Date of publication: August 22, 2008
Source: Business Report (South Africa)
» http://www.busrep.co.za/index.php?fSectionId=553&fArticleId=4571159 [1]
By Terry Bell
When the land grab crisis struck in Zimbabwe, the media concentrated on the small minority of mainly wealthy white commercial farmers who were harassed, beaten, in a few cases killed, and had their properties looted. Little attention was paid to the farm workers and their families, many of them members of the General Agricultural and Plantation Workers' Union.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), having received financial backing from the commercial farmers, also remained silent regarding pleas that any redistribution of farming land should concentrate on the creation of farm worker co-operatives. So, with little publicity, as many as 40 000 farm workers and their families suffered largely in silence as they were evicted, beaten, killed or subjected to new forms of virtual slavery.
Such media silence also extends to the pro-democracy and trade union movement in Swaziland. Yesterday police in Mbabane arrested Jan Sithole, the general secretary of the Swaziland Federation of Trade Unions (SFTU).
Sithole and the SFTU supported the recent protests outside the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Johannesburg, chaired by Swaziland's feudal monarch, King Mswati III.
The Mswati regime in Swaziland is just as aware as Zimbabwe's President Robert Mugabe and the ruling elite of Zanu-PF that the trade union movement is a central pillar of the resistance to their rule. In Zimbabwe it was the unions that provided the impetus for the formation of the MDC, whose leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, is a past general secretary of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).
In Swaziland the SFTU and other unions are part of a pro-democracy movement headed by the Peoples' United Democratic Movement. As a result, there have been concerted efforts by the governments in both countries to weaken or take over the labour movement.
But the unions continue to resist attempts to woo or manipulate them. While in Zimbabwe membership has fallen along with massive job losses, the memories of militancy and the role played by the ZCTU in resistance to autocracy are still fresh.
As such, the labour movement, potentially the most powerful organised force in society, remains a major threat to both regimes. Which is why the persecution of trade unionists continues.
Next week the ZCTU president and general secretary, Lovemore Matombo and Wellington Chibebe, respectively, appear in court in Harare for "spreading falsehoods prejudicial to the state". They were arrested after a May Day rally where they gave details of the suffering of farm workers.
Stringent bail conditions have effectively gagged them and, as the talks facilitated by President Thabo Mbeki dragged on, their case was delayed. Union officials maintain this was to ensure their silence.
Now Sithole has been arrested, while Mswati III continues to be accepted by the SADC as the representative of the people of Swaziland.
Having the apparent support of SADC, both regimes appear intent on sending a message to activists: if we can do this to your leaders, what chance do you stand?
This intimidation has roused the International Trade Union Confederation (Ituc), which represents more than 166 million workers in 156 countries.
Ituc heard only yesterday about Sithole, but it has launched an internet campaign to demand the immediate and unconditional release of Matombo and Chibebe.
The Ituc campaign can be found at www.wearezctu.org [2].