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Cosatu plans Zim blockade
Cape Times
June 25, 2008

http://www.capetimes.co.za/?fArticleId=4472736

Cosatu says it has decided to work with Cosatu Limpopo to start mobilising for a blockade "to protest against the violence Mugabe has unleashed against his own people".

In a strongly worded statement, Cosatu also said on Tuesday that it would mobilise the world's workers to isolate Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe, whom it accused of ruling illegally.

"The federation is appalled at the levels of violence and intimidation being inflicted on the people of Zimbabwe by the illegitimate Mugabe regime..." Cosatu said in a statement.

The two-million-strong labor grouping said it fully sympathized with the decision of opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai to pull out of Friday's presidential run-off.

"The June 27 presidential election is not an election, but a declaration of war against the people of Zimbabwe by the ruling party," Cosatu added.

The trade union federation said it called on workers across the world to isolate Mugabe.

"We call on all our unions and those everywhere else in the world to make sure that they never, ever serve Mugabe anywhere, including at airports, restaurants, shops. Further, we call on all workers and citizens of the world never to allow Mugabe to set foot in their countries."

Cosatu's statement came as the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) said on Tuesday that the chairperson of one of its provincial organisations was seriously injured by alleged Mugabe loyalists, who also looted her home in a northern region which independent human rights groups say has seen some of the worst violence.

The party also said the rural home of its national organising secretary was attacked early yesterday by Mugabe loyalists in military uniform. The party said the official's 80-year-old father was beaten and two other relatives shot in the legs.

Tsvangirai said the onslaught of state-sponsored violence against his party made its participation in a run-off election impossible.

George Sibotshiwe, a spokesperson for Tsvangirai, said the politician had received a tip-off that soldiers were on the way to his home on Sunday, after he had announced he was pulling out of the run-off.

He would not reveal the source of the information and said the soldiers' intentions were unclear. "But the moment you have soldiers coming your way, you just run for your life.

"The only way he (Tsvangirai) can protect himself is to go to an embassy."

Sibotshiwe was speaking from Angola after fleeing Zimbabwe earlier this week after he saw armed men approaching a safe house where he had been staying, and feared arrest.

Suspected Zimbabwe ruling party members on Tuesday abducted a lawyer representing opposition supporters, and his whereabouts were unknown, a rights organization said.

The abduction came a day after other alleged Zanu-PF supporters beat up a magistrate who granted bail to opposition MDC supporters, Zimbabwe Lawyers for Human Rights said.

"Lawyer Ernest Jena was abducted from his office in Bindura by suspected Zanu-PF members this morning and his whereabouts are still unknown," said organisation director Irene Petras.

"He was due to make a bail application for MDC members detained in Bindura. Some men came to his office saying they were looking for his assistant, before they bundled Jena into a green Datsun Pulsar."

According to Petras, magistrate Felix Mawadza was beaten up by youths in Zanu-PF shirts as he walked out of a supermarket in Bindura on Monday.

"His crime was that he granted bail to MDC supporters who were charged with politically-motivated violence," Petras said.

Police in the eastern border town of Mutare also raided the house of a human rights lawyer, Petras said. "It's a continuation of the attacks on lawyers. "There is a tendency of associating lawyers with the cause of their clients."

The ANC also came out strongly on Tuesday, saying the withdrawal of the MDC from elections "was an indication of the depth of the political crisis" in Zimbabwe.

Following the cue of regional leaders, the ANC yesterday also bluntly rejected the possibility of free and fair presidential elections in Zimbabwe in the current climate and called for the commencement of a dialogue between the contending parties.

Meanwhile, ANC president Jacob Zuma said on Tuesday the South African government could not simultaneously be a mediator and critic in Zimbabwe. This would be unfair to President Thabo Mbeki's mediation efforts in the troubled country.

Zuma's comments came as South Africa joined other members of the UN Security Council in the adoption of a presidential statement on Zimbabwe.

He was addressing the media after a meeting with the leadership of the Muslim Judicial Council in Athlone.

"(The ANC) has had a clear view about Zimbabwe. But what people should understand is that if the government of South Africa is mediating, they can't criticise. "You can't be mediator and then criticise what we are dealing with," Zuma said.

He acknowledged, however, that the situation in Zimbabwe was reaching crisis point in light of the increasing violence.

"There is a call being made for a political arrangement to cool down tempers. But we can't be a big induna and send in soldiers to take out the president and sentence him to death, like other countries. We can't tell people what to do," Zuma said.

The government's silent diplomacy stance in the unfolding crisis until now was again defended in Parliament, with Finance Minister Trevor Manuel telling MPs that those who wanted stronger action against Mugabe should "form an army and attack" Zimbabwe themselves.

The ANC said after its fortnightly National Working Committee meeting that while it had been sceptical about a run-off election between Mugabe and Tsvangirai, it had "deferred judgment" to the leadership of the Southern African Development Community (SADC) peace process headed by Mbeki.

Following SADC members' condemnation of the violence, intimidation and terror sown in the run-up to Friday's polls, however, the party said it was "convinced that free and fair elections are not possible in the political environment".

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