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Shutdown fears as Mugabe begins trade union probe
Basildon Peta, Cape Argus (SA)
January 09, 2006

http://www.zwnews.com/issuefull.cfm?ArticleID=13539

The Zimbabwe government has begun unprecedented investigations into the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) that may lead to the deregistration of the powerful labour movement. ZCTU president Lovemore Matombo confirmed yesterday that the government had invoked a law that empowered it to probe the affairs of trade unions. But Matombo expressed fears that the real motive behind the probe into allegations of financial impropriety was to find a pretext to get rid of the labour movement after the government failed to impose puppet leaders on the ZCTU last year. There has never been any love lost between President Robert Mugabe's government and the ZCTU, Zimbabwe's largest civic body, which has successfully fought several battles, including industrial mass action, against human rights abuses. After it repeatedly failed last year to foment an internal ZCTU revolt to topple the Matombo-led leadership and replace it with its supporters, the Zimbabwean government has now deployed Tendai Chatsauka to investigate the financial affairs of the labour body.

Matombo and other ZCTU insiders fear that Chatsauka, a government official, already has a pre-arranged mandate to condemn the ZCTU and facilitate its deregistration. ZCTU insiders said the investigator could come up with damaging findings giving the government a convenient excuse to arrest Matombo and secretary general Wellington Chibebe. They could then be replaced by government supporters. Matombo and Chibebe spent much of last year fending off largely unsubstantiated allegations that they had misappropriated funds. The allegations were raised by a few ZCTU affiliates, believed to be under the sponsorship of Zimbabwe's Central Intelligence Organisation. "We are surprised as to why they are recycling the same unfounded allegations that money was misappropriated at the ZCTU," Matombo said. "But maybe we shouldn't be surprised because we know their motive."

Incensed by his militant stance, the government has already fired Matombo from his job with a state postal services parastatal, but he is challenging his dismissal in the courts. The government tried to block Matombo and Chibebe from attending the International Labour Organisation summit in Geneva last year but failed. Matombo said that after "Zanu-PF supporters within the ZCTU" failed to substantiate their allegations of financial impropriety, the ZCTU's general council had opted to dismiss them since it had become clear they were being financed by the Mugabe government to destabilise the labour movement. He said he would nonetheless co-operate with the government investigator as he had done nothing wrong. The probe comes after Zanu PF adopted a resolution last month to deal decisively with civic groups and NGOs it perceived to be undermining Mugabe's leadership.

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