Strikes, Retaliation In Zimbabwe
A national strike called to protest Zimbabwe's disputed elections appeared to nearly fizzle out Thursday, while white farmers say they are being attacked by members of the ruling party in retaliation for their support of the opposition in this month's elections.
Zimbabweans trickled back to work on Thursday — the second day of a general strike denounced by President Robert Mugabe's government as sabotage by unions linked to opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Tsvangirai, leader of the Movement for Democratic Change, who challenged Mugabe for the presidency in March 9-11 elections, appeared in court on Wednesday on treason charges.
He was released on bail of Z$1.5 million ($27,270) and surety of $3 million and is due to appear again on April 30, with two of his aides.
Tsvangirai was named before the election in a probe linked to a secretly filmed video purporting to show him discussing Mugabe's assassination. Tsvangirai has said the tape was doctored to misrepresent his conversation.
The Commercial Farmers Union, which represents 4,500 white farmers, said at least 50 farmers were illegally evicted from their properties since the elections, which many observers criticized as badly tainted. The government declared Mugabe the victor.
Most of those arrested face charges they violated new security laws by using licensed radio equipment for political activities, the union said.
Most CFU members backed the MDC's Morgan Tsvangirai, who had promised to stop the illegal seizure of white-owned farms and to implement a negotiated programme to advance black land ownership.
The human rights group Amnesty International has expressed concern about the danger of attacks against opposition supporters once foreign election observers left the country.
Labor leaders said authorities also used the new laws to prevent them from meeting freely with workers to coordinate the three-day nationwide protest strike that began Wednesday.
Some factories remained closed Thursday, but most banks and shops reopened and government offices, post offices and schools never closed.
But union leaders vowed to press on with the action to protest political violence despite a patchy response.
"Even if many people turn up for work the message still remains that there is a strike...That call remains unchanged until we consult the leadership of the ZCTU," Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions deputy secretary-general Collin Gwiyo told Reuters late on Wednesday.
More demonstrations loom after the strike ends on Friday. The National Constitutional Assembly, an umbrella body for Zimbabwean civic groups, said on Thursday it planned protests to demand a new constitution.
"The major source of the problem is the current constitution of Zimbabwe which is so defective that it is impossible to have a free and fair election under it," it said in a statement.
"The NCA will in the next few weeks be staging peaceful mass demonstrations throughout the country to force President Mugabe and his government to accept the need for a new constitution," it said, without giving dates for the protests.
The ZCTU estimated about half of Harare's businesses were curtailed by early Wednesday, declining to about a third in the afternoon as workers showed up at their jobs.
Labor officials around the country reported police, troops and ruling party militants taking down the names of people who did not report for work.