Zimbabwe strike call goes largely unheeded: reports (1st Lead)

Johannesburg/Harare - A call by the main union body for a two-day work stay-away in Zimbabwe appeared to have gone largely ignored Tuesday morning as companies in many parts of the country reported business as usual. In the capital Harare a Deutsche Presse-Agentur dpa correspondent reported that most shops, supermarkets and banks had opened in the morning while a reporter for South African radio said that in the eastern city of Mutare everything also appeared to be 'operating as normal.' Police were dotted on the streets of the central business district in Harare and a helicopter hovered overhead following warnings by police that they would be on 'high alert.' The strike call by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) comes after a three-week-long clampdown on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Union officials had hoped workers would heed the call to strike over the government's failure to act to halt the country's economic meltdown. Inflation in Zimbabwe is running at 1,730 per cent and unemployment is estimated at 80 per cent. But in shopping centres and Harare's industrial area of Graniteside, businesses and factories appeared to be open, buses running as normal and there were long queues at the main railway station. A spokeswoman for the ZCTU, which has about 350,000 members, had told South African radio Tuesday morning the congress expected a 95- per-cent participation in the strike, which is being supported by several international trade unions. But many Zimbabweans in the country of estimated 80-per-cent unemployment are engaged in the non-unionized informal sector, meaning a loss of earnings in the event of a work stoppage. Zimbabwean authorities had also warned police would be out in large numbers, claiming the need to protect workers from intimidation. In Johannesburg Tuesday, South Africa's trade union federation COSATU held a march to protest 'against slavery wages and the attacks on workers' and human rights by the Mugabe government.' Meanwhile South African President Thabo Mbeki, who has been appointed the point man of the regional Southern African Development Community on Zimbabwe, said he believed Mugabe would peacefully relinquish power in the future. Mbeki was speaking in an interview with the Financial Times newspaper. 'I think so. Yes, sure,' he answered when asked about the likelihood of the 83-year-old leader stepping down. Mbeki was tasked by SADC at an extraordinary summit in Tanzania last week with mediating between Mugabe's ZANU-PF and the opposition MDC of Morgan Tsvangirai on a way out of the current political impasse. Only 'genuinely free and fair' elections and not sanctions or a 'big stick' approach to Harare would help end the political and economic crisis in the country, he said, reiterating South Africa's position to the paper. © 2007 dpa - Deutsche Presse-Agentur

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Karl MarxApr 3rd, 2007 - 18:10:15

There has already been media spin pooh-poohing it -- to nip such speculation in the bud, obviously -- but clearly the Zimbabwe economic crisis has been brought on in large part by secret Anglo-U.S.-EU economic sabotage/warfare. Which operate in much the same way that the big hedge funds and their banking buddies whipsaw national currencies and the like with their daily covert 'pump and dump' manipulations. And all this is in the interests of laying the groundwork for one of the now obvious NATO-style 'color revolutions' to happen, on the political side of the manipulations.

No doubt, they never figured they'd have to go as far as with the Saddam Hussein regime here; but clearly the Mugabe clique has been shored up substantially by chinese and other geopolitical rival support. This 'great game' might be very far from over yet...

Frankly: I have a hard time supporting even deserving workers and trade unionists who become willing puppets of international imperialism, justifying themselves with their superficial aims -- while entire countries and their masses are brought even more tightly into imperialist thrall. What a tough call we have here!
We are not amused. Not at all.

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