BY NORM DIXON
Thousands of workers across Zimbabwe joined anti-government protests on November 18, despite threats of police repression prior to the marches and the arrest of scores of trade unionists on the day. Police brutally beat hundreds of protesters as they dispersed the demonstrations. However, according to Munyaradzi Gwisai, a leader of the International Socialist Organisation (ISOZ), the protests revealed a renewed preparedness among workers to confront President Robert Mugabe's authoritarian capitalist regime.
The national stayaway and associated demonstrations were called by the 250,000-member Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) to protest against the ever-rising cost of living (annual inflation is running at more than 500%, and projected to reach 700% next year), high taxes on workers' incomes and continued violation of trade union rights by the Mugabe regime. It was timed to coincide with the government's annual budget.
Assistant police commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena warned on November 17 that the police were prepared "to deal with such rogue elements". In the early hours of November 18, police arrested and severely assaulted prominent ZCTU leader Peter Munyukwi. David Shambare, who organised industrial action by unionists at the national Railways of Zimbabwe, was also picked up.
Police also raided a ZCTU general council meeting in the capital Harare and arrested eight leaders, including ZCTU vice-president Elias Mlotshwa and teachers union leader Raymond Majongwe. Eight union leaders were reported arrested in the central Zimbabwe city of Gweru, and one each in Bulawayo and Gwanda, in southern Zimbabwe.
Despite the arrests, workers braved certain repression to gather at noon in most major Zimbabwe cities. In Harare, several hundred workers were confronted by hundreds of baton-wielding riot cops deployed on every street corner. Around 40 unionists and democracy advocates were arrested under Zimbabwe's draconian Public Order and Security Act (POSA).
Those seized included ZCTU president Lovermore Matombo, ZCTU secretary-general Wellington Chibhebhe, ZCTU vice-president Lucia Matibenga, National Consitutional Assembly chairperson Lovemore Madhuku and well-known progressive academic Brian Raftopoulos.
In Bulawayo, more than 10,000 workers gathered outside the government's offices to hand a petition to the provincial governor. They too were met with riot cops and police dogs. At least 10 protesters were detained. In the small city of Mutare, several hundred workers and their supporters mobilised and more than 300 arrested. In Gweru, about 100 people demonstrated.
The ISOZ's Munyaradzi Gwisai told Green Left Weekly in an email that the Bulawayo protest was the largest and most militant demonstration in Zimbabwe for many years: "Workers and township women — some with children on their backs — took on the police in inspiring struggles. Many shops and factories closed in the city as workers heeded the call for action."
Gwisai believes that the reason why the Harare protest was small was due to a lack of leadership on the day caused by the detention of key ZCTU leaders that morning. However he also pointed to deeper problems: "In Harare, the ZCTU unions are in poor shape. Most of their leaders have become alienated from the rank-and-file membership due to massive donor funding over the last few years. This has massively corrupted the full-time officers and a layer of worker activists. Together with the pacifist policies of the pro-capitalist Movement for Democratic Change [opposition party], this has meant that hardly any mobilisation took place.
"It is no coincidence that the largest contingent of workers who turned up in Harare came from the relatively small printing workers' union — in which radical worker activists working with the ISOZ recently won leadership of the union. That union organised a special meeting for its rank and file leaders the day before the demonstration, which was also attended by ISOZ's Harare leaders and student leaders. They issued joint call to mobilise.
"The tobacco workers' union also has a new militant, young leadership, which was able to bring out workers for the Harare protest. The older, more established ZCTU union leaders never really intended to organise the mass of workers to protest, but instead intended to have a symbolic demonstration at which they and key civic leaders would get arrested. A number of them literally offered themselves up for arrest to the police... A labour forum [mass meeting of worker activists] held two weeks earlier to promote the stayaway was attended by less than a hundred workers.
"On the other hand in Bulawayo and Mutare, away from the capital, the problems of union corruption are much less, and the mobilisation of workers has been much better. Both cities had very big labour forums prior to the action, attended by more than 1000 workers."
Gwisai told GLW that overall, the good turnouts for the protests may be a turning point. "The actions have built confidence of workers, especially in the towns and among the members of the unions which actively participated", he said.
However, a two-day stayaway called by the ZCTU for November 20-21 to protest the arrests was largely a failure. Gwisai said the ZCTU's call was "hasty and premature, for it was necessary to take a breather and call for labour forums to assess the situation, reorganise and build another action in a much stronger and more coordinated manner than before".
"However, it seems that the spirit of resistance is clearly on the rise and the next few months are going to be very important in the unfolding struggle. A key aspect of this is going to be the area of leadership, in particular, whether the rank and file of key unions will be able to break through the suffocating disorganisation and passivity of the union bureaucracies. If this occurs, then we could be in for very exciting times", Gwisai concluded.
From Green Left Weekly, December 3, 2003.
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