Left wing Zimbabwe site

by Anti-ISO League Wed Mar 13, 2002 18:55

So will the ISO be helping bring about real change in Zimbabwe by getting young zimbabweans to sell the latest copy of socialist worker to the local poor people?

Roll on the revolution, roll out the paper boys!

by revolutionary African - ISO- Zimbabwe Wed Mar 13, 2002 19:42

Unions

Stayaways

General strikes

The first ever Gay Pride march in Harare that was viciously assaulted by ZANU PF homophobic thugs and Mugabe's riot cops

A march three weeks ago against the IMF and neo liberalism that defied Mugabe's bans and was brutally attacked by the police

A revolutionary, anti capitalist current within the ZCTU and the MDC

The election of a revolutionary in the working class areas of Harare

all in a climate of vicious repression and reprisals similar to what Irish activists experienced in North Ireland in the late 60s and 70s

For socialist Chimeranga!

by Gino - SWP Thu Mar 14, 2002 14:28

Just like to point out to the "Anti-ISO League" or whatever that character is, is that the ISO is now effectivley working as an underground organisation as a result of Mugabes repression. This stuff is not to be made fun of!!

Consider how lucky ALL of us are to be able organise openly in this country, with the notable expections to the Globalise Resistance activists/ Sinn Fein members and others arrested in the last while.

by Revolutionary African - ISO- Zimbabwe Thu Mar 14, 2002 20:26 isozim at hotmail dot com

Workers Perspective
by International Socialist Orghanisation Friday March 08, 2002 at 03:32 PM

rosazulu@hotmail.com, antonater_c@hotmail.com, isozim@hotmail.com P.O. Box 6758, Harare

What is the future for worker activists?

Dear comrades,

The elections in Zimbabwe start in 9 hours time and end on Sunday. This is 48 hours over which you are supposed to “decide” your future for the next 6 years.

The lead up to this election has been the most tense and volatile in Zimbabwe’s history. It pits two apparently opposing parties against each other, both of whom claim to stand for the mass of ordinary people.

But is this really the reality macomrades? Nyaya chii? Over the time it has ruled, Robert Mugabe’s ZANU(PF) has shown itself time and again to be anti-working class, imposing IMF and World Bank neo-liberal policies like cuts in education and health spending and imposing laws that make it easier to fire workers. Weeks before this election ZANU(PF) enacted its most vicious attack on freedom since before nationalist independence 1980 under the Public Order and Security Act (POSA). Workers meetings have been banned, public meetings the same. When we marched for a new constitution and to denounce POSA, mapurisa attacked and arrested us. When ZANU(PF) marched, mapurisa escorted them.

The MDC in its time as an “opposition” party in parliament over the last 21 months has shown itself to be even more neo-liberal, anti-worker, than ZANU(PF) and has moved rapidly to attacking ZANU(PF) from the right. Its “Bridge” economic policy promises further attacks on ordinary Zimbabweans through privatizing totally everything. In a country with inflation at 120% and unemployment at over 80% among young people, this can only mean further massive poverty.

With the determination of ZANU(PF) to cling to power and the determination by the bosses through the MDC to attack workers, those who fight for genuine workers rights and freedom are caught in the middle. We have opposed the oppression of ZANU(PF), but can you unite with an opposition that is so openly anti-working class? This is not an easy question for which the answer is probably still to come.

If ZANU(PF) wins, we know the answer for workers. But if the MDC wins, what will happen to us workers? To claim that we will be worse off is not too far from the truth. When mushandi/msebenzi went on national stay-aways last year, MDC refused to support us. During debate on POSA in parliament, MDC made compromises to ZANU(PF).

At the same time, when we organized for the 15 February march against POSA, ZCTU also refused to organize for strike action despite workers demanding this at labour forums. Instead they called for prayers! Sadly, a number of trade union leaders have allowed themselves to become tied in with the MDC such that the leadership will not fight for us in the MDC either.

So those who fight for workers are caught between on one side ZANU(PF) who view us as an opposition enemy and on the other side MDC who view us as a threat because of our fighting for ordinary workers.

So this is where worker activists and radical progressive trade unionists are left – between a rock and a hard place.

Is there a possibility, therefore of fighting back, and, more importantly, building an independent workers movement after the elections – elections that have not focused on one single issue affecting workers daily lives? A movement independent of the bankrupt parliamentary parties?

YES THERE IS!!! Over the last few weeks, the Progressive teachers Union (PTUZ), Printing (Reflections) Union, National Engineering Workers Union (NEWU), Cnontruction Workers Union and the International Socialist Organisation (ISO) have been laying the basis for just such a movement.

We do not believe that these elections will solve the poverty and unemployment that is facing workers every day. The system of parliament is there to serve the bosses and their lackeys. Parliamentary politicians enact laws to savage workers, while causing the prices of food to rise. These politicians also allow their stinking friends, the bosses, to cause shortages of food. While workers in townships and the country starve, the rich in the suburbs are eating.

If you believe that what we are doing is the way forward, then join ISO. Get your workmates and friends involved. If you really want to make a difference on the bread and butter issues, if you believe democracy is meaningless while people starve, then help us to build this fighting alternative.

You can e-mail us on isozim@hotmail.com or antonater_c@hotmail.com or rosazulu@hotmail.com or you can phone 091-370554.

QINA MSEBENZI QINA!!

SHINGA MUSHANDI SHINGA!!

Rosa Zulu, International Socialist Organisation, Zimbabwe

by Finghin - Socialist Youth Wed Mar 20, 2002 16:58

The MDC are a pro capitalist party that embrace the policies of privitisation and cut backs od services. They can't offer any solution to the Zimbabwean people, their policies will not prevent 500,000 going through a potential famine, their policies will not halt inflation and economic collapse.

The leadership of the MDC have been totallly incompetent. They have concentrated on the 'international community' and big business to get Mugabe to hold fair elections. They have allied themselves with large farmers and big business in Zimbabwe leaving them open to allegations of being agents for imperialism. What is needed is an independent working class movement with support of the small farmers of Zimbabwe to lead a struggle for Socialism. It is onlyunder socialism that the land problem can be resolved fairly and that the economy can be saved from meltdown and crisis.

by Joe Carolan Thu Mar 21, 2002 19:01

WITH BREATHTAKING gall, George W Bush last week declared that the election in Zimbabwe was a "flawed process". He added, "We do not recognise the outcome of this election." Only a man as stupid and arrogant as Bush could criticise the vote a year after he stole the US presidential election.

British home secretary Jack Straw also condemned the election. Yet Straw has no problems with the regimes in Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia and Malawi-all of which are there because of rigged elections. Britain is certainly not demanding that the rulers of Saudi Arabia or Afghanistan demonstrate their popularity through "free and fair elections". Bush and Straw are not the only hypocrites.

The Commonwealth's condemnation of the Zimbabwean election was read out by Nigeria's Abdulsalam Abubakar. He was the military dictator of Nigeria from 1998-9. During that time he kept his rival Abiola in prison until he died. Mugabe certainly did kill, torture and cheat his way back to power. But that does not fully explain the vote. Mugabe's vote actually went up in the rural areas.

That is a consequence of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) lining up with white farmers against land redistribution. Even in Harare, a stronghold of the MDC, its vote fell in many areas as some workers sensed that the opposition had moved catastrophically rightwards. The main exception was the Highfield constituency in Harare, where the MDC vote rose by 10 percent.

Highfield's MP is Munyaradzi Gwisai. He is a socialist and a member of the International Socialist Organisation. Mugabe posed as standing for ordinary people against the IMF, the West and the white landowners.

In fact privatisation and handouts to the rich have marked his rule. He got away with fake leftism because the MDC was so much in the hands of the bosses and Western interests. Mass pressure forced the MDC to call a stayaway strike this week, but it wants to limit any action. A leaflet from the International Socialist Organisation distributed at the start of this week says: "We cannot accept Mugabe ruling us for another six years. He is already trying to please his real masters, the IMF. Price controls on bread, cooking oil and electricity are soon to be lifted. The problem is that the leaders of the opposition and the labour movement are failing to give direction."

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Western backing for Congo vote-rigging

ON THE same day that Zimbabwe went to the polls, another election was taking place a few hundred miles away in the Republic of Congo. Denis Sassou-Nguesso was "triumphantly re-elected". This was hardly a surprise, as the process was so fixed and so corrupt that the two main opposition candidates had withdrawn.

Congo's economy is dominated by oil. French company Elf controls the oil. Nguesso's first presidential move was to cut oil taxes by a third. Not a single Western country has complained about the Republic of Congo's lack of democracy.