[WSF-Discuss] Zimbabwe: First signs of united front mass action against elite settlement

[CACIM]

Zimbabwe: First signs of united front mass action against elite settlement

[image:
http://graphics8.nytimes.com/images/2008/12/03/world/03zimbabwe-600.jpg]

*Protesting health workers in Harare, December 3. The protest was attacked
by riot cops.*

 By the *National Co-Ordinating Committee, International Socialist
Organisation Zimbabwe*

* @ http://links.org.au/node/775*

 December 2, 2008 -- The situation in Zimbabwe has reached unprecedented
levels of crisis. As we have been saying for the last few years, such a
crisis was climaxing and with a number of possibilities arising. First and
most likely was the likelihood of the bourgeois elite politicians in
[President Robert Mugabe's] Zimbabwe African National Union-Patriotic Front
(ZANU-PF) and the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) uniting
together in an elitist government of national unity in which ZANU-PF would
be the senior partner around a Western- and capitalist-supported neoliberal
economic agenda. The MDC's popularity would be used to pacify the urban
working people from rising up.

 The strong possibilities of this happening has been shown with the MDC's
willingeness to accept the crumbs offered by the ZANU-PF and endorsed by the
regional Southern African Development Community in which Mugabe would remain
with virtually all his executive presidential powers with MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai acting as a prop.

Indeed the cynicism of the whole plot was shown in that as the MDC signed
Constitutional Amendment 19 with ZANU-PF, Mugabe was appointing Gideon Gono
for another five years as governor of the Reserve Bank of Zimbabwe -- the
same Gono who has been the central figure in the ZANU-PF's and the ruling
class' neoliberal onslaught against working people for the last five years.
He is the virtual de facto prime minister of Zimbabwe, unelected and
unaccountable to the people, accoutable only to his equally unelected and
illegitmate masters.

However, we also argued that if the elites did not quickly resolve their
differences through an elitist government of national unity and if the
country did not descend into a failed state like Somalia, there was a real
possibility of uprisings from below led by the working class, but critically
involving a united front of labour and radical civic groups and social
movements, and militant rank and file activists from the MDC. We have
consistently called for the urgent formation of such a united front to lead
united mass action, centrally demanding a people-driven and anti-neoliberal
constitution.

In the last few weeks the tensions and fights between the elites in the
ZANU-PF and the MDC over the share-out of power and the continuation of
sanctions, and the economic crisis has accelerated the crisis and brought
greater political disllusionament among the ordinary people, leading to an
increasing wave of discontent in the last few weeks, with strikes and
protests by teachers, nurses, doctors, members of the National
Constitutional Assembly (NCA), women and students.

And most decisively in the last few days, riots by lower ranks of the army
in Harare beating up cash vendors sent by Gono, as well as shops selling in
foreign currency. Yesterday they ran in the city centre singing and followed
by scores of people denouncing Gono and the government. The situation is now
extremely delicate ahead of the protests called for December 3 by civic
groups led by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and also involving he
Zimbabwe Social Forum and the National Constitutional Assembly.

The International Socialist Organisation (ISOZ) is centrally involved in the
demonstrations through the Zimbabwe Social Forum (ZSF), where many of its
leading cadres are playing a critical role. We welcome the demonstrations as
the first sign of united front mass action that we have been calling for as
the alternative to the elitist political parties' negotiated settlement.

Please find below the statement issued by the chairperson of the ZSF,
Munyaradzi Gwisai, who is also the general co-ordinator of ISOZ, calling for
local, regional and international mobilisation and support for the mass
action tomorrow on December 3, 2008.

We shall continually update comrades on developments whilst we call for your
support on what could be a decisive day of action. The resolution among the
leadership of the ZCTU, ZSF and NCA is that we are going all-out no matter
what the dictatorship throws at us and we are confident that hundreds will
turn up for the demonstration.

No to Dictactorship! Viva Socialism!


 Zimbabwe Social Forum: December 3 day of action to say `No to poverty,
oppression and dictatorship!'



December 2, 2008 -- Following the Zimbabwe Social Forum held in Harare on
October 11 2008 and the Southern Africa Social Forum of October 18 in
Swaziland, it was resolved that the only way to resolve the unprecedented
economic and political crisis in Zimbabwe is united direct mass action.



It was noted that whilst the ordinary people were suffering and dying,
elites in politics and business were wallowing in luxury. Yet it is their
system of neoliberal capitalism that has caused the crisis in the first
place. It was resolved that half-baked elitist political settlements centred
around imperialist-inspired neoliberal economic policies, as in the
non-inclusive SADC-Mbeki talks and already being implemented by the
unelected de facto prime minister of Zimbabwe, Reserve Bank governor Gideon
Gono, who has been imposed on the people of Zimbabwe for a further five
years, would only perpetuate the suffering of the people and the rule of his
illegitimate and unelected masters in the ZANU-PF regime.



We cannot and we will not accept the same Gono who financed the destruction
of our houses in Operation Murambatsvina and stole millions of US dollars
meant for drugs and support of those with AIDS/HIV to buy judges, army and
police chiefs and politicians Prados and Plasma TVs.



[The social forums agreed] that the only way forward to resolve the
Zimbabwean crisis were immediate fresh democratic elections held under a new
people-driven constitution that also guarantees the bread and butter issues
of the working people and subordinates the private profit and wealth of the
few to the human and social needs of the many.



To that end it was resolved to mobilise for all-out united mass action on
December 3 by the Zimbabwe Social Forum (ZSF) together with the actions
called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) demanding the removal
of bank cash limits and the National Constitutional Assembly (NCA) rejecting
the elitist constitutional process agreed by the politicians, and instead
demand a people-driven constitution.



In addition are those demands already stated in the People's Charter
including:

   - Removal of all limits on cash withdrawals in banks -- it's our money!
   Gono must go now!
   - Abolish all forex shops -- pay workers tax-free minimum living wages in
   forex!
   - Declare the cholera outbreak a national disaster -- clean water for the
   people and full compensation for those who have died of cholera! [According
   to the UN, Zimbabwe's ``unprecedented cholera outbreak'' has claimed 565
   lives from the 12,546 recorded cases since August, and ``is worsening and is
   becoming difficult to contain as it spreads from cities''.]
   - Free antiretroviral drugs and support care -- open our hospitals and
   pay nurses and doctors living wages. We want free quality health care for
   all!
   - Open our schools, colleges and universities now –- pay teachers and
   lecturers living wages –- abolish all fees in forex. We want free quality
   education for all!
   - Affordable quality state subsidised public transport for all!
   - Living pensions for the disabled and elderly and free aids for them
   like wheelchairs and crutches, and an end to the stigmatisation and
   discrimination against the disabled.
   - No to harassment of informal and cross border traders -- passports are
   our right!
   - Full, affordable and quality state subsidised social services: water,
   electricity, refuse collection; housing, sewerage facilities -- no to
   privatisation of social utilities.
   - Full democracy now: No to the elitist givernment of nationalal unity
   and the Kariba draft constitution which keep the losers of the March 2008
   elections in power! We demand free and fair elections under a deople-driven
   constitution!

Already thousands have been protesting and striking in the last few weeks --
from nurses, doctors, women, students, the NCA and, in the last few days,
riots by underpaid and starving junior members of the armed forces.



The hour has now arrived in Zimbabwe! None but ourselves shall free
ourselves! We shall from tomorrow, December 3, gather and march from bank
premises in our thousands as AIDS/HIV activists, traders, students, youths,
women, the disabled, workers, residents, artists, socialists and social,
constitutional and economic justice activists, regardless of what the regime
throws at us. The hour of freedom is near. We call on all progressive
movements and activists in Africa and globally to stand with us as we reject
poverty, oppression and dictatorship and fight for freedom!



Our country is not for sale ... Another Zimbabwe is possible! Another world
is possible!



Say No to privatisation, neoliberalism and capitalism!


[The Zimbabwe Social Forum is made up of more than 40 organisations and
movements from the following clusters: AIDS/HIV; disabled; labour and trade
unions; youth; residents; gender; social service delivery; informal trade;
debt and trade; human rights and governance and faith based.]
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