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Memorandum to Zimbabwe Consulate 03-04-07 |
His Excellency, Mr. Simon Khaya Moyo
Zimbabwean High Commissioner to South Africa
The Republic of Zimbabwe
20 Anderson Street, 17th Floor
Johannesburg 2001
Dear Mr. Simon Moyo
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) will be organizing a two-day general strike countrywide on 3-4 April 2007 to show government and employers that workers have gone this far with their suffering and cannot go any further. 80% of Zimbabweans are living in poverty because workers' take-home salaries cannot even take them home. Now is the time to SAY NO!
In its characteristic response, the regime of Robert Mugabe has launched a ferocious assault, with arbitrary arrests of its people and the country's trade union movement. The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) Zimbabwe Solidarity Forum (ZSF), South African Communist Party (SACP) and the people of Zimbabwe living in South Africa pledge their solidarity and full support for the ZCTU who will be engaging in mass protests today and tomorrow.
We urge all ZCTU members to ignore all the attempts by the Government's stooges in the Zimbabwe Federation of Trade Unions (ZFTU) and the so-called "Concerned Affiliates" to intimidate and discourage workers from taking part in this fully justifiable protest.
We demand that the police allow the protests to take place without any repetition of the assaults and mass arrests which we have seen on previous ZCTU demonstrations. Under international conventions to which Zimbabwe is a signatory, workers have the right to demonstrate and the police must ensure that they are free to exercise that right to protest.
We abhor the ongoing arbitrary arrests and barbaric action by the Zimbabwe Republic Police. This is not the freedom Zimbabweans envisaged when they sacrificed their lives in the liberation struggle.
We call upon the government of South Africa and the rest of the continent to condemn the Zimbabwean government's human rights abuses and undemocratic actions. International solidarity, from Zimbabweans and others, played a key role in the liberation of South Africans from apartheid. Now is our time to repay our debt to today's freedom fighters in Zimbabwe.
COSATU also backs the ZCTU's demands for:
a.. Minimum wages and salaries linked to the Poverty Datum Line (PDL)
b.. Reduction of Income Tax to a 30% maximum.
c.. Workers earning below the PDL (84 000 as at August 2006) not to be taxed.
d.. Availability and free access to antiretrovirals (ARVs)
e.. Stabilisation of prices of basic commodities
f.. A stop to harassment of informal economy workers by local authority police and the ZRP
We therefore demand the following:
a.. An open and all inclusive dialogue between all political formations and civil society in Zimbabwe, aimed in particular at a new constitution ahead of democratic elections next year
b.. The constitution must allow for the passage of a new Electoral Law based on the SADC protocols on the conduct of free and fair elections
c.. The creation of a conducive climate for dialogue, free of state violence and repression
Signed:...............Date...............
COSATU, ZSF, SACP, Representative
Signed:................Date.............
Zimbabwean Consulate Representative