Zimbabwe and Sharpeville Day

The SACP has pronounced on Zimbabwe at last, and in grand style, in the form of an Umsebenzi Online with a treat of an article by GS Dr Blade Nzimande, plus a Statement, which although rather difficult in its prose, contains good guidelines as you would expect from the vanguard party. The SACP fully supports the solidarity demonstrations in South Africa that will coincide with the Zim stayaway of 3rd and 4th of April, 2007, which are the Tuesday and the Wednesday of Easter Week.

At least seven ZCTU organisers have been arrested while distributing leaflets for the stayaway. Three of them were grabbed in Masvingo, and charged with littering and distributing material that has the potential to cause an uprising (Viva!). They are Tennyson Muchefa from the National Engineering Workers' Union, Douglas Dzimiri from the Zimbabwe Domestic and Allied Workers' Union, and Gilbert Marembo, a ZCTU staff member. The other four were arrested in Bulawayo. We do not have their names yet. See the linked document for the ZCTU’s statements concerning these arrests.

The day-to-day record of last year’s stayaway and the repression that surrounded it are here, on the Kubatana site. These pages show how courageous the ZCTU is to mount another stayaway, and to promise further action on a three-monthly basis.

Both COSATU and the SACP have issued statements to mark Human Rights Day (Sharpeville Day). See the links below. The ANC issued a major statement on Saturday, following the National Executive Committee meeting of 15-17 March, which we will look at more fully, tomorrow.

Lastly, in the Johannesburg newspaper The Star, a letter appeared yesterday about Somalia which shows that the truth will always come out and that people are not fooled by US Imperialist propaganda. See the link below.

The YCL’s young ace spin-doctor Castro Ngobese also had a letter published yesterday, in Business Day. Click here to read it.

Click on these links:

Umsebenzi Online, Vol 6, No. 5, 21 Mar 2007, Zimbabwe (2338 words)

Latest on ZCTU Arrests (348 words)

COSATU statement on Human Rights Day, 21 March 2007 (976 words)

Finance a basic human right, SACP Human Rights Day statement (806 words)

Ethiopian state and Yusuf lack legitimacy, Dirk Spilke, The Star (567 words)