ZWELINZIMA Vavi . . . COSATU regards Mugabe's government as illegitimate

JOHANNESBURG – South Africa’s powerful labour movement today meets churches and civic groups to plot protests to demand the removal of President Robert Mugabe’s government from power as pressure builds on President Thabo Mbeki to act on Zimbabwe.

Mbeki is the Southern African Development Community (SADC)’s mediator in Zimbabwe but has been accused of failing to apply pressure on Mugabe to allow release of results a March 29 presidential election and to remove all impediments to the democratic process.

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) said it regarded Mugabe’s government as illegitimate after it lost elections to the opposition and said today’s meeting would finalise plans for huge anti-Mugabe protests to be held in South Africa, the region’s economic powerhouse.

The union said: “The federation will be holding a meeting with civil society, church and NGO groups on Thursday, 24 April, at which plans will be finalised for a huge protest march in South Africa . . . to demand the removal of the Mugabe dictatorship.”

The move by COSATU to mobilise pressure against Mugabe’s government comes as Zimbabwe’s church leaders warned this week that rising post-election violence in the country could reach genocidal proportions.

The leaders of the Evangelical Fellowship of Zimbabwe, the Zimbabwe Catholic Bishops' Conference and the Zimbabwe Council of Churches – the three main representative bodies for Christians in Zimbabwe – called on African leaders and the United Nations to intervene to stop the country sliding into another African killing field.

"We warn the world that if nothing is done to help the people of Zimbabwe from their predicament, we shall soon be witnessing genocide similar to that experienced in Kenya, Rwanda, Burundi and other hot spots in Africa and elsewhere," the religious leaders said in a joint statement.

"We appeal to the SADC, the African Union and the United Nations to work towards arresting the deteriorating political and security situation in Zimbabwe," the statement said.

Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) party says 10 of murdered while at least another 3 000 have been displaced from their homes in an orgy of political violence by state security forces and militant activists of Mugabe’s ruling ZANU PF party.

The opposition party says the violence started immediately after it defeated ZANU PF in the March 29 parliamentary elections. The MDC and other minor opposition candidates won 110 seats to defeat ZANU PF which took 97 seats.

Mugabe’s party can however regain control of Parliament if it wins in at least nine of 23 constituencies where the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission is recounting voters.

The ZEC withheld results of a parallel presidential election, which Mugabe is said to have lost to opposition leader MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai, although ZANU PF and independent observers say the opposition leader failed to take 50 percent of the vote and must face Mugabe in a second round run-off poll.

COSATU – which called on SADC and the African Union to withdraw recognition of Mugabe’s government – did not say whether it would also call protests against Mbeki’s policy of quiet diplomacy towards Harare.

Mbeki, heavily criticised by the international media over his handling of Zimbabwe, has insisted on engaging Mugabe but his critics say that policy has failed to yield results in the past and has been misconstrued as support by the 84-year old Zimbabwean leader.

The South African leader has come under increasing pressure from key political players in his won country to adopt a more robust stance against Mugabe’s government.

For example, Jacob Zuma, the leader of South Africa’s ruling ANC party and frontrunner to succeed Mbeki as South Africa’s president in 2009, has in recent days openly broken ranks with Mbeki by publicly questioning ZEC’s failure to release results of the presidential vote.

Zuma this week told journalists during a tour of Europe that the situation in Zimbabwe was unacceptable and that African leaders should send a mission to mediate in the crisis, appearing to suggest Mbeki should be replaced as mediator.

COSATU is part of South Africa’s ruling tripartite that is led by the ANC and includes the South African Communist Party.

The union, whose members this week blocked a Chinese ship carrying weapons for Zimbabwe from offloading its cargo at a South African port saying Mugabe could use the arms against opponents, frequently clashes with Mbeki’s government over Zimbabwe.  – ZimOnline.