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Strikes and Protests 2007- Save Zimbabwe Campaign
Zimbabwe
Solidarity Forum condemns the repressive action against Zimbabweans
including the murder of Gift Tandare
Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum (ZSF)
March 13, 2007
View Save Zimbabwe
Campaign index
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At least one person is confirmed dead, shot by police, and scores
of others severely assaulted, following an attempt to hold a rally
at the Zimbabwe Grounds in Harare. Confirmed reports of the beating
in custody of Morgan Tsvangirai and the disappearance of Arthur
Mutambara, the leaders of both groupings of the MDC, are indicative
of the ever more brutal levels the Harare regime is prepared to
stoop to as the struggle in Zimbabwe deepens and intensifies.
The arrested
also include the Chairperson of the National
Constitutional Assembly Dr Lovemore Madhuku, Tendai Biti, William
Bango, Sekai Holland, Grace Kwinjeh, Elton Makoma and Nelson Chamisa,
Job Sikhala, Morgan Changamire, Frank Chamunorwa, Linos Mushonga,
Godfrey Gumbo and Clever Kafero, plus many members of the Save Zimbabwe
Campaign.
We call on the
SADC parliamentary forum, the SADC Secretariat, including the Head
of Policy and Strategic Planning and the Director of Politics, Defence
and Security Affairs, and all SADC member states to stand up and
speak out now about the urgent need for action around Zimbabwe.
Displays of
state aggression and increasing contempt for ordinary freedoms and
legal norms are part of the tightening noose Mugabe and his allies
within ZANU-PF and the Zimbabwe Defence Force are placing around
the necks of those who oppose the totalitarian state.
These latest
actions are part of a conscious strategy in Zimbabwe to militarise
and gain total control of all spheres of social, economic and political
life, down to the very basics of food production, where people live
and what they are allowed to do, even controlling the way people
are supposed to think, using fear and violence as the weapons of
choice. State policy is impacting hardest on those who have least.
The working class and their families, victims of the massive displacement
of Operation Murambatsvina, women and men struggling to feed their
children, sick people struggling to find health care and students
struggling for the education that is their right.
In spite of
the increasing risks of standing up against the brutal machine that
the Harare regime has become there are signs of increasing resistance
everywhere. All police and army leave has been cancelled, students
are organized behind a nation-wide class boycott, hundreds of participants
in peaceful public actions still languish in prisons and police
stations waiting to be charged. A mass stay-away has been called
by the Zimbabwean Council of Trade Unions for the 3rd of April.
In answer to
the call from within Zimbabwe, and in response to these critical
conditions, a regional and international solidarity movement will
intensify its call for action over the coming months. A series of
local, regional and international events have already been undertaken
that have built a solid basis that can expose events in Zimbabwe
and put direct pressure on those within government who realize that
they will eventually have to work with civil and political opposition
members.
There has never
been a clearer need for SADC to realize its potential and intervene
to negotiate the establishment of an agreed process that will meet
the demands of all Zimbabweans and immediately end the unacceptable
violent abuses of state power. The growing realization by civil
society and governments from across Southern Africa that the crisis
in Zimbabwe is a regional crisis that affects all of us adds to
the pressure to do something while there is still time.
Growing awareness
of conditions inside Swaziland also put pressure on SADC to act.
Liberation from colonialism was built on regional solidarity, so
too must the struggle against all forms of oppression. A military
controlled Zimbabwe, that serves the interests only of the increasingly
wealthy elite, and that disregards democratic practices at the core
of the African Unions vision, will take the entire region backwards.
There is increasing
unity over the call for roundtable discussions on developing a new
constitution, for the repeal of draconian speech and assembly laws,
for free and fair elections in a non-repressive climate, and for
an end to violence, including but not limited to torture, beatings,
rape and killings.
The Zimbabwe
Solidarity Forum adds its voice to the many who will stand up in
condemnation of the latest evidence of thuggery. Our thoughts are
with the families affected and by those who are suffering.
The struggle
continues, Aluta Continua.
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