The Black Commentator - July 13, 2006

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: