|
Back to Index
The struggle continues
Crisis in Zimbabwe Coalition
May 24, 2006
"The second
war is a political war of tyranny, operation and greed designed
to dispossess the people of their rights and their wealth and subject
them to abject poverty, slavery, dehumanization and extinction —
the wars, waged against a defenseless and small people, amount to
genocide and are a grave crime against humanity." Ken Saro-Wiwa(1995)
- A Month and a Day: A Detention Diary, pg148
17 students
from the National University of Sciences and Technology are still
languishing in the police cells in Bulawayo after their clash with
the establishment yesterday. The student leadership from Zimbabwe
National Students Union (ZINASU) remains adamant that their
struggle for education will continue countrywide despite the arrests
and detentions. Midlands
State University and University
of Zimbabwe student leaders have vowed to join their fellows
at NUST
in resisting such anti-poor education policies.
The protests
that started in paucity are swelling bigger by the lapse of each
day. The Zimbabwe
Student Christian Movement (ZSCM) has joined in the struggle,
issuing a statement warning that the "new fee structures would
spark civil unrest akin to the 1999 food riots". This was premised
of the basis that most students come from peasant backgrounds where
such sums of fees may leave no option but withdrawal to a bulk of
students.
Meanwhile, approximately
130 women from Women
of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) are still detained in the police cells
in Harare after the release of more than 100 others in Bulawayo.
The 130 WOZA members have entered their fourth day in the filthy
prison cells for demanding their right to "flowers and bread"
(basic needs) on the annual Valentine's Day. The Women were manhandled,
harassed and beaten up before being militantly thrown into police
lorries.
The Herald of
Friday, 17 February 206 reports that cases of baby dumping and abortion
are on the increase in Harare, and the city authorities calling
for women to have "morals" and stop the practice. This
said increase in baby dumping follows council's pegging of maternity
fees at $16million (160US$) on a people whose average income is
less than 30US$ per month. Increased baby dumping is therefore not
a moral issue but an economic issue and such naivety on the party
of government is shocking. In fact, it is an insult on women, especially
poor women. The government suggests that poor women must not conceive-
a pure and intolerable attack on their dignity.
The Zanu PF
house of oppression is crumbling. As the legend human rights activist,
Ken Saro Wiwa rightful pointed out, that the people will fight back
for their political, social and economic space- it is happening
as people reclaim their rights.
As Crisis in
Zimbabwe Coalition, we rationally locate the economic and social
crisis in Zimbabwe largely as a governance failure. The prescription
lies in political reform where Zimbabwe writes a new democratic
constitution on whose base, nagging socio-economic and political
issues will be addressed. Arrests, torture and detentions may avert
protests some day, but not certainly reconstitute the pride of Zimbabwe.
Visit the Crisis
in Zimbabwe Coalition fact
sheet
Please credit www.kubatana.net if you make use of material from this website.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons License unless stated otherwise.
TOP
|
