' Day. This year's commemoration is crucial not only to workers but also the generality of Zimbabweans. For us it is a platform to gather and map a way forward to deal with the current deadlock vis-à-vis the presidential poll outcome and the ensuing situation whereby the people of Zimbabwe have been denied their freedom of association through the banning of political gatherings, but the illegitimate government of Robert Mugabe has failed to find justification to bar people to gather on this important day.

Considering that the former president of the republic of Zimbabwe, Robert Mugabe took advantage of the zanunised independence celebrations to take a swipe at the majority of Zimbabweans who voted for change, this is an opportunity not only to counter the stage managed gatherings throughout the country but also to instill confidence to the sons and daughters of Zimbabwe nationwide who were losing hope because of the geriatric's mantra well designed to intimidate them ahead of a Mugabe concocted run-off. People should take advantage of these commemorations to come in their thousands and the message must be clear and well orchestrated to suit and address the current pandemonium characterizing our country.

It is obvious that the people are aware of the grievances and dire straits which the nation is facing hence the overwhelming vote against the geriatric leader. What is required is a consensus on a message to do with defending the people's vote. There is a great need to resuscitate the dampened spirits of people following the illegitimate regime's deliberate frustration of the majority of Zimbabweans after they unequivocally expressed their will on the 29th of March. We take this as both a de facto and de jure coup against the wish of Zimbabweans and therefore issues such as inflation, poor wages, unaffodability and unavailability of basic commodities, poverty, unemployment, poor health and education delivery systems, deterioration of infrastructure and other economic, social-political grievances have automatically become secondary, the primary issue being to pave way for the legitimate president Morgan Tsvangirai to start putting the house in order as mandated to him by the Zimbabweans on the 29th March harmonized elections.

Youth Forum urges Zimbabweans to fight against dictatorship and protest against Mugabe's totalitarian regime which has brought this country to its knees in the course of its 28 year rule. This regime has failed to solve the crisis bedeviling this country, and its prolonged stay in power has actually worsened the crisis. We strongly feel the regime should have gone seven years ago but they managed to survive by hook and crook, through rigging elections and entrenching a vast patronage system bordering on nepotism. On March 29 the rejection was too overwhelming to tamper with hence the delay of presidential poll results to give the former president adequate time to massage the results to his favour and the only way to overcome that is to engage in a non-violent democratic resistance campaign. There is need for unity among all pro-democratic organizations particularly the youth organizations to put concerted efforts to fight against Mugabe's militarism which has manifested itself in violent retribution of genocidal proportions.

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www.youthforum.org.zw

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