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CHRA
in solidarity with students
Combined Harare
Residents Association (CHRA)
October 16, 2008
The Combined
Harare Residents Association (CHRA) would like to express solidarity
with the Zimbabwe
National Students Union (ZINASU) on the demonstration
held on the 14th of October at parliament building during the First
session of the Seventh Parliament of Zimbabwe. State Tertiary institutions
have not opened around the country because of myriad of problems
affecting the country. These problems include the shortages of water
and other basic services compounded by absence of a government.
The institutions are a miniature of the city and country as a whole
suffice to say that if Zimbabwe were not a country but an institution,
it would also be closed by now.
The association stands
in solidarity with ZINASU and other stakeholders who support mass
action as a way of expression, we would like to condemn the harassment
of those students by the police. All this harassment took place
before the august house of Zimbabwe. The harassment also took place
as the country's major political protagonists are on a conciliatory
path, seeking to find a solution to the country's political
and socio-economic crises. The harassment also took place in front
of the whole world as the former South African president, Thabo
Mbeki; the mediator in the Zimbabwean political party dialogue was,
and is still is in the country. The harassment further buttresses
the past and present, so evident bad faith and intransigence shown
by President Mugabe and ZANU PF.
Meanwhile, service
delivery in Zimbabwe has deteriorated to untold levels in Zimbabwe
amid political, socio-economic collapse orchestrated by ZANU PF
and government chronic policy failure. Most residents still live
in abject poverty while ZANU PF stalwarts and their protégés
leave in plenty. Most of these stalwarts' children are out of the
country, learning there, they have benefited in the past 28 years
of economic plunder. The ZANU PF principals have denied the poor
child in Budiriro, a decent and basic education, a resident in Mabvuku,
clean accessible water for more than a year now, a resident in Chitungwiza,
access to basic medication amid cholera havoc, a resident in Hopley
squatter camp, decent shelter and the rest of Zimbabweans, their
rights, freedoms and a stake in how they want to be governed.
We would like to reiterate
our commitment to defending our rights, including the right to express
ourselves undeterred by unprofessional state agents. We also would
like to remind the ZANU PF principals of our sacrifice and compromise
to let the political party deal through; they should not by any
chance think that the deal is meant to accommodate the MDC formations,
neither does it seek to upstage the people's verdict on the
29th of March 2008. We also urge Mr Mbeki, the mediator to uphold
the urgency, fairness, the spirit with which it was found and other
principles contained in the deal, and, in discharging his moral,
brotherly and official duty.
CHRA remains committed
to demanding quality and accessible service delivery, good governance
and social justice. The Association will continue to mobilize residents
to express themselves around these and other issues.
Visit the CHRA
fact
sheet
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