Cosatu official calls for sanctions against Mugabe

Mail&Guardian Online
http://www.mg.co.za/

August 1, 2003

Cape Town

A Western Cape Congress of South African Trade Union
(Cosatu) official who met leaders of the Zimbabwean
trade union movement in the Cape Town on Friday says
President Robert Mugabe’s time as head of his state
should end.

Cosatu Western Cape regional secretary Tony Ehrenreich
has also called on the South African government to
impose sanctions as a tool to end the unjust government
in the neighbouring country and to end President Thabo
Mbeki’s silent diplomacy in dealing with the Zimbabwe
government.

He said: "Robert Mugabe himself is a man whose time has
come; he must leave politics. If you are using the
machinery of state to defend your own position then you
are no longer driven by the best interests of your
people."

Ehrenreich was speaking at a press conference on Friday
afternoon after meeting Lovemore Matombo, president of
the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions — who was
eliciting support for his union federation’s action to
demand that his government sort out the current
financial crisis in his country in two weeks.

Ehrenreich said: "While many of us understand the battle
against colonialism, what is unfolding in Zimbabwe now
is having a more negative effect ... 350 000 workers
have been displaced on farms. We want to make calls on
the South African government to start applying pressure
on the Zimbabwe government."

"We sell fuel and a number of materials to Zimbabwe; we
must start applying pressure. Sanctions was a tool used
to end apartheid [in South Africa], it must be used to
end other unjust forms of rule [in Zimbabwe]".

Referring to Mbeki’s silent diplomacy, he said: The time
for quiet diplomacy in the face of human rights abuses
are past. We can’t be quiet when women are raped and men
of the country are being killed."

Matombo indicated that his trade union was against talks
on forming a government of unity between Zimbabwe’s
ruling Zanu-PF and the opposition Movement for
Democratic Change. He said his people wanted an election
and a Constitution which protected the rights of
workers.

They particularly did not want to see the imposition of
International Monetary Fund and World Bank structural
adjustment policies being imposed on any new
administration in the country, he said.

Asked if he expected a change of government in Zimbabwe,
Matombo said: "The conditions in Zimbabwe suggest a
change of government; those conditions seem to have
ripened. We see that there is likely to be a change
...but if the current president leaves that is a change
of government, isn’t it? It can be Zanu [staying in the
administration] and be a change of government [without
Mugabe]."