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Defend your right to love
Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA)
February 08, 2004

Join other women on Saturday 14^th February, Valentines Day 2004 at 11:30am at the following venues:

• Bulawayo: outside the Small City Hall in 8^th Avenue
• Harare: Africa Unity Square in Sam Nujoma Street

Our protest message is: Cry Beloved Zimbabwe - Defend your right to love!

What we expect of participants:

• Attend the walk to show solidarity with other women.
• Show that you love Zimbabwe by bringing roses or any flowers to hand out as we walk.
• We will walk peacefully through the streets dressed in white for peace.
• Follow the instruction of the walk marshals
• If you cannot join us, demonstrate at your closest shopping centre. But please try to do it at the same time so that we are together.
• If the Police arrest participants, put flowers on Police Station pavements to remind them that we came peacefully with love in our hearts.

Why are we are crying?

We say CRY BELOVED ZIMBABWE…..

• For those who have died from political violence.
• For rape victims and the victims of politically motivated rape used as a form of torture.
• For our hungry children and orphans that we can no longer afford to feed, clothe and educate.
• For our children living in exile as refugees
• For those who die of HIV/AIDS without access to healthcare.
• For many of us have lost our jobs and our self-respect.
• For all women who continue to be discriminated against in all spheres of society.
• We are crying to put out the fire of hate burning our beloved Zimbabwe.

Defend your right to love and let love overcome hate!

Defend all your rights and stand for the truth!

Zimbabweans are told to HATE but choose to LOVE! This will be a better place when the power of love replaces the love of power. We want Zimbabweans to LOVE each other, help us by stopping this hate fire.

STOP spreading HATE:

• Newspapers, radio and television must balance their messages.
• Give us back our freedom of expression - remove AIPPA and POSA so we can meet freely.
• Restore the healthcare system – Treatment and medicines availability is almost zero.
• Disband the Youth Militia - our children come home infected with hate and diseases.
• Political violence is increasing: We must be free to vote for the candidate of our choice.
• Corruption must be stamped out everywhere without favouring a small group.

WOZA activists say: defend your right to love and let love overcome hate!

• International Convention on Civil and Political Rights (Zimbabwe is a signatory) Article 20:

1. Any propaganda for war shall be prohibited by law.
2. Any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence shall be prohibited by law.

• President Robert Mugabe at rally in Chinhoyi. Mugabe:
  "Ndiri kunzva kuti vatovamba nezvibhakera. Vavamba neviolence. (I hear that they have started the fistfights. They have started with the violence). I want to warn them against resorting to violence. I want to warn them again and again that it’s a dangerous game they are embarking upon. I don’t want to say more than that. Nokuti kana iri yezvibhakera regera uone. Musandidherere muchiti kaakamdhara kane 75 years. Ndinokudashura nacho ichi. …(If it comes to fighting just wait and see. Don’t underrate me saying he is a 75-year old man. I can knock you down with this fist)." - ZBC Timer: 3:28 5/02/2000

• President Robert Mugabe:
  "We are the government. We have the instruments of law and order and we do not want to be pushed into a position where we have to apply the full weight of our instruments of security upon our people." - ZBC Timer: 125:24 on 22/07/2000

• President Robert Mugabe, ZANU PF Victoria Falls Conference:
  "Kotoenda uku harisisiri bhora riya ratakatamba muna June gore riyeriye ndichiti ndini center forward. Yaahondo zvino. Chimurenga chetatu. (This is no longer a soccer match we played in June 2000 when I said I was the centre-forward. This is war, the Third Chimurenga). We didn’t talk of the command center during the general election. Now we have to talk of the command Centre. We have to move like a military machine. And you prepare in your own units to move forward." - ZBC Timer: 1625 on 15/12/01 8pm

• Didymus Mutasa, ZANU PF Organising Secretary Mugabe:
  "We would be better off with only 6 million people with our own people who support the liberation struggle. We don’t want all these extra people."

• Vincent Hungwe, Permanent Secretary Local Government and Housing:
  "We may have to take this whole system back to zero before we can start it up again and make it work in a new way."

• Sikhumbuzo Ndiweni [ZANU-PF Information & Publicity Secretary for Bulawayo]:
  "…the mistake that the ruling party made was to allow colleges and universities to be turned into anti-Government mentality factories."

• Joseph Msika, Vice President [July 2002 Mt Darwin]:
  "[National service is] shaping youths in a truly Zimbabwean manner"

• Solidarity Peace Trust in August 2003. Comments from youth militia themselves about their activities: Interviews with youth militia in Zimbabwe and South Africa

• "It was about vandalism… We were used to do the things the State does not want to do themselves. Then they can just say it was just the youths, not us".
• "We are Zanu-PF’s "B" team. The army is the "A" team and we do the things the government does not want the "A" team to do.
• "We got a lot of power. Our source of power was this encouragement we were getting, particularly from the police and others.. it was instilled in us that whenever we go out, we are free to do whatever we want and nobody was going to question that."

• Constantine Chiwenga General, Zimbabwe's new defence force boss, giving the country's doctors and nurses a final order to end their two month strike:
  "If you refuse to co-operate, we can take you to the army barracks and detain you, and you will see what will happen."
  

• President Robert Mugabe Zimbabwe Independent 17 Jan 2004. Is there Hate Speech in Zimbabwe?
  "Our party must continue to strike fear in the heart of the white man, our real enemy!Make them tremble." "Whites are not human beings"

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