Cops escort Cosatu to airport

2004-10-26 14:10

Harare - A Cosatu fact-finding mission who visited Harare in defiance of a ban by Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe was on Tuesday removed from their hotel and taken to the airport under police guard.

Violet Siboni, the leader of the Congress of South African Trade Unions team, told AFP: "They've told us to go back. They tell us we must go back because in our passports we were given only one day's stay."

An AFP correspondent in Harare saw the defiant group being driven to the airport from the hotel under police guard.

Before leaving, they shouted "Amandla Awethu" or "Power to the People" -- a South African liberation-era slogan.

Cosatu spokesperson Patrick Craven in Johannesburg denounced the move, saying it was a slap in the face of both his organisation and the South African government.

"Cosatu is appalled at the conduct of the Zimbabwe police. They invaded the offices of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and just as the meeting of the mission was coming to an end, the mission was escorted by the police back to the hotel and told that the cabinet has decided that the mission must come to an end.

"In view of the fact that the mission was later due to meet the South African High Commissioner (ambassador) to Harare, the move is a snub to the South African government as well as to Cosatu," he told AFP.

The Harare government on Friday said the visit by the Cosatu delegation to discuss contentious issues facing the southern African country ahead of key polls next year was "not acceptable".

When the mission arrived in Harare late on Monday, they were asked not to meet several unions, which they refused.

Before the mission left for Harare on Monday evening, Craven said the objective of the visit was to gain "an accurate picture of the situation in the country" with a view to "resolving some of the problems facing Zimbabwe, particularly with its trade unions".

A South African initiative to broker peace between Mugabe's government and the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party has yielded virtually no results so far.

A spat between Cosatu and the Zimbabwean government could be a serious embarrassment for South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has so far espoused a policy of "quiet diplomacy" with his country's northern neighbour.

- AFP