Open
Letter to Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe
3 June, 2003
Dear President Mugabe,
We are writing today to implore you to seek
a peaceful and just solution to your country's escalating national
crisis. Those signed below are Americans of Africa descent -
many of them representing major organizations of civil society
in the United States - who have worked for decades to support
the liberation movements of Africa and the governments that
followed independence which promoted and protected the interests
of all of their nation's people. We form part of an honorable
tradition of progressive solidarity with the struggles for decolonization,
and against apartheid and imperialism in Africa.
We have strong historical ties to the liberation
movements in Zimbabwe, which included material and political
support, as well as opposition to U.S. government policies that
supported white minority rule. In independent Zimbabwe we have
sought to maintain progressive ties with the political party
and government that arose from the freedom struggle. At the
same time our progressive ties have grown with institutions
of civil society, especially the labor movement, women's organizations,
faith communities, human rights organizations, students, the
independent media and progressive intellectuals. In Zimbabwe
today, all of our relations and our deep empathy and understanding
of events there require that we stand in solidarity with those
feeling the pain and suffering caused by the abuse of their
rights, violence and intolerance, economic deprivation and hunger,
and landlessness and discrimination.
We do not need to recount here the details
of the increasing intolerant, repressive and violent policies
of your government over the past 3 years, nor the devastating
consequences of those policies. The use of repressive legislation
does not, in our respectful view, render such actions justifiable
or moral, because of their presumed "legality". We
represent a long tradition of opposition to unjust laws. We
have previously expressed to your representative in Washington,
DC, our humanitarian concerns about the impact of the HIV/AIDS
pandemic in Zimbabwe as well as that of the famine triggered
by the recent southern African drought and exacerbated by the
economic policies and food distribution practices of your government.
We have shared our concerns that land redistribution in Zimbabwe
be used to fight the poverty of the majority and not to promote
the narrow interests of another minority. But most of all, we
have communicated clearly that we view the political repression
underway in Zimbabwe as intolerable and in complete contradiction
of the values and principles that were both the foundation of
your liberation struggle and of our solidarity with that struggle.
Today, Mr. President we call upon yourself
and those among the ruling party who truly value democracy,
and wish to protect the future of all of Zimbabwe's citizens
to take extraordinary steps to end your country's political
crisis and place it upon a path toward peace. We ask that you
initiate an unconditional dialogue with the political opposition
in Zimbabwe and representatives of civil society aimed at ending
this impasse. We call upon you to seek the diplomatic intervention
of appropriately concerned African states and institutions,
particularly South Africa and Nigeria, and SADC and the African
Union, to assist in the mediation of Zimbabwe's civil conflict.
Mr. President, the non-violent civil disobedience
that is growing in your country - such as that which took place
on Mother's day in Bulawayo - is increasingly met with police
brutality and excessive force. Such trends in the abuse of human
rights are not only unacceptable, they are threats to your country's
stability and they are undermining the economic and political
development your people desire and deserve. We believe that
a peaceful solution is possible for Zimbabwe if you find a way
to work with others in and outside of your government to create
an effective process for a transition to a more broadly supported
government upholding the democratic rights of all.
Sincerely yours in struggle,
William
Lucy, President, Coalition of Black Trade Unionists
Willie Baker, Executive Vice President, Coalition
of Black Trade Unionists
Salih Booker, Executive Director, Africa
Action
Bill Fletcher, Jr., President, TransAfrica
Forum
Horace G. Dawson Jr., Director Ralph J. Bunche
International Affairs Center, Howard University
Patricia Ann Ford, Executive Vice President,
Service Employees International Union (SEIU)
Julianne Malveaux, TransAfrica Forum
Board Member
Rev Justus Y. Reeves, Executive Director
Missions Ministry, Progressive National Baptist Convention
Coordinating Committee, Black Radical Congress
On
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