Zim braces for general strike
2007-04-02 08:01
Special Report
A classical music presenter for the BBC has been arrested and is in custody in Zimbabwe.
Harare - Thousands of Zimbabwean workers are expected to down tools this week as pressure mounts on President Robert Mugabe's regime over its violent opposition crackdown and the country's economic meltdown.
As a lawyer claimed on Sunday that nine opposition activists beaten in police custody had been abducted from hospital by state agents, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions urged workers to stay at home on Tuesday and Wednesday.
"We expect everyone to take part," ZCTU spokesperson Kumbulani Ndlovu told AFP. The call extended to everyone from public servants to shopowners and bank staff.
Mugabe is widely blamed for the violence and economic crisis gripping the country, which has the world's highest inflation rate at 1 730% and four out of five people unemployed.
Workers want their minimum wage to be raised to Z$1m, currently worth around US$4 000 or R29 000 at the fast-changing exchange rate, from the current Z$90 000.
The ZCTU said it called the general labour shutdown over authorities' failure to respond to the worsening economic crisis.
Strike politically motivated - govt
But the government urged workers to ignore the strike call, saying it was politically motivated.
"Government has learned that it is the individuals in the ZCTU who are aligned to the oppositional politics of the Movement for Democratic Change ... who want to be seen participating in the current Western-backed violence aimed at regime change in Zimbabwe," labour minister Nicholas Goche said in a statement.
In September, labour unions were forced to abandon plans for mass anti-government protests after organisers were rounded up in a police crackdown.
Last month, several MDC officials including MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai were arrested and assaulted at an anti-government rally - a beating Mugabe said his arch rival had "asked for".
Several trade unions in Europe and Africa have thrown their weight behind the planned ZCTU strike.
"The government of Zimbabwe should take steps to address the economic meltdown," said national umbrella unions of Nigeria, Ghana, Zambia, Malawi, the Netherlands, Finland and Denmark in a statement published in Zimbabwe's The Standard independent weekly.
Cosatu to show solidarity
The Congress of South African Trade Unions (Cosatu) said it would hold demonstrations on Tuesday in a show of solidarity with Zimbabwean workers "as they struggle against an economic catastrophe and more and more vicious attacks on their members and leaders".
South Africa's Sunday Times newspaper, meanwhile, reported that at least 49 000 Zimbabweans were illegally crossing into South Africa every month.
- AFP