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Bulawayo Mayor gets dose of WOZA 'Tough Love'
Violet Gonda, SW Radio Africa
July 03, 2006

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news030706/woza030706.htm

Bulawayo Mayor Japhet Ndabeni Ncube was forced to listen to the plight of informal traders when an estimated 500 activists from Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) marched to City Hall, Monday. WOZA had warned the Bulawayo City Council to stop participating in the government’s ongoing evictions of informal traders. "The Mayor was given a deadline of one week to stop these activities or he would face a dose of ‘Tough Love’ from WOZA. The week being up, WOZA delivered on its promise."

Thousands of people were left homeless and without their informal businesses when the government embarked on Operation Murambatsvina last year. Despite telling the international community that the evictions had been stopped the government is continuing with the illegal evictions, including raids on street vendors who are trying to eke out a living in the face of crippling economic hardships.

Some of those affected are WOZA women who making their living from selling vegetables to feed their families. It was these women who took to the streets in Bulawayo to put pressure on the MDC mayor to lobby the Minister of Local Government Ignatius Chombo and the Police Commissioner Augustine Chihuri to allow people the right to trade.

WOZA Coordinator Jenni Williams said, "We want the mayor to make more effective representation to Chombo and Chihuri that under the African Charter we have a right to trade and government is unbound to give us the means to survive without turning us into criminals and prostitutes."

One of the demonstrators Rudo said the women who marched peacefully from the Revenue Hall to the City Hall were able to talk to the mayor who promised to address their grievances. They sat outside the entrance to City Hall singing in Ndebele, "Ndabeni, please tell Chombo, Chihuri and Mathema that we want to be allowed to sell."

But observers say the likelihood of the MDC mayor being able to influence the government were slim, especially as Minister Chombo has been on a warpath driving out MDC mayors across the countries.

When asked if much could be expected from the Mayor, Williams responded by saying, "Well he is our City Father. He was put there by people and he can be removed by these people. In the same way how can a mother tell her child – sorry I can’t sell, I can’t send you to school because my hands are tied by Chombo. It doesn’t work that way. He has to be accountable to the people and if he calls himself a city father of the City of Kings, he must make a plan."

Meanwhile sixty-three WOZA members arrested on Valentine’s Day appeared in court again Monday in Harare. They are being charged under the Miscellaneous Offences Act for conduct likely to disturb the ordinary comfort of the public. The trial has yet to begin and has once again been postponed, this time to 11th July.

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