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Mugabe's nephew in drive to remove union leaders
Reuters
October 29, 2006

http://za.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?

Harare - Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe's nephew will move a proposal in parliament this week demanding the state fire trade union leaders opposed to the government, an official newspaper reported on Sunday. Under Zimbabwean law, the labour minister can in special circumstances suspend or fire union officials over cases of gross mismanagement, criminal conduct or the failure to execute the mandate of unions to represent workers on labour issues. The government charges that leaders of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) are involved in what it calls a Western-sponsored programme to end its rule after the seizures of white-owned commercial farms for landless blacks. Last month, Mugabe said union leaders, who say they were assaulted by police after trying to stage a protest over wages, had defied authority and deserved the beating. In a move denounced by the unions as another attack on democracy, the Sunday Mail said Leo Mugabe, a member of the ruling Zanu PF party, would move the motion seeking the removal of the ZCTU leadership "for unethical conduct ... and for abandoning its core business of representing workers to pursue politics."

Leo Mugabe had placed his motion on the parliamentary diary last week, but failed to introduce the debate when business was adjourned to this week's three-day session starting on Tuesday. The weekly said: "Comrade (Leo) Mugabe will ask the minister of public service, labour and social welfare, comrade Nicholas Goche, to replace the ZCTU president, Mr Lovemore Matombo, and his team for their failure to execute their national mandate." Leo Mugabe was not immediately available for comment on Sunday. A top ZCTU official said the labour movement would fight any attempts to remove its leadership undemocratically. "We view this as part of the government's intimidation tactics, as part of a programme to further reduce the democratic space," he said, declining to be identified. "The ZCTU will obviously resist, and fight all attempts to remove its leadership unfairly because as far as we are concerned all the programmes the ZCTU is involved in are meant to advance the interests and welfare of the workers."

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