Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe now has a new
American acronym to scorn – CBTU.
The Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU)
has launched a major campaign to clip Mr. Mugabe of his “liberator”
image in the African American community by exposing the thuggish
actions of his regime against the Zimbabwean people.
CBTU President William Lucy announced that CBTU
would aggressively reach out to African American media, labor
websites/blogs and other progressive media this summer to get
Americans “tuned into the Zimbabwe crisis.” Lucy also said CBTU
would join other organizations in demonstrations at the Zimbabwe
Embassy and other locations.
It is, indeed, a grim picture in Zimbabwe:
80 percent of Zimbabwe’s workforce is unemployed.
700,000 urban poor and working class people were
made homeless a year ago, when the Mugabe government declared
them “rubbish” and destroyed their property.
Fuel and food are scarcer now than ever, with many
families living on one meal or less a day.
Over the past the two decades of Mugabe’s rule,
life expectancy in Zimbabwe has plummeted by nearly 20 years –
to an almost unimaginable level of 37 years for men and 34 years
for women.
Lucy, who is also international secretary-treasurer
of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of State, County
and Municipal Employees (AFSCME),
said “Mr. Mugabe must not get a ‘free pass’ from the black press,
allowing the public to remain comfortable with inhumanity at a
distance.” Lucy continued, “CBTU will not be a silent witness
to this tragedy unfolding on distant soil liberated by heroic
freedom fighters. Zimbabwe’s people, who are suffering crushing
poverty, homelessness, hunger and rampant violations of human
and trade union rights, need to know that their cries for help
echo in our hearts, no less than those of our sisters and brothers
in South Africa who prevailed over the racist apartheid regime.”
[Lucy was one of the founders of the Free South
Africa Movement in the 1980s, which conducted the most effective
grassroots anti-apartheid campaign in the U.S. He was also instrumental
in raising a quarter-of-a-million dollars from American unions
to finance Nelson Mandela’s historic trip to the U.S. in 1990.]
In the 1960s Mugabe became an icon of the Zimbabwe
nationalist movement that fought white-minority rule and won independence
in 1979. However, his Zimbabwe African National Union (ZANU) party
has tightened its autocratic grip on power as Mugabe’s support
in urban areas has drastically waned. In 2002, he was reelected
in a vote marked by government intimidation of the opposition,
a crackdown on the free press, and charges of vote rigging.
Revered African figures have condemned Mugabe’s
betrayal of democracy in Zimbabwe. South African Archbishop Desmond
Tutu has called Mugabe a “caricature of an African dictator.”
Pulitzer Prize writer Wole
Soyinka has called Mugabe’s regime “a disgrace to the [African]
continent.”
Mugabe’s descent from icon to despot is wrenching
for many black Americans. In the 1960s, a lot of black activists
here gave money and raised clenched fists in solidarity with Zimbabwe’s
liberation fighters. Jos Williams, president of the Washington,
D.C. central labor council, recently returned from a visit to
Zimbabwe with a verdict on Mugabe’s leadership.
“He [Mugabe] has lost touch with the people,” Williams
said. “In the past ten years Mugabe has become a totally different
person.” Williams, who represented the AFL-CIO at the 25th
anniversary convention of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
in May, said “Workers there [Zimbabwe] find it hard to accept
that many of them are being beaten, arrested and harassed by the
same people that they marched with 25 years ago for [Zimbabwe’s]
liberation.”
Mugabe’s hand of repression greeted Williams when
he arrived at the airport in Harare. “There were about 20 other
labor organizations that sent representatives to the ZCTU convention,”
Williams said. “But when we arrived at Zimbabwe’s airport, 11
delegates were denied admission and sent back home by the government,
apparently because they had been critical of past actions taken
by Mugabe.”
To squelch growing dissent from the displaced urban
poor, the trade unions, and farmers whose lands have been confiscated
by the military, Mugabe has virtually strangled democracy in Zimbabwe.
Barely two months ago, police officers
raided the headquarters of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions.
They ransacked the accounts department under the pretense of searching
for documents relating to foreign currency transactions and fraud
allegations. Union officials believe this attack was designed
to remove the current union leadership ahead of the annual meeting
last month of the International Labor Organization, which has
repeatedly cited the Mugabe regime for violating ILO
conventions on freedom of association.
The government’s campaign to destabilize ZCTU also
includes mass arrests, death threats, and bogus investigations;
the threat of imprisonment of leaders; the use of provocateurs
to disrupt ZCTU meetings; and the creation of splinter unions
to undermine and weaken ZCTU. Government thugs have even
assaulted leaders of ZCTU’s Women’s
Advisory Council, injuring one woman so badly that she had
to be taken to a clinic for x-rays.
ZCTU Secretary General Wellington Chibebe says he
has been detained “many times” by the government, targeted for
beatings, tortured and received death threats. Chibebe spoke at
CBTU’s 35th anniversary
convention in Orlando, Florida in May.
He told the 1,500 delegates, “It is one thing to
be independent. It is another to be free. We are still fighting
for our freedom in Zimbabwe.” The audience responded with a chorus
of “Amen’s’” when Chibebe added, “Oppression is oppression, whether
by a white person or a black person.” He concluded his remarks
by saying, “We did not fight to free one person or one class.
We fought to free Zimbabwe. We are fighting now against the system
[of oppression], not President Mugabe.” Chibebe thanked CBTU for
adopting a strong resolution that condemned the actions of the
Zimbabwe government while pledging CBTU’s continued support of
the Zimbabwe labor movement.
Lucy, who sits on the powerful AFL-CIO Executive
Council, said CBTU’s Zimbabwe resolution and its invitation to
Chibebe to speak to thousands of black workers from every sector
of organized labor in the U.S. “upped the ante on Zimbabwe.” He
added, “It’s time we – in the labor movement and in the African
American community – said ‘Enough is enough: Hands off the workers
movement in Zimbabwe!’ Bring back peace and democracy in Zimbabwe.”
Jos Williams echoed Lucy’s call to action, saying
“We must peel the veil from Mugabe’s regime and then be prepared
to fully support our sisters and brothers in Zimbabwe, who, sadly,
must liberate their country – again.”
Lucy, who is Vice President of Public Services International,
the global union federation representing 20 million public sector
workers in 160 countries, said CBTU had informed leaders of the
Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions that CBTU would welcome an invitation
to lead a delegation of Americans to that country to evaluate
the situation on the ground. CBTU’s campaign to raise public awareness
about the Zimbabwe crisis also includes:
With 1 of every 7 black workers belonging to a union,
CBTU is one of the most powerful African American voices for workers’
equity and social justice around the world. Its 60 chapters, including
one in Ontario, Canada, give CBTU a strong grassroots network
to galvanize black public opinion on Zimbabwe.
Still, the crisis in Zimbabwe isn’t tailored for
easy soundbites. It hasn’t erupted into ghastly images on corporate
news programs.
No 60 Minutes, No Anderson Cooper. No Tavis
Smiley.
It’s not New Orleans or Darfur or Congo – yet.
But do we dare turn our eyes from yet another
atrocity unfolding on the mother continent of all human civilizations?
Dwight Kirk is a freelance journalist based
in Washington, DC, who writes on employment and union issues.
He has written articles previously on the Duvalier regime in Haiti
and he served as an International Election Observer in South Africa’s
first democratic elections in 1995. Contact him at [email protected].