Zimbabwe Stayaway, 3-4 April 2007

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions general strike of Easter Week 2007 is in support of a set of demands announced in a communiqué on February 24th (see the link below).

The communiqué refers to the demands of 13th September 2006, which are available from the Sokwanele web site. See the second linked item below.

Also referred to is the Kadoma Declaration which is available on the AllAfrica site. See the link below

What we have not yet found is the text of the Prices and Incomes Stabilization Protocol that the communiqué refers to. But it is clear from the ZCTU statements that this deals with the situation of inflation in Zimbabwe, reported elsewhere as between 1600% and 4000% per annum; and the fact that most wages are below the Zimbabwe Poverty Datum Line (PDL).

Kubatana.net is another good source for Zim documents, such as their archive on last year’s Zim stayaway.

The timing of Friday’s COSATU seminar on Zimbabwe (and Swaziland) is now a bit clearer and more detailed. Prime time will be from about 09h30 to 11h30. See the notice linked below.

Finally, John Woolman, an American Quaker of the 18th Century, understood capitalism very well. Capital is a relation and not a thing. It is “the power which stands in the separation”. See the link.

Don’t forget to go to this page and fill in the Labourstart petition on Zimbabwe, which automatically goes to a whole lot of Zim government offices when you put ion your name and address and click “send message”.

Tomorrow is Sharpeville Day. There will be some kind of march in Johannesburg from Library Gardens to Constitution Hill, some time after 09h00, in the interest of a list of “human rights” causes including Zimbabwe. What organisation is calling this march, we do not know.

Click on these links:

ZCTU communiqué of February - 24 demands and strike date (456 words)

Archive of ZCTU 13 Sept 2006 demands, Sokwanele (298 words)

Kadoma Declaration, Shame Makoshori, Zimbabwe Independent (580 words)

Programme on Swaziland and Zimbabwe, 23 March 2007 COSATU (notice)

A Plea for the Poor, John Woolman (573 words)