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President blasts ZCTU leaders
Itai Musengeyi, The Herald (Zimbabwe)
September 25, 2006

http://www1.herald.co.zw/inside.aspx?sectid=9318&cat=1&livedate=9/25/2006

POLICE were right in dealing sternly with Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) leaders during their demonstration last week because the trade unionists want to become a law unto themselves, President Mugabe has said.

The President said the ZCTU leaders — who were beaten up by police for holding an illegal gathering in Harare — got the treatment they deserved for ignoring warnings to disperse.

"We cannot have a situation where people decide to sit in places not allowed and when the police remove them, they say no. We can’t have that, that is a revolt to the system. Vamwe vaakuchema kuti takarohwa, ehe unodashurwa. When the police say move, move. If you don’t move, you invite the police to use force," the President said.

He made the remarks on Saturday night while addressing staff at the Zimbabwe Embassy here at a dinner hosted by Ambassador Cde Aaron Maboyi-Ncube.

Cde Mugabe said the labour leaders were playing to the gallery to get attention in their desperate attempts to effect regime change in similar fashion to the ouster of the now late former Yugoslavian president Mr Slobodan Milosevic.

He said they invited journalists, "the stupid ones who always write stupid things", and some non-governmental organisations to dramatise their act, probably in a bid to get "a Bush or a Blair" to intervene.

But the President warned Zimbabwe would not allow interference in its domestic affairs.

"Ngavauyeka tione. Let them (United States President George W. Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair) come. I don’t know what they (labour leaders) want to achieve. They want to attract attention. Yes, people will read about it, (but) it’s nonsensical, it’s stupid."

The Yugoslavia type of uprising would not work because "Zimbabwe is Zimbabwe, it has a history of a revolutionary struggle", Cde Mugabe said.

He said Zimbabweans knew their enemy and were, by and large, highly politically conscious to be cheated by puppet groups.

The President said the abortive ZCTU protest — which had the backing of the Morgan Tsvangirai-led MDC faction — was disastrous for the organisers because only pockets of people attempted to participate by gathering in forbidden places.

He told guests at the dinner that the political state of affairs in Zimbabwe was stable with Zanu-PF on top of the situation as exhibited by its recent garnering of 400 council wards unopposed.

"We are in a very strong position because the other parties have lost confidence in themselves and they are desperate. They know the people don’t like them by and large."

The President said the opposition still had a lot of work to do to win the confidence of Zimbabweans.

Cde Mugabe also spoke of the economic situation at home, touching on agriculture, mining, manufacturing and infrastructure sectors.

He said the Government was working to provide inputs in time for the forthcoming farming season and drafting a law to ensure Zimbabweans held controlling stakes in the mining sector, particularly where gold, platinum and diamonds were involved.

A fund had been established with the assistance of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe to provide capital to resuscitate collapsed manufacturing companies while efforts were also underway to construct roads and other crucial infrastructure, the President said.

He said the Government would not tolerate those bent on frustrating efforts to turn around the economy by unjustifiably increasing prices of their products. Recently, directors of some companies were arrested for illegally increasing the prices of their products.

Cde Mugabe said the Government was holding back the prices of fuel and power and would maintain subsidies on wheat even though it had increased the producer price, to ensure bread was affordable.

The President said some companies were working with hostile forces to undermine the economic turnaround programme to aid the British in their quest to see a collapse of the Zimbabwean economy.

The revaluation of the Zimbabwean currency was not an end in itself as more reforms were on the way, probably in the first quarter of next year; or if the RBZ saw it fit to implement the measures earlier, they would be consulting with the Government and the Minister of Finance, Cde Mugabe said.

He said financial problems at Zimbabwe’s missions were being addressed by central bank governor Dr Gideon Gono and senior Foreign Affairs officials.

Cde Maboyi-Ncube said President Mugabe was highly regarded in Egypt where people equate him to the late Egyptian statesman Gamal Abdel Nasser who embarked on significant land and social reform after assuming power in 1952. By doing so, he earned himself the admiration and gratitude of his people, but the West’s anger and sanctions and a British and French-aided Israeli invasion in 1956 to topple him which failed as he ruled for 18 more years until his death from natural causes.

Cde Mugabe said Zimbabwe and Egypt enjoyed good relations born during the liberation struggle when Cairo provided arms and training to Zimbabwean cadres.

He briefed the embassy staff on the G15 and Non-Aligned Movement summits he attended in Cuba, and the United Nations General Assembly in New York, which he said besides the usual addresses saw some leaders go for drama in their speeches, with the best coming from the President of Venezuela Mr Hugo Chavez, who called Mr Bush a devil.

The Zimbabwean delegation made a stopover in Cairo from the United Nations in New York to catch a connecting Air Zimbabwe flight to Harare.

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