Monday, October 16, 2006

Dennis Brutus on the crisis in Darfur

“You shouldn’t send in killers to stop the killing”
DENNIS BRUTUS is a veteran of the South African liberation struggle, a leading figure in the global justice movement and a world-renowned poet. Imprisoned along with Nelson Mandela, Brutus led the movement to isolate racist South Africa from international sports--and since the fall of apartheid, he’s been a prominent opponent of the African National Congress (ANC) government’s neoliberal, pro-market policies.
Brutus spoke with LEE SUSTAR (Socialist Worker USA) about the political situation in Africa today--focusing especially on the crisis in Darfur, where African Union (AU) troops are already deployed, and which has prompted calls for U.S. or United Nations (UN) intervention.
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IS THERE A CASE for humanitarian intervention in Darfur?
WELL, there are people dying, and at a very great rate. Some of it is starvation, some of it is a lack of water, but some of it is killing by gangsters on both sides. The question is trying to identify the elements in the struggle, and right now, I don’t think there are any good guys. But the presence of the African Union troops, plus the possibility of the UN troops, is not going to solve the problem. My position is that you don’t send in the military. You don’t send in killers to stop the killing, when they themselves are, in some ways, implicated in the process.
I keep saying--and I am glad to see it finally beginning to appear as part of the debate--that one of the central issues in the Sudan is that: a) the Chinese are in there; and b) the Chinese have got more franchise rights for oil exploration in the Sudan than any of the Western powers. So, of course, to the West, the government in Khartoum are the bad guys.
Certainly, it appears that the Khartoum military have allowed the development of paramilitary forces, so they can do things and still claim not to be guilty. This is where the Janjaweed militia comes in.
This is the usual trick of the West. You create a monster, whether you call it Vietcong or Mau-Mau, or something else. Once you’ve chosen your side, you start demonizing the other side, particularly if you intend intervention.
I wish I could say there is a just solution in Sudan at this stage. But I think there are very suspect figures on both sides. The problem is very complicated, because it is very old and involves all kinds of tribal loyalties that we don’t even understand.
There are also very ancient conflicts that derive mainly from that fact that some people are pastoral, but other people are nomadic. In the past, these people worked out arrangements among themselves, which were largely territorial, but also seasonal--that is, when you could move your cattle or whatever.
But the modern conflict is about resources, and who is going to be in power to give out the franchises to exploit the oil.
It seems to me that, dominant on the whole agenda, are three elements. One is the notion of the New American Century, in which the U.S. is supposed to dominate the globe and control access to the resources. Point two: Everybody recognizes that China is the next superpower on the horizon. The third, and perhaps most significant point, is that China knows it will have the biggest, most gluttonous appetite for oil the world has ever seen.
Afghanistan is a neighbor of China, and, of course, the U.S. is there. One of the big fights is access to the energy in the Caspian Sea basin.
Also, the U.S. is nervous that it can’t predict how Saudi Arabia will behave in the future. And there are now reports that oil deposits in the Sudan are even greater than in Saudi Arabia. So clearly there is already competition for resources in the area, however large or small they may be.
Tellingly, one of the strongest voices for intervention, for sending increased UN troops and increased U.S. involvement, has been the pro-Israel lobby.
We have to go back to the Project for a New American Century document, which says that it’s not sufficient for Israel to be sitting on a portion of the land in the Middle East. They see the U.S. dominating a region that includes Palestine, Syria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran and Afghanistan.
As messy and bloody and murderous as the situation is, I don’t believe we should endorse an increased military presence in Sudan if it will have the effect of giving the U.S. an even stronger position there. Already, the United States is now setting up a military operation for Africa on the scale of what it calls its “Mediterranean operation.”
WHAT ARE the African states doing in regard to Darfur?
AFRICAN UNION troops are functioning as the peacekeepers in Sudan, but they also operate as peacekeepers in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC), and the whole of the African Great Lakes region.
President Thabo Mbeki of South Africa is often seen as the principal negotiator for whatever peace settlement is arranged. So clearly, there is evidence of South Africa having a sub-imperial role.
This may also explain why South Africa has spent billions on arms, when it doesn’t have money for food, housing, water or roads. The priorities are military, but they are not justified by any military threat to South Africa itself. It is as if South Africa is being armed to be the principal military actor on behalf of the U.S. in Africa.
South Africa has a presence in Sudan and the DRC, through the AU, and Mbeki recently had a public intervention in peace negotiations in Côte d’Ivoire. Côte d’Ivoire was the crown jewel of the French empire in Africa. Suddenly, the French are out, trying to get back in, and the old imperial structure is clearly crumbling in that area.
My feeling is that you will have so-called rebel groups challenging legitimate governments. The real question becomes who is empowered to become the one who distributes the franchises which enable Western corporations to come in--whether for cocoa, oil or, in the case of the DRC, uranium.
In all these cases, there are armed groups fighting it out, often armed by Western powers. Britain, Germany and France are involved. Ultimately, these struggles are for Africa’s resources, and who is going to control the disposition of those resources.
In that, Thabo Mbeki and South Africa, via the AU, become a major player in deciding who’s going to win.
HOW DOES THE World Social Forum (WSF) in Nairobi in January fit into this picture?
THE WSF could be an event that will challenge globally the corporate agenda and insert, in a very significant way, a grassroots global agenda.
We don’t have money, and we don’t have resources. But I think we can have 100,000 in Nairobi and 100 countries represented there. And there is quite serious thinking about the WSF going on in Francophone Africa--in Mali, Senegal and Côte d’Ivoire.
My own feeling is that we have an enormous possibility to effect global political thinking the way the Seattle protests of the World Trade Organization and the way Zapatistas contributed to the way we see the world and how we see struggle. Our major problem right now is to make more people globally aware of the WSF.
WHAT ABOUT the left’s political positions at the WSF?
THERE IS a tendency in Europe, South America and, of course, in Africa that instead of being left, you begin to shift toward the center. For me, the most troubling example is not South Africa. I am even more disappointed by [President Luiz Inacio “Lula” da Silva] in Brazil.
Meanwhile, Mbeki is more and more a leader in Africa. Even countries that could be taking an independent position, like Algeria, are happy to let South Africa spell out positions for them.
Most governments in Africa, via South Africa’s New Partnership for Africa’s Development (NEPAD), have agreed to take their orders from the International Monetary Fund, the World Bank and the World Trade Organization. So when grassroots groups are annunciating their positions in Nairobi, they are not only taking on the international financial institutions, they are also taking on their own governments.
NEPAD is supposed to be the backbone of the AU. Unfortunately, my own sense of African organizations--even though they are saying they are against NEPAD--is that they are still rather vague about how to perceive the AU.
At the WSF in Brazil in 2005, there was a program put forward by the Group of 19, called the Porto Alegre Manifesto. At this year’s polycentric WSF in Bamako, Mali, there was the Bamako Appeal. At a recent conference in Durban, South Africa, the main presentation was given by [Egyptian author and activist] Samir Amin, the main spokesperson for the Bamako group.
There is a tendency in the Bamako group to say that you can’t go only with spontaneity, insisting on more centralized organization. My own view is that the success of the WSF has been precisely because it’s a forum, open to many conflicting points of view, rather than having a particular view adopted or imposed.
This doesn’t exclude decision-making. Remember the marvelous action before the war in Iraq, when an estimated 13 million marched around the world? Part of that came out of the World Social Forum in Porto Alegre.

http://www.socialistworker.org/2006-2/605/605_04_DennisBrutus.shtml

Thursday, October 12, 2006

Third World used as a dumping ground for toxic waste

by Emmanuel Kocou
People in one of Africa’s poorest countries are recovering from being flooded with toxic waste. The recent emergency in Ivory Coast has highlighted the way companies and governments dump waste in the Third World to evade controls and save money.

The scandal began with the arrival in Abidjan, Ivory Coast’s largest city, of a ship chartered by the Dutch company Trafigura Beheer BV. It unloaded 500 tonnes of petrochemical waste into a number of trucks which then dumped it at 15 or more sites around Abidjan.

The UN news service reports that the waste contained a mixture of petroleum distillates, hydrogen sulphide, mercaptans, phenolic compounds and sodium hydroxide.

A few days later, thousands of people started complaining of ill health and seeking medical help.

Symptoms have included nosebleeds, nausea and vomiting, headaches, and skin and eye irritations as well as respiratory distress, dehydration and intestinal bleeding.

More than eight deaths have been attributed to the waste.

Ivorian emergency medical officials said more than 74,000 people have gone to hospitals and clinics for evaluation.

The government then resigned—although all ministers were reappointed to the same posts, except for the ministers of transport and environment.

Such scandals are far from uncommon. Throughout the 1980s, African regimes allowed themselves to become European companies’ most popular dumping ground.

In 1987, an Italian ship dumped waste on Koko Beach, Nigeria. Workers who came into contact with it suffered from burns and partial paralysis, and began to vomit blood.

Thereafter, the UN drew up plans to regulate the trade in hazardous waste through the Basel Convention.

By 1998, the European Union had agreed to implement the ban, which prohibited the export of hazardous wastes from developed countries to the developing world, but the US, Canada, Australia and New Zealand refused to sign up.

In any case, the laws are often flouted. Inspections of 18 European ports in 2005 found that 47 percent of all waste destined for export was illegal.

The December 2004 tsunami resulted in massive quantities of toxic waste washed on to the shores of Somalia. It was presumed that these illegal toxic waste products, which had been buried in the Indian Ocean for some time, largely came from Europe.

In Europe the disposal of one tonne of toxic waste will cost over US$1,000, but the same operation in Africa will cost no more than US$8.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9903

Korean Nuclear Bomb: the nightmare created by Bush

North Korea’s decision to conduct a nuclear weapons test on Monday of this week drew condemnation from all the world’s major powers. Across the globe people rightly fear a nuclear conflagration.

Socialist Worker opposes all nuclear weapons, but there is immense hypocrisy in George Bush and Tony Blair’s sabre rattling at North Korea.

Bush has been threatening North Korea ever since he named the country as part of the “axis of evil” in 2002. The country’s decision to go nuclear is a direct consequence of that.

The Bush regime recently discussed plans for a nuclear attack on Iran - plans that were only blocked by a near mutiny by US generals.

Bush has made clear he is ready to use tactical nuclear weapons. Meanwhile,
the British government is set on commissioning a replacement for the Trident
nuclear weapons system at the cost of £76 billion.

The warmongers are now using North Korea’s nuclear test as an excuse to pile on pressure for an attack on Iran.

Dan Gillerman, Israel’s ambassador to the United Nations, said in reaction to the test, “What is happening with North Korea is the ‘coming soon’ occurrence in Iran, and we must not let that happen.”

The US is now pushing for the United Nations to impose sanctions against North Korea.

This is likely to target civilians already suffering from a regime which puts weapons above feeding its own people. Such sanctions will do nothing to make the world safer or to encourage nuclear disarmament.

That can only be achieved by halting the US’s war drive - a war drive that this week took a step closer to going nuclear.
http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9917

Saturday, October 07, 2006

Another World is Possible…Through Struggle

The rallying slogan of the Zimbabwe Social Forum is “Another Zimbabwe is Possible”. This follows from that of the World Social Forum (WSF) of “Another World is Possible.”
This slogan expresses the yearning of the vast majority of society for a different society from that of today – A society, internationally where 3 multinational capitalists like Bill Gates have more wealth than 3 billion people, where the IMF, World Bank and WTO demand that the last dollars of poor countries be used to pay off debts accrued by local elites when hospitals are collapsing and millions are hungry, a society where tens of thousands are killed in Iraq, Lebanon and DRC so that the oil and mining barons can make more dollars…
A society where government and the Reserve Bank splash billions of dollars on fighter jets, Pajeros and newspaper adverts whilst 3 000 people die weekly of AIDS because of lack of ARVs, where hundreds of thousands of children drop out from school because they cannot pay school fees and levies; a society where bosses pay workers starvation wages whilst they pocket billions, a society where capitalists close down factories and bakeries retrenching thousands of workers when millions are without jobs or food. A society, where when women and workers come out in the streets to say they are hungry, they are instead fed with police buttons, truncheons and teargas and the head of state boasts – “vamwe vaakuchema kuti takarohwa, ehe unodashurwa” - as if tens of thousands did not sacrifice their lives so that we could have a free and democratic society.
In short the demands of this country’s and world’s people are for an alternative to the barbarism of the system of capitalism and imperialism.
This is what motivated the formation of the World Social Forum in Brazil in 2001 and the Zimbabwe Social Forum in 2003. To create an open space for working people, the poor, the oppressed and exploited to discuss and strategise and share ideas on how to link up our struggles and liberate ourselves, just as the rich, the capitalists and their governments, annually meet at the World Economic Forum in Davos (Switzerland) and their various national, regional and international forums.
Along with the WSF, the ZSF has grown. Whereas in 2003 less than 300 people attended our first event in Harare Gardens, in 2004 we hosted the Southern Africa Social Forum (SASF) attended by nearly 3 000 people. In 2006 we have had regional social forums with over 500 attending in Chitungwiza and 200 – 300 in Mutare and Bulawayo. Whereas in 2003 and 2004 we only discussed and mourned about our problems, in 2005 we resolved to become a living social forum of struggle, with the ZSF massively supporting the ZCTU called Action Against Poverty of 8 November 2005 and scores arrested. So was the support on the World AIDS Day on 1 December 2005.
Challenges and Way Forward!
However, as we again meet in Harare Gardens on the 29th September 2006, many challenges we still face. The most urgent challenge is to accelerate the transformation of ZSF into a truly living forum that relates to the bread and butter struggles of the ordinary people as well as the struggles against dictatorship in our country and for a truly people driven and anti-ESAP new constitution. To meet these challenges, we recommend a few ideas on the way forward:
-Adoption of Campaigns / Action Programme: Instead of various organisations doing individual little demonstrations, we need to unite our forces – united we stand divided we fall. We should come with a few well selected agreed campaigns, which all clusters and organisations will mobilise and support, just like we did with the ZCTU Anti-Poverty Demonstrations of 8 November. An example is a possible big demonstration on or around Budget Day in November when the chefs decide on how to share the money they have looted from the povo instead of using it for social services, drugs, housing, education and removing taxes on workers below the PDL. Besides these big campaigns we should also do small cluster based campaigns and actions including the guerrilla ones that residents and WOZA have been doing.
-Build Township and Industrial Social Forums: The social forum process must now go down right to the grass roots. If the big campaigns, demonstrations and general strikes are to be successful, mobilisation has to start right at the grass roots, where the poor live and work. The experience from South Africa in the 1980s is that the way forward is regular social forums in the townships and industrial areas, combining the different clusters, supported by festivals of art, culture and sports.
-Build regional and international solidarity: Whenever we organise the big campaigns and demonstrations we must mobilise for progressive solidarity actions regionally and internationally especially through the coming Southern Africa Social Forum in Malawi and World Social Forum in Kenya in January.
-Build a democratic, accountable and non-commodified ZSF. The culture of buying activists and plane – hotel activism has seriously undermined our struggle. Like during the war of liberation, we must promote commitment, discipline and sacrifice as the true qualities of cadres. Leaders must be accountable and decisions made democratically by the decision of the majority in meetings. Structures of regions and clusters must be revitalised.
-Ideology! Ideology! Ideology! The social forum is an open space but with an ideological straight jacket. It is a platform for the poor, for peasants, for workers, for women, for youths for those denied health, education, housing. It is not for fat cats and chefs. It is against capitalism, against neo-liberalism, against imperialism, against dictatorship against the multinationals, the capitalists. We argue that only socialism offers the way forward for the vast majority of humanity. The challenge is to organise teach-ins, video shows and educational materials for members to learn more about these things and past struggles and not just shout slogans.
Shinga Murombo! Penga Murwere! Ahoy Union! Qina Msebenzi! Penga trader!
Pasi ne Capitalism! Amandla Awethu! Forward to Socialism!

AIDS/HIV Struggles Fire the NAC Board!

Gure rabuda — the cat is out of the bag! AIDS / HIV activists and workers have always argued that the chefs are looting the AIDS Levy and other money meant for people suffering with AIDS under the National Aids Trust Fund. The government has always denied this.

Now that the chefs are fighting amongst themselves on how to divide the money looted from workers, the truth is coming out. Edwin Muguti, the deputy minister of Health revealed that the National Aids Council was wasting money on expensive hotel workshops, cars, furniture, trips and salaries whilst no drugs are being bought for the sick. Drugs are available only for 42 000 people whilst over 1.8 million need them. When the chefs realised how gure ravo had been exposed they put pressure on Muguti to retract his statements saying donors would withdraw funds, and spoil their party!

Enough is enough AIDS/HIV activists, workers and the poor in general must urgently organise demonstrations at the Ministry of Health and NAC offices demanding the immediate dissolution of the NAC Board and its replacement by one whose majority of members must come from people living with AIDS/HIV and the labour movement. Such Board must ensure free drugs and ARVs for all, together with support for subsistence. There must price controls on drugs and take-over of companies that make super-profits on drugs essential for life. ARV’s have gone up from $10 000 in July to $25 000 in September. We must organise pickets at such companies demanding lower and subsidised drugs just as we must at big supermarkets in our communities to give subsidised food and goods.
Penga Murwere!

Why Rand And File Activism

The daily struggles waged by workers against capitalism and dictatorship open their minds to be more conscious about the society in which they live in. But their development is not even, they develop on different paces causing the whole working class to be a multi layered class according to workers political development .In our case in Zimbabwe we have a layer of workers who were directly involved in the successful late 90s ZCTU struggles against the effects of ESAP and have from then been fighting both the effects of neo-liberal ESAP and dictatorship. Most of these are now in powerful political positions and some have just remained factory activists in their unions not necessarily being leaders anywhere. These people are indispensable, as they constitute a very fundamental portion of the working class them as simply potential trade union and political leaders trained and groomed by struggle.
In the current scenario where it has become extremely difficulty for unions to negotiate meaningful wages due to ever-spiraling inflation, ordinary workers and that layer of potential leaders feel that unions are not simply doing enough to protect them. Confronted with an uneven up and down working class mood to fight the Mugabe‘s dictatorship because of the long way and time it have taken workers are prompted to slightly shift that fighting spirit from not just fighting Mugabe only but to their immediate oppressors (bosses) , causing them again to cast a more focused eye on their unions . They begin to see life through their unions only hence the need for proper unions administration..
Workers are beginning to demand their space and full accountability in unions and at several times in many unions they have been at crossroads with union leaderships. Unfortunately these rising workers have not been taken well by their union leaders as they fail to recognize where they are coming from alleging them to be puppets used by ZANU PF to disturb ZCTU affiliates. Some of them are undisputedly puppets of course but some are genuinely products of the past struggles, which trained them to be leaders and therefore feels responsible for building better unions .
The idea of organizing grass roots workers to fight for their involvement in their unions is quite noble as it averts the degeneration of militant trade union leaders into bureaucrats far distanced from their constituencies they are supposed to serve. Ideally rank and file worker organizations should not be formed by disgruntled members but rather are a necessity even under normal circumstances.
They are groups of conscious independent union members to provide guidance or be a watchdog to the union, providing a link between leadership and ordinary workers in factories. They should not in any way serve as a substitute for the union. As socialists we support such groups of workers in as much as they are not forming splinter unions or causing disunity in the ZCTU as the labour mother body as we believe in workers unity.
At the same time we strongly oppose those groups masquerading as genuine rank and file groups representing the interests of workers whilst in reality they are being used by ZANU PF to weaken workers unity realized in ZCTU

TATAMBURA! USADHERERE!

NO APOLOGIES FROM US!

Archbishop Pius Ncube has said that the term dictatorship is too good to apply to the ZANU-PF regime. He is absolutely right.
Days after several ZCTU protesters were viciously and savagely attacked by the thugs in grey and blue, another 27 NCA protesters suffered the same fate on the last Monday of September.
As this was happening, Mugabe urged the police to dish out more whilst bakery bosses created a “shortage” of bread demanding prices rises of 75%. Even when wheat was available, the bosses were waiting for their money from government before they started milling flour.
Anti-Retriviral (ARV) drug prices rose from $ 10,000 for a month’s course in June to $ 20,000 for a months course in September – a rise of 100%. On top of this the government has catered for 42,000 people to receive ARVs – yet 600,000 people need it. Despite the governments claims, only 1 in 7 people living with HIV are catered for.
Cities and towns across the country have seen water cuts. People in Mabvuku and Tafara have now gone for 2 straight weeks without water. Yet the regime continues to employ mbavhas like Makwvarara.
Resistance
But the masses of Zimbabwe are not taking this lying down.
The Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA) successfully staged a protest over sky-rocketing water charges and rates charges. Hundreds went into Town House to protest. They were backed by the UHURU students freedom movement.
A day after hundreds more led by the militant Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) staged a second protest at Town House over the failure of Harare Council to deliver services. They also demanded an elected council and the re-stocking of medical drugs at Council clinics. Currently only pain-killers are available
Over 60 women – some with babies on their backs – were arrested and thrown into police stations. In Harare Central and Braeside, they were made to stand in an exposed fenced area for 48 hours. In the crowd were 13 to 17 year olds as well.
CHRA has organised for garbage to be thrown into council offices in Budiriro, Glen View and Dzivaresekwa. The Council has responded by falsely claiming that 2 CHRA officials “abducted” council employees – when in fact all they did was to stop an illegal water disconnection at a residents home.
No Apologies!
The masses of this country have no apologies to make either!
As the bosses, along with their puppets in government and councils, continue with their neo-liberal onslaught against us we will respond.
Our ZCTU’s, WOZA’s, UHURU’s, ISO’s and CHRA’s have opened with warning salvos. We will not end there. This is just the beginning of OUR battle! It is OUR turn now. We are starting to fight!
Workers in Britain have gotten Tony Blair to hand in a year’s resignation notice. Now it is our turn to give notice that in the next year the class temperature in this country will rise! Either you are with us or against us in the streets! Qina Msebenzi Qina! Shinga Mushandi Shinga!

Thursday, September 28, 2006

Pope Joins War on Terror

Pope Benedict XVI’s speech last week supported George Bush’s propaganda line on the Middle East. The pope’s comments about Islam and violence last week have provoked outrage. They were more than simply misjudged.

The most striking aspect of Pope Benedict XVI’s remarks on Islam at Regensburg on 12 September was the way they harmonised with George Bush and Tony Blair’s propaganda line on the Middle East.

This cannot have been an accident. Nor can it be entirely coincidental that he delivered his message so close to the fifth anniversary of 11 September 2001.

These men are defending intervention in the Muslim world to sort good Islam from bad Islam.

In the immediate aftermath of the 2001 atrocity, Benedict, then Cardinal Ratzinger, declared on Vatican Radio, “It is important not to attribute simplistically what happened on 11 September to Islam.

“It is true that the history of Islam also contains a tendency to violence, but there are other aspects, too - a real openness to the will of God.

“It is thus important to help the positive line... to prevail and to have sufficient strength to win out over the other tendency.”

Justification

At Regensburg, Benedict drew a more basic distinction between Islam as a whole, which “is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality”, and Christianity, in which “not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to god’s nature”.

Compare these comments with Tony Blair’s speech in Los Angeles in August, which was his most comprehensive justification to date of the US/British “war on terror”.

Blair said, “What is happening today out in the Middle East, in Afghanistan and beyond is an elemental struggle about the values that will shape our future.

“It is in part a struggle between what I will call reactionary Islam and moderate, mainstream Islam.We want moderate, mainstream Islam to triumph over reactionary Islam.”

More broadly, said Blair, the conflicts in Afghanistan, Iraq, Palestine and Lebanon were part of “the wider struggle for the soul of the region”.

The Independent’s longtime Iraq correspondent Patrick Cockburn commented on this speech, “I only hope Al Qaida, Hizbollah or Hamas do not translate [the] speech into Arabic.

“Every paranoid paragraph confirms their claim that they are battling a Western crusade against Islam.”

The same can be said of Benedict’s remarks on 12 September.

This is the reason many Muslims around the world are outraged. It has nothing to do with the supposed irrational sensitivity of religious fundamentalists. It has to do with the war.

Aggressors in all wars lie in order to elevate their own purpose while demonising that of their enemy.

Benedict’s specific charge at Regensburg was that, historically, Islam has justified “spreading the faith through violence”.

The dishonesty is not unexpected, but is nonetheless breathtaking.

Destruction

It was in the context of Western invasion of what we now call the Middle East that the notion of suicide killers being rewarded by instant paradise was sucked from the thumb of a pope a thousand years ago.

Pope Urban II raised an army in 1009 to avenge the destruction by the caliph al-Hakim of the Church of the Sepulchre in Jerusalem (built around the tomb from which Jesus supposedly rose up from the dead).

He promised a plenary indulgence to any volunteer who died in battle.
In 1198, Pope Innocent III extended the offer to those who chose not to go to war themselves but who donated enough money to pay the costs of somebody who did.

Not even the most demented imam in Islam has endorsed the idea of sponsoring suicide bombers as a fundraiser. Nor is the idea of killing for Christ in the hope of salvation a quaint episode from dusty history.

There’s scarcely been a Western army gone into battle in the last millennium without some version of “Onward, Christian Soldiers” speeding them on their way.

Some of us can remember Cardinal Spellman of New York ceremonially blessing US warplanes on the runway before they set off to napalm villages in Vietnam.
In the meantime he invited US forces to see themselves precisely as “warriors for Christ.”

All religions are religions of peace, in that they can provide the personally troubled with an artificial sense of ease.

They are all, too, and more importantly as far as the rational world is concerned, ideologies of war, supplying a justification for slaughter transcending all earthly considerations.

Institutionalised religions have ever been available to endorse the wars waged by their patrons.

Benedict’s Regensburg speech cannot meaningfully be seen other than in the context of the invasion and occupation of Muslim lands by Western armies.
He’s a war propagandist for imperialism.

http://www.socialistworker.co.uk/article.php?article_id=9726

Thursday, September 21, 2006

The Rule of Law

ZCTU President, Lovemore Matombo, Secretary General Wellington Chibhebhe (Pic above) were shown democracy, Robert Mugabe style, last week.

Before they and others could even attempt to start a peaceful march, the regime's lawful, armed, thugs, the ZRP, descended on 30 demonstrators and whisked them away.

While Mugabe was globe-trotting as usual, his dogs in blue and grey savaged several ZCTU demonstrators, including women officials of the ZCTU. They ended up with cracked skulls, broken arms, hands, feet and ribs.

Now we know what Mugabe meant when he talked about "Stupid" Democracy.

It is when you stupidly believe you can exercise your rights to protest about the lack of Anti-Retrovirals because bosses have raided the state-owned NatPharm.

It is when you stupidly believe you can protest about daily falling conditions of living while bosses like Philip Chiyangwa import the latest American Hummer vehicles or can still go boating on Lake Kariba.

Real Democracy is when the kombis have no fuel to carry workers to work yet bosses like Chiyangwa and others have more than enough fuel to globe-trot and drive fuel-guzzling American and German limousines.

It is when "Zim 1" and his family spend thousands of US Dollars on each shopping trip to Singapore and Malaysia while there is "not enough" foreign currency to import desperately needed ARV's or water treatment chemicals or ZESA components.

It was shown brutally clearly last week exactly what this regime thinks of the poor and how it will keep them in line. Its message was clear - "Organise your tea-parties and we will bloody them".

As the ZCTU has rightly proclaimed "This is just the beginning"

Proud to be ZCTU! Qina Msebenzi Qina! Shinga Mushandi Shinga!
(pic above: ZCTU Info Dept)

Wednesday, September 13, 2006

20 Arrested in Bulawayo


The mood of the late 90's is back. We saw it live in today's protests. The
last few years of police repression have taught the workers to fight on. As
early as 11:30 workers had started to gather at the assembly points for
the planned action. All those there were in a mood to fight. However
not to be outdone were the police who were on high alert were busy milling around
the venue. Nevertheless, the mood to fight is on and it is time to build on
it.

The police have just picked up about 20 cdes and are still rounding up more. Among the arrested are a number of young workers, the Regional ZCTU Chairpersons, Reason Ngwenya and Gertrude Mthombeni. They have been taken to the Central Police Station in Bulawayo. Lawyers have been alerted but protest messages ca n be sent to the police station on Phone +263 9 72515, or +263 9 61706.

For more updates, contact Pesy on +263 11 416374 or Tom +263 23 780066

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* The protest venue in Harare was cordoned off by police. As the time of publishing (2:15pm local time) the protest had not yet started.

Heavy Presence of Armed Thugs


A heavy presence of police armed with AK-47 guns are in place around the venue of the protests in Harare. A unknown number of ZCTU leaders were arrested last night at a temporary co-ordinating cente in the city centre.

Details will be published as soon as available.

Socialist Worker

Tuesday, September 12, 2006

Action Against Poverty - Jambanja Ndizvo!

ZCTU NATIONAL PROTEST
OPERATION TATAMBURA – USADHERERE MUSHANDI !!
OPERATION SESIHLUPHEKILE – UNGADELELI ISISEBENZI !!

The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) will be organizing processions country-wide on Wednesday 13 September 2006 from 12.00 PM to 2.00 PM to show government and employers that workers have gone this far with their suffering and cannot go any further. 80% of Zimbabweans are living in poverty because workers “take home” salaries cannot even take them home. Now is the time to SAY NO!

The ZCTU demands the following;

* Minimum Wages and Salaries linked to the Poverty Datum Line (PDL) (currently $96,000) Reduction of Income Tax to a 30 % maximum. Workers earning below the PDL (96 000 as at end of Aug 2006) should not be taxed.
* Availability and Free Access to Anti Ritro Virals (ARVs)
* Government to address economic meltdown and allow democratic space to civic society
* A stop to harassment of Informal Economy Workers by local authority police and the ZRP

The ZCTU leadership will lead processions in the following centres
HARARE, BULAWAYO, GWERU, MUTARE, CHINHOYI, MASVINGO, Chitungwiza, Bindura, Marondera,Norton, Redcliff, Zvishavane, Shurugwi, Mvuma, Mvuma, Chivhu, Gokwe, Kwekwe, Hwange, Plumtree,Victoria Falls, Gwanda, Chimanimani, Chipinge, Nyanga, Rusape, Chiredzi, Gutu,Beitbridge,Triangle, Mashava, Kadoma, Kariba, Karoi and Chegutu

(All from 12:00 pm - 2:00pm Wednesday 13 September 2006)

In Harare the Procession will leave from the Construction House to deliver a petition to the Minister of Public Service Labour and Social Welfare, the Minister of Finance and to EMCOZ while in other centres the petitions will be delivered to the offices of the Chief Labour Relations Officer who in turn has to forward them to the Ministry of Finance.

BREAKING THE CHAINS OF EXPLOITATION AND OPPRESSION
Shinga Mushandi Shinga !! Qina Msebenzi Qina

For more information on the action please contact the ZCTU Information and Organising Departments on (04) 794742 / 794702 / 793093 E-mail, info@zctu.co.zw

Details of local ZCTU offices:
Bulawayo (09) 882093 / 61737 – 129 George Silundika Ave
Chinhoyi (067) 24246 – 9 North Drive
Gweru (054) 223312 – 3rd Floor, CABS Building, Robert Mugabe Way
Kadoma (068) 27895 / 23365 – 40 Union Ave
Kwekwe (055) 24448 – 52 Third Street
Masvingo (039) 265857 – 12 Guni House, Herbert Chitepo Street
Mutare (020) 60083 – 115 Herbert Chitepo Street

Proud to be ZCTU

Friday, July 14, 2006

Police arrest and torture 220 NCA marchers

Police have arrested, beaten and tortured over 220 protesters in Bulawayo, Harare and Mutare as they marched to demand a democratic constitution. 2 other marches took place successfully in Masvingo and Gweru.

Over 1,100 people took to the Harare demo before it was savaged by the ZRP. 125 of them were arrested.
After being arrested marchers, including 60 women and 16 babies, were attacked using dogs, teargas and batons. They are all still being held at police stations in appalling conditions.

Phone the following stations to demand the release of the protesters:

Bulawayo Central Police Station +263-9-72515, +263-9-60358, +263-9-61706

Harare Police Station +263-4-777777, +263-4-721212, +263-4-742668

Mutare Police Station +263+20-64281, +263-20-64289, +263-20-64212, +263-20-66881

Police Headquarters +263-4-700171

Send solidarity e-mails to isozim2004@yahoo.com

Setback for Imperialism in Somalia

For the first time for many years there is a sense of relief and hope among many people in Somalia.
The takeover of the capital, Mogadishu, on 4 June by the Union of Islamic Courts (UIC) removed a political class of clan-based extortionists and dealers in everything from drugs to people, known as “warlords”.
They have divided and ruled the country since the collapse of the central state in 1991.
The UIC’s military victory, triggered by popular revolt against the warlords, achieved what international military intervention and peace talks have failed to accomplish since 1991.
Unable to neutralise or control the warlords, the Western powers ultimately resorted to working with them.
Fifteen rounds of internationally sponsored peace talks in 2004 resulted in the establishment of the present Transitional Federal Government.
But it has never had any control in Mogadishu and is recognised by only a minority of the country. The UIC’s success is a heavy setback for US policy in the region.
As analyst Larry Chin points out, “The Bush aadministration has secretly been supporting a group of Somali warlords, who were battling Islamic groups for control of Mogadishu.
“US leaders have long considered Somalia as a ‘terrorist haven’, as well as a potential ‘hotbed of Al Qaida activity’.
“Somalia is of strategic interest to the Bush administration, and its resources have been eyed by Western powers since the days of the British empire.
“US oil companies were positioned to exploit Somalia’s rich oil reserves during the reign of pro US president Mohammed Siad Barre (who ruled 1969 to 1991).
“The infamous and murderous Somalia military operation of 1993 was not a humanitarian mission, but an undeclared UN/US war launched by George Bush senior’s administration, and inherited by the Clinton presidency.”
After the defeat of the US in this war, it was forced to come to an accord with the very warlords it had been fighting against. But the alliance with the US further blackened the warlords’ names in the eyes of most people.
Key to the success of the UIC was the fact that it was already an established and accepted presence in local communities, with a demonstrated social welfare policy.
Apart from bringing security to areas under its control, through its own militia and justice system, it had also set up farms, schools, water points, health clinics and orphanages.
Although the UIC did not initially have strong popular support, there was a feeling that it upheld moral standards and discipline, and had a unifying and familiar ideology in Islam.
This ensured the UIC received popular backing during the battle for Mogadishu.
The main turning point was the announcement of the US-backed “counter-terrorist” alliance, which was seen as an alien construct and a common enemy - it threatened a new lease of life for the warlords.
It remains to be seen how far ordinary people can take charge of their own futures. The West may attempt to use the Ethiopian regime of Meles Zenawi to tame or attack the new forces.
But there is no doubt imperialism has suffered a blow.

Thursday, July 13, 2006

Stop Water Charge Hiikes

Join the Combined Harare Ratepayers Association campaign to stop the Makwavarara led “commission” and Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) from imposing massive water charge hikes.

Copy and paste the letter below (the letter), print it out and fill it in. Make a copy.

Send one copy to: CHRA, Room 103, Daventry House, South Avenue corner Angwa Street.

Send the second copy to Town House.

ITS THAT SIMPLE

This is the letter:
****************************************


Your Address:

.......................

......................

HARARE

3rd July 2006

The Chairperson of the City of Harare Commission
Attn: Sekesai Makwavarara
Town House
Harare

Dear Madam,

Re: OBJECTION TO PAYMENT OF NEW WATER RATES

I am Mr/s…………………………………………… and I live at House. No. ……………………………………………………………………………………….

…………………………………………………………………………………. Harare.
I am a resident and rate payer in the city of Harare and am aware that in terms of the law, and more specifically the Urban Councils Act, I am entitled to at least thirty (30) days’ written notice before any levies, rates and or tariffs payable by me to the City of Harare may be reviewed.

I am also aware that I am entitled at law and right to administrative action that is lawful, reasonable and fair. The Administrative Justice Act [Chapter 10:28] especially Section 3 thereof refers.

I am further aware that there is an implied contract between myself and the City of Harare whereby the Council provides me with appropriate water services and I pay for the same on appropriate invoice for the said service.

Having stated the above I wish to put on record, as I hereby do, my objection to my payment of the amounts due for the month of June 2006 as calculated using the new tariffs because:

1. The statutory Notice in terms of the Urban Councils Act has not been honoured and as such the rates review is tainted with irregularities insofar as lawful procedure is concerned. Because of that it is a legal nullity as are the new rates it purports to introduce.

2. The principles of natural justice which the Council is legally obliged to observe in terms of the law have been flagrantly disregarded and as such the decision to review the rates is unlawful, unreasonable, and as such a legal nullity which I feel I cannot consciously pay.

3. The rates review also amounts to a unilateral variation of the implied contract between me and council seeing as it was done without notice to me and or any representations from me. You will no doubt appreciate that that in itself is also unlawful and makes the rates review also a legal nullity and therefore of no force and effect.

Also note that I object to the revised water charges as top council officials are squandering rate-payers money on curtains, DSTV, double-cabs, cellphones and guest lodges. The same officials are also looting subsidised council houses through contracts of “sale”.


Be guided accordingly.

Yours etc,


Cc: The Minister – Ministry of Local Government and Urban Development - Ignatius Chombo
Cc: CHRA

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

Stop Water Charge Hikes!

Join the Combined Harare Ratepayers Association (CHRA) campaign to stop the Makwavarara led commission and Zimbabwe National Water Authority (ZINWA) from imposing massive water charge hikes.

Copy and paste the letter below (the letter), print it out and fill it in. Make a copy.

Send one copy to: CHRA, Room 103, Daventry House, South Avenue corner Angwa Street.

Send the second copy to Town House.

ITS THAT SIMPLE!

This is the letter:
*******************************************************

Your Address:





HARARE

3rd July 2006

The Chairperson of the City of Harare Commission
Town House
Harare

Dear Madam,

Re: OBJECTION TO PAYMENT OF NEW WATER RATES

I am Mr/s…………………………………………… and I live at House. No. ……………………………………………………………………………………….

…………………………………………………………………………………. Harare. I am a resident and rate payer in the city of Harare and am aware that in terms of the law, and more specifically the Urban Councils Act, I am entitled to at least thirty (30) days’ written notice before any levies, rates and or tariffs payable by me to the City of Harare may be reviewed.

I am entitled at law and right to action that is lawful, reasonable and fair. The Administrative Justice Act [Chapter 10:28] especially Section 3 thereof refers.

I am further aware that there is an implied contract between myself and the City of Harare whereby the Council provides me with appropriate water services and I pay for the same on appropriate invoice for the said service.

Having stated the above I wish to put on record, as I hereby do, my objection to my payment of the amounts due for the month of June 2006 as calculated using the new tariffs because:

1. The statutory Notice in terms of the Urban Councils Act has not been honoured and as such the rates review is tainted with irregularities insofar as lawful procedure is concerned. Because of that it is a legal nullity as are the new rates it purports to introduce.

2. The principles of natural justice which the Council is legally obliged to observe in terms of the law have been flagrantly disregarded and as such the decision to review the rates is unlawful, unreasonable, and as such a legal nullity which I feel I cannot consciously pay.

3. The rates review also amounts to a unilateral variation of the implied contract between me and council seeing as it was done without notice to me and or any representations from me. You will no doubt appreciate that that in itself is also unlawful and makes the rates review also a legal nullity and therefore of no force and effect.

Also note that I further object to the revised water charges as top council officials are squandering rate-payers money on curtains, DSTV, double-cabs, cellphones and guest lodges on weekends. The same officials are also looting subsidised council houses through contracts of “sale”.

Be guided accordingly.

Yours etc,


Cc: The Minister – Ministry of Local Government and Urban Development - Ignatius Chombo
Cc: CHRA

Friday, July 07, 2006

Ruling Class Offensive Can Be Stopped

The last 7 weeks has seen the regime and its investor allies launching the most barbaric attacks on our living conditions.
Food prices, rents, water and electricity charges and school fees have all more than doubled while kombi fares are set to rise to 140,000. As Socialist Worker goes to press the parallel market rate for the US had crashed to anywhere up to 600,000 – the same for a litre of fuel.
At the same time the regime has stepped up the repression. Civic Society and opposition leaders have been arrested and held without charge. Countless roadblocks have been mounted.
The police broke up a public meeting in Highfield that began the commemoration of Murambatsvina. Further planned meetings and demonstrations were banned outright.
All this is in the name of the “Economic Turnaround” policy being implemented by the bosses and investors who run this country in the name of the IMF and World Bank – policies that the Mugabe ZANU-PF regime implemented.
Some civic society “leaders” have instead tragically chosen to put their tails between their lags in typical middle-class fashion and hide. The rest of the commemoration of Murambatsvina had been cancelled.
But as the actions by WOZA over the last 4 months have shown, this barbaric regime can be stopped. WOZA have staged several demonstrations at schools from Mutare to Insiza.
Several parents and school-going children have been arrested. WOZA leaders have been threatened with death. Parents and students who are WOZA members have been victimised by schools. The thug who is MP for Insiza, Andrew Langa, insulted WOZA women on their last demonstration in Insiza.
But despite all this the actions planned by WOZA continue unabated. In the week ending 07 July 2006, 500 women demonstrated at the Bulawayo City Council Mayors Office without permission and told a senior policeman to piss off.
This is the kind of leadership and action that is needed to confront this murderous regime and to begin fighting for and end to the poverty oppression that we face.
isozim2004@yahoo.com, +263-4-704209, Box 6758 Harare, Zimrights House 90 4th Street

Ruling Class On The Offensive

Under the guise of the unfolding economic crisis over the last 18 months, bosses have been making massive attacks on ordinary people. School Fees doubled overnight for the second term; bread prices rose 53%; milk prices rose; rice prises rose 50% - all this in the space of 4 weeks. Inflation is expected to reach 2,000% by year end. Bosses are now planning retrenchments.
Yet simultaneously these same bosses were continuing with their lavish lifestyles. Philip Chiyangwa acquired the latest Mercedes Benz with internet. Other bosses continue to enjoy house boating on Kariba.
The main reason that the bosses use for all this is the economic crisis. Yet there is no crisis for the bosses’ living standards. They still use company benefits to pay for their children’s school fees and their trips to Kariba.
The real reason for the attacks on ordinary people is the mess that the bosses themselves created in the first place. The ZANU-PF regime implemented the IMF/World Bank economic reforms. The reforms led to the price rises and planned job losses we see today.
To ensure that their programme succeeds the bosses and international ruling class have gone on an offensive. They want to ensure that the continued implementation of their neo-liberal programme succeeds. In order to do so they have to create the conditions for it.
One of the main ways is to attack the radical elements in the opposition. Currently their biggest target is the NCA’s Lovemore Madhuku. The NCA under Madhuku has led countless protests and is in the forefront of active opposition to the ZANU-PF regime.
Prior to this, the Themba-Nyathis, Ncubes, Stevensons, Mutambaras and Chihwayis attempted to destroy the MDC. But their own project is unravelling with defections and resignations.
As Socialist Worker goes to press a flurry of “diplomatic” activity is taking place. UN boss Koffi Annan is pressurising to “visit the country”. Former and Current Tanzanian bosses Benjamin Nkapa and Jakaya Kikwete are messengers between Mugabe and Britain’s Blair while the British ambassador to Zimbabwe is on a tour of the country talking to “citizens” (bosses) on the way forward. At the same time South Africa’s Mbeki has renewed his “quiet diplomacy” campaign because the economic crisis here is once affecting South African bosses and the Rand.
While all this has been going on, the state and much of the so-called independent media are vilifying Madhuku and the regime has also issued a threat to the leadership of ZCTU under the guise of its so-called forex abuse probe.
As we called for in the last issue of Socialist Worker, we must give unconditional support to the real (Tsvangirai) MDC and ZCTU. In the meantime WOZA has been staging big and successful protests across the country against school fee increases that has seen the arrest of 14 and 17 year-old school children.
Ordinary people will not benefit from any “intervention” or packages that lead to the retirement of Mugabe – whether before, in or after 2008. Neither will we benefit from Tripartite negotiations with the regime that implemented the economic policies that put us in poverty in the first place.
The only way forward is to organise action like WOZA is doing to ensure that whatever happens, we have access to decent and affordable education, health and ARVs and living wages linked to inflation – and an end to oppression.
Phantsi/Pasi/Down With Capitalism – Qina Msebenzi Qina – Shinga Mushandi Shinga
by Rosa Zulu

The Social Forum Process

The world we live in is completely unjust. There is massive accumulation of wealth for a tiny rich elite – glass buildings, shopping complexes like Westgate and Sam Levy’s and 45 Billion dollar Mercedes and Cherokees – contrasting with an equally unimaginable impoverishment of the vast majority of the world’s population haunted by famine and utter destitution - donkey drawn scotch carts, pit latrines, slums, and utter poverty. The historic mission of capitalism has been development for the few and underdevelopment for the many.
This crisis has totally worsened under neo-liberalism. Under the IMF/World Bank’s disastrous economic policies millions of poor have been condemned to conditions of abject poverty, job loses and collapse of social service delivery systems such as health, education, housing and public transport. This reality and a hopeless future for millions has resulted in the total breakdown of the social fabric of poor communities shown in sharp increases in domestic violence, violent crime, prostitution, street kids, and homeless people. The worsening crisis of neo-liberalism has also led to state regimes responding to mass resistance through curtailing democratic space and repression.

The Rise of the Social forum Process
The rise of the social forum process expresses a rejection and challenge to policies that put profit before life. The rallying slogan of the social forum, Another World Is Possible expresses this. We must go beyond simply rejecting the current set-up to fighting for a better way of organizing society that puts needs before greed and profit.
The social forum has emerged with massive potential to advance the struggles for socio-economic rights. To this end the Social Forum process must play a very crucial role in organizing the regrouping anti-neoliberal forces. It has made tremendous achievements in creating solidarity networks for those committed to social justice. The process has also played a key role in sustaining hope and in fostering amongst activists a sense of belonging to a global progressive force committed to change the world for the better. The emergence of a bipolar world marked on one hand by a crisis ridden free market agenda and on the other hand the growing global anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist movement of which the social forum is one of its platforms.
The context within which the Social Forum emerges and takes root poses questions - whether the process will fulfill its historical mission and serve as a functional platform to advance and resolve the tasks of the social justice struggle. This becomes a decisive question in light of the ‘commodification of resistance’ syndrome. A concern has already emerged on whether this will not turn out to be more of serial meetings/talk shops and plane activism with no action at all and in that way actually become a platform to co-opt, divert and disarm the building resistance against capitalist globalization.
There are also questions on the structure of the social forum process. The ‘open’ non-voting and non-committal ‘space’ limits the capacity for decisive collective action that reduces it to a non-acting jamboree of NGOs. While some horizontality and consensus is necessary in a democratic relationship amongst diverse groups that are just beginning to learn to work together, this should not be taken to levels where it completely cripples the process. Many attempts for collective action have been scuttled on the grounds that “the forum is a space and not an organization”.
While the social forum process has built an excellent critique on neo-liberalism, it has not done so on the national democratic question. Social forum arguments tend to focus exclusively on neo-liberal policies, IMF, World Bank, WTO etc and in a way sideline national democratic questions. This is particularly problematic in the African context where the lack of democracy is worse and imperialist plunder assisted by the local state is unchecked. Raising the national democratic question carries more risks than chanting down the IMF and other international financial institutions since this brings movements and organizations into the direct firing line of undemocratic regimes, but nonetheless it is a struggle that must be waged. .
The other key question is the marginal role of organized labour in the whole Social Forum process on a global level. This makes the Social Forum process a challenge to capitalism through numbers but lacking structural impact. Mobilization of organized labour remains one of the key outstanding tasks of the social forum process. The social forum process will be infinitely powerful if, as a platform, it can unite working class struggles and the vast mass of resistance to neo-liberalism represented by community based organizations, Social movements, and progressive NGOs.
The Next WSF: NAIROBI 2007
WSF comes to Africa when the social forum is faced with consolidating the achievements made so far and crucially taking the next step. Fatigue has already crept into the routine cycle of annual world social forum meetings in ‘far away’ places that only those with enormous resources can attend. To consolidate the process it is important to decentralize it to national and regional social forums. It is at this more local level that actions can best be coordinated and executed. This has already happened in some places with vibrant national forums such as the Zimbabwe Social Forum. Within national frameworks it is important to further decentralize to the most local level through community/township based social forums and thematic social forums.
In taking the next step, action is of vital importance. ‘A Time to Act’ must become part of the social forum slogans. The social forum can now utilize the networks that have been formed in the past four years to launch campaigns on specific social justice issues as determined by the most burning questions of the day. Anti-eviction campaigns, campaigns against water and electricity cut offs, anti-privatization campaigns, right to education campaigns, access to land campaigns and living wage campaigns etcetera. These are the kind of collective actions that will bring relevance to the social forum process and take it into the next chapter. Acting together on a particular issue coordinated through the social forum networks will be infinitely more powerful than a thousand isolated actions.
The next WSF will have achieved much if activists, movements and organizations gathered there go beyond the talk shop and adopt one or two social justice campaigns for collective action. This could even be a boycott of a particular corporate brand such as Coca –Cola for example or an anti-apartheid style collective campaign to bring down a specific dictatorship. With Africa as the setting, it is vitally important that activist, movements and organizations revisit the question of continued imperialist plunder on the continent and the unfinished business of national democratic struggles.
Taking the next step must also include going beyond agreeing to say ‘No to Capitalism’, to a united voices on an alternative to the capitalist system. In this era of the resurgence of the radical democratic agenda and the cracking of capitalism under its own contradictions activists must seize the opportunity to argue now for international socialism as the ultimate alternative to the failed capitalist system.

Another Africa is Possible! Another World is Possible! – In Our Lifetime!

By Briggs Bomba
isozim2004@yahoo.com
+263-4-704209, +263-11-403930, +263-11-637484, +263-91-908847
P.O. Box 6758, Harare – Zimrights House, 90 4th Street

The Social Forum Process

The world we live in is completely unjust. There is massive accumulation of wealth for a tiny rich elite – glass buildings, shopping complexes like Westgate and Sam Levy’s and 45 Billion dollar Mercedes and Cherokees – contrasting with an equally unimaginable impoverishment of the vast majority of the world’s population haunted by famine and utter destitution - donkey drawn scotch carts, pit latrines, slums, and utter poverty. The historic mission of capitalism has been development for the few and underdevelopment for the many.
This crisis has totally worsened under neo-liberalism. Under the IMF/World Bank’s disastrous economic policies millions of poor have been condemned to conditions of abject poverty, job loses and collapse of social service delivery systems such as health, education, housing and public transport. This reality and a hopeless future for millions has resulted in the total breakdown of the social fabric of poor communities shown in sharp increases in domestic violence, violent crime, prostitution, street kids, and homeless people. The worsening crisis of neo-liberalism has also led to state regimes responding to mass resistance through curtailing democratic space and repression.

The Rise of the Social forum Process
The rise of the social forum process expresses a rejection and challenge to policies that put profit before life. The rallying slogan of the social forum, Another World Is Possible expresses this. We must go beyond simply rejecting the current set-up to fighting for a better way of organizing society that puts needs before greed and profit.
The social forum has emerged with massive potential to advance the struggles for socio-economic rights. To this end the Social Forum process must play a very crucial role in organizing the regrouping anti-neoliberal forces. It has made tremendous achievements in creating solidarity networks for those committed to social justice. The process has also played a key role in sustaining hope and in fostering amongst activists a sense of belonging to a global progressive force committed to change the world for the better. The emergence of a bipolar world marked on one hand by a crisis ridden free market agenda and on the other hand the growing global anti-capitalist/anti-imperialist movement of which the social forum is one of its platforms.
The context within which the Social Forum emerges and takes root poses questions - whether the process will fulfill its historical mission and serve as a functional platform to advance and resolve the tasks of the social justice struggle. This becomes a decisive question in light of the ‘commodification of resistance’ syndrome. A concern has already emerged on whether this will not turn out to be more of serial meetings/talk shops and plane activism with no action at all and in that way actually become a platform to co-opt, divert and disarm the building resistance against capitalist globalization.
There are also questions on the structure of the social forum process. The ‘open’ non-voting and non-committal ‘space’ limits the capacity for decisive collective action that reduces it to a non-acting jamboree of NGOs. While some horizontality and consensus is necessary in a democratic relationship amongst diverse groups that are just beginning to learn to work together, this should not be taken to levels where it completely cripples the process. Many attempts for collective action have been scuttled on the grounds that “the forum is a space and not an organization”.
While the social forum process has built an excellent critique on neo-liberalism, it has not done so on the national democratic question. Social forum arguments tend to focus exclusively on neo-liberal policies, IMF, World Bank, WTO etc and in a way sideline national democratic questions. This is particularly problematic in the African context where the lack of democracy is worse and imperialist plunder assisted by the local state is unchecked. Raising the national democratic question carries more risks than chanting down the IMF and other international financial institutions since this brings movements and organizations into the direct firing line of undemocratic regimes, but nonetheless it is a struggle that must be waged. .
The other key question is the marginal role of organized labour in the whole Social Forum process on a global level. This makes the Social Forum process a challenge to capitalism through numbers but lacking structural impact. Mobilization of organized labour remains one of the key outstanding tasks of the social forum process. The social forum process will be infinitely powerful if, as a platform, it can unite working class struggles and the vast mass of resistance to neo-liberalism represented by community based organizations, Social movements, and progressive NGOs.
The Next WSF: NAIROBI 2007
WSF comes to Africa when the social forum is faced with consolidating the achievements made so far and crucially taking the next step. Fatigue has already crept into the routine cycle of annual world social forum meetings in ‘far away’ places that only those with enormous resources can attend. To consolidate the process it is important to decentralize it to national and regional social forums. It is at this more local level that actions can best be coordinated and executed. This has already happened in some places with vibrant national forums such as the Zimbabwe Social Forum. Within national frameworks it is important to further decentralize to the most local level through community/township based social forums and thematic social forums.
In taking the next step, action is of vital importance. ‘A Time to Act’ must become part of the social forum slogans. The social forum can now utilize the networks that have been formed in the past four years to launch campaigns on specific social justice issues as determined by the most burning questions of the day. Anti-eviction campaigns, campaigns against water and electricity cut offs, anti-privatization campaigns, right to education campaigns, access to land campaigns and living wage campaigns etcetera. These are the kind of collective actions that will bring relevance to the social forum process and take it into the next chapter. Acting together on a particular issue coordinated through the social forum networks will be infinitely more powerful than a thousand isolated actions.
The next WSF will have achieved much if activists, movements and organizations gathered there go beyond the talk shop and adopt one or two social justice campaigns for collective action. This could even be a boycott of a particular corporate brand such as Coca –Cola for example or an anti-apartheid style collective campaign to bring down a specific dictatorship. With Africa as the setting, it is vitally important that activist, movements and organizations revisit the question of continued imperialist plunder on the continent and the unfinished business of national democratic struggles.
Taking the next step must also include going beyond agreeing to say ‘No to Capitalism’, to a united voices on an alternative to the capitalist system. In this era of the resurgence of the radical democratic agenda and the cracking of capitalism under its own contradictions activists must seize the opportunity to argue now for international socialism as the ultimate alternative to the failed capitalist system.

Another Africa is Possible! Another World is Possible! – In Our Lifetime!

By Briggs Bomba
isozim2004@yahoo.com
+263-4-704209, +263-11-403930, +263-11-637484, +263-91-908847
P.O. Box 6758, Harare – Zimrights House, 90 4th Street

NGO's or WGO's

The Karachi Social Forum
By TARIQ ALI in Karachi, Pakistan. 28/03/2006

While we were opening the World Social Forum in Karachi last weekend with virtuoso performances of sufi music and speeches, the country's rulers were marking the centenary of the Muslim League [the party that created Pakistan and has ever since been passed on from one bunch of rogues to another till now it is in the hands of political pimps who treat it like a bordello] by gifting the organisation to General Pervaiz Musharaf, the country's uniformed ruler.

The secular opposition leaders, Nawaz Sharif and Benazir Bhutto, who used to compete with each other to see who could amass more funds while in power, are both in exile. To return home would mean to face arrest for corruption. Neither is in the mood for martyrdom or relinquishing control of their organizations. Meanwhile, the religious parties are happily implementing neo-liberal policies in the North-West Frontier province that is under their control. Incapable of catering to the real needs of the poor they concentrate their fire on women and the godless liberals who defend them.

The military is so secure in its rule and the official politicians so useless that 'civil society' is booming. Private TV channels, like NGOs, have mushroomed and most views are permissible (I was interviewed for an hour by one of these on the "fate of the world communist movement") except a frontal assault on religion or the military and its networks that govern the country. If civil society posed any real threat to the elite, the plaudits it receives would rapidly turn to menace.

It was, thus, no surprise that the WSF, too, had been permitted and facilitated by the local administration in Karachi. It is now part of the globalized landscape and helps backward rulers feel modern. The event itself was no different from the others. Present are several thousand people, mainly from Pakistan, but with a sprinkling of delegates from India, Bangladesh, Sri Lanka, South Korea and a few other countries.

Absent was any representation from China's burgeoning peasant and workers movements or its critical intelligentsia. Iran, too, was unrepresented as was Malaysia. The Israeli enforcers who run the Jordanian administration harassed a Palestinian delegation. Only a handful of delegates managed to get through the checkpoints and reach Karachi. The huge earthquake in Pakistan last year had disrupted many plans and the organizers were not able to travel and persuade people elsewhere in the continent to come. Otherwise, insisted the organisers, the voices of Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo and Fallujah would have been heard.

The fact that it happened at all in Pakistan was positive. People here are not used to hearing different voices and views. The Forum enabled many from repressed social layers and minority religions to assemble make their voices heard: persecuted Christians from the Punjab, Hindus from Sind, women from everywhere told heart-rending stories of discrimination and oppression.

Present too was a sizeable class-struggle element: peasants fighting against the privatization of military farms in Okara, the fisher-folk from Sind whose livelihoods are under threat and who complained about the great Indus river being diverted to deprive the common people of water they had enjoyed since the beginning of human civilization thousands of years ago, workers from Baluchistan complaining about military brutalities in the region.

Teachers who explained how the educational system in the country had virtually ceased to exist. The common people who spoke were articulate, analytical and angry, in polar contrast to the stale rhetoric of Pakistan's political class. Much of what was said was broadcast on radio and television with the main private networks---Geo, Hum and Indus--- vying with each other to ensure blanket coverage.

And so the WSF like a big feel-good travelling road show came to Pakistan and went. What will it leave behind? Very little, apart from goodwill and the feeling that it has happened here. For the fact remains the elite dominates that politics in the country. Little else matters. Small radical groups are doing their best, but there is no state-wide organisation or movement that speaks for the dispossessed. The social situation is grim, despite the massaged statistics circulated by the World Bank's Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

The NGOs are no substitute for genuine social and political movements.

They may be NGOs in Pakistan but in the global scale they are WGOs (Western Governmental Organizations), their cash-flow conditioned by restricted agendas. It is not that some of them are not doing good work, but the overall effect of this has been to atomize the tiny layer of left and liberal intellectuals. Most of these men and women (those who are not in NGOs are embedded in the private media networks) struggle for their individual NGOs to keep the money coming; petty rivalries assumed exaggerated proportions; politics in the sense of grass-roots organisation is virtually non-existent. The Latin American model as emerging in the victories of Chavez and Morales is a far cry from Mumbai or Karachi.

Tariq Ali is author of the recently released Street Fighting Years (new edition) and, with David Barsamian, Speaking of Empires & Resistance. He can be reached at: tariq.ali3@btinternet.com

Friday, May 05, 2006

WOZA Appeal

Over 120 women are being detained without access to food. Thus far (11.15 Friday morning) they have been denied food. Supporters and fellow WOZA women are currently trying to get food to the police stations and are particularly concerned for the mothers with babies still in custody.

Police Staion Numbers to phone:-
Bulawayo Central - +263 9 72515
Hillside + 263 9 241161
Donnington + 263 9 474005
Mzilikazi + 263 9 74439

73 Child Protesters Arrested

NEWS UPDATE - 4TH MAY
Thursday evening

The 73 children, ranging from age seven to eighteen,
that were arrested this morning were finally released
this evening into the care of their lawyers. They are
now all at home in the care of an adult family member.
The adults remain in custody, including approximately
five mothers with young babies. It is still not clear
exactly how many are still in custody as police are
still processing them and due to the lack of
sufficient accommodation at Bulawayo Central, the
remaining group have been split between four police
stations, including Hillside and Mzilikazi. They have
still not been charged. Lawyers were in attendance
this afternoon.

Further details will be given as soon as they become
available.

BREAKING NEWS.

Over 100 WOZA women and 73 children arrested in
Bulawayo today (Wednesday 03 May)

Hundreds of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) members -
men, women and children - marched for eight blocks
through central Bulawayo today to the government
offices at Mhlanhlandlela, calling for a reversal to
crippling school fee increases of up to 1000%. Having
completed their march, the peaceful group were
beginning to disperse when riot police arrived.
Initial reports suggest that approximately 200 people
have been arrested including 73 children. Jenni
Williams and Magodonga Mahlangu are amongst those
arrested. Lawyers have been contacted and are en route
to Bulawayo Central Police Station.

There was an almost carnival atmosphere to the
procession with the singing marchers handing out the
May edition of the newsletter, Woza Moya, which were
eagerly accepted by passersby. Many children were in
school uniform, signifying the fact that this may be
the last time that they will be able to wear it as
they may not return to school next week.

More details will be released when they become
available. Photos also available on request.

For more information please contact Annie Sibanda on
+263 91 898 110/2.

Friday, March 31, 2006

Reclaim The Working Peoples Agenda!

Today, progressive forces are confronted with the question of recovering lost momentum and taking the struggle to the next level. Since the 1999 Working People’s Convention the crisis in Zimbabwe has plunged to deeper depths and the imperative for change have never been more compelling. Change in both the undemocratic political framework and the neo-liberal economic policies that have condemned working people to conditions of destitute poverty. More than ever before the Mugabe dictatorship and its ESAP must go.
There are a lot of important lessons to be learnt on how the broad opposition forces advanced the agenda for change since the 1999 Working People’s Convention. Today’s most important task is to reclaim the spirit and agenda of the nineties as expressed in the agenda of the 1999 working people’s convention. High on the agenda of the 1999 WPC was the inability of the economy to address the basic needs of the majority of Zimbabweans; The severe decline in incomes, employment, health, food security and well being of people; The unfair burden borne by working women and the persistence of gender discrimination in practice. The decline and collapse of social services like education, health and municipal services; Lack of progress in resolving land hunger and rural development; Human rights, the constitution, corruption etc.
The convention went further to note that the ‘Agenda for Action that arises from [the resolutions] will not be realised without a strong, democratic, popularly driven and organised movement of the people’.
Looking back it is clear that our movement became weaker when it was hijacked by elitists who pushed to the periphery the radical democratic agenda that characterised 1999 and imposed a limited neo- liberal reformist agenda that reduced the crisis to just a question of governance. This is high time to reconvene all working peoples and reclaim the working people’s agenda. It’s high time to regroup the scattered radical democratic forces and reclaim the working people’s traditions of struggle. It is time to move away from the hotels and conferences and reclaim the streets. We have an opportunity to build a much more ideologically richer second wave of struggles and the ISO/ ZSF/ZCTU demands from the Action Against Poverty of last November must form the basis of a Working People’s Charter that must be driven through a United Democratic Front. The key demands are; non taxable living wage in line with PDL, free ARVs, price controls, affordable food, right to trade for informal traders and flea markets, affordable sanitary pads and baby milk, reversal of privatisation of education and an end of victimisation of student leaders, repeal POSA and AIPPA and a new democratic constitution that guarantees political and socio-economic rights. We must also demand that the government stops all payments to the IMF and other international banks and use the foreign currency to buy food, ARVs, fuel, fund education and provide clean drinking water to communities.

Whither The Social Forum?

SASF Oct 2005 in Harare and WSF Jan 2006 in Venezuela have provided activists with three serious questions that need addressing to prevent the Social Forum from degenerating into yet another debacle.
The background of Venezuela led to questions being asked about the future of the WSF. The symbols of what was wrong with Venezuela before Chavez still exist today – the rich still in control, desperate poverty and right-wingers controlling the police - despite the social reforms leading many to receive education and health delivery for the first time. The movement that defended Chavez thrice has given confidence to workers fighting factory closures who often take over the factories and run it themselves. The recent election of centre-left Evo Morales in Bolivia after mass struggles and uprisings provided further background.
It is against this background that WSF 2006 delegates warned of the danger of WSF meetings becoming “a discussion forum with debate but no conclusions”. They warned that the WSF must move beyond critiquing and protesting the existing society to talk about how to bring about a new society. Leading global social movement activist Emir Sader wrote that the WSF “is leaving the phase of resistance…and is moving to actively participate in the struggle for another possible world”. In other words the Social Forum must move from being a commentator to an actor – move away from being yet another talk-shop.
Addressing this question means we have to look at how the Social Forum is organised – and by whom. Commenting on the WSF in Bamako, Mali, Peter Dwyer expresses disappointment at the low numbers and the heavy NGO presence. Geoffrey Players gets more to the point when he comments that “…the local population is very often not informed of this meeting…it is limited essentially to those coming from the elite…and who are often little in contact with popular movements”.
It is, unfortunately, also this same elite that funds the Social Forum – and dictates how the funds are to be used and corrupts activists through the commodification of resistance. Two examples in the run up to the SASF show this. The APF in South Africa did not send the contingent it was supposed to because the comrades were locked up in “debates” over the funding that was “offered”. Secondly, comrades in Zimbabwe democratically came to an agreement as to how to use funds from one of the NGOs. Then one of the middle-class “chefs” of the ZSF ran to the NGO to squeal. The NGO then made it clear that the funds were to be used as per their dictates. After this, other funding was “cut” meaning that hundreds of Zimbabwean activists could not travel to Harare for SASF. This was the most brutal example of the undemocratic nature of the elites and NGO’s.
This is one area of organisation that is critical for activists to discuss in the coming weeks and months. Financial accountability must become one of the priorities. Members of the social forum must know the budget of the ZSF in terms of income and expenditure and have the right to make decisions on the same.
It is also non-accountability in general that leads to the Social Forum becoming an event rather than a process. It means that the ZSF must become a living organ. After the Peoples Summit in September and SASF in October, there was much enthusiasm generated by the social forum process, as shown by its massive involvement in the ZCTU 8 November Anti-Poverty Action. But after there was a demobilisation of the process. Some of the reasons include that the ZSF is still too dependent on its ‘leadership’ structures; relies on an undemocratic decision-making method and focuses on events rather than a living process. And with many of these leaders, busy globe-trotting, nothing much has been happening since November. Further the insistence that we do not vote in social forum meetings as per the World Charter, is undemocratic and gives a few individuals the right to veto decisions supported by the majority. The origins of this principle lie in the desire of middle class NGOs to dominate the social forum process, but were afraid of democratic principles because they were few in numbers compared to the ordinary people and social movements. The result of denying the method of voting and majority rule is that decisions are made clandestinely by small cliques of people who are not accountable to anyone other than the donors who give the money. We suggest four ways to deal with this. Firstly, as ZSF we must adopt democratic methods of decision-making. Decisions must generally be made by consensus but if this fails voting must occur and the decision of the majority becomes binding. Secondly we must go back to our ZESA 2004 position that co-ordinators of the thematic clusters must also sit in the National Organising Committee. Most of these are militant rank and file activists who spend their time engaged locally in struggles and would be therefore be more available for ZSF work continuously. Further this would bring the necessary balance between the middle class – NGO technocrats who currently dominate NOC and ZSF and rank and file activists from the social movements. Such balance is absolutely essential if ZSF is to be a democratic and living process advancing the interests of the ordinary working people. Thirdly there is need to strengthen the movement away from focusing on date events, such as the October ZSF event, but to come up with ongoing programmes of thematic clusters and regional and township social forums. We need to urgently de-centralise and have township based social forums which will run active programmes of teach-ins, cultural and musical events, community activities like clean – ups and demonstrations. this means that we must adopt a Calendar of Resistance which we will run along with other progressive forces in society as the way forward to dealing with the current crisis of dictatorship and neo-liberal poverty.
ZSF is ours. It must be transformed into a living organ – not a forum for parrots who claim it is not an organisation but a space, but proceed to act exactly in the way of an organisation, not a platform for mere talking – but a platform for action.
Rosa Zulu

Rates hike batters Zimbabwean povo

In May last year, 70-year old pensioner, Yotamu Mwale watched helplessly as bulldozers razed his three backyard shacks in Mbare in Harare. For Mwale - and many other retirees in this old suburb - the shacks were a source of critically needed additional income to augment a small pension that has virtually lost all value due to rising inflation. But barely a year after the military-style home demolition campaign, the regime is at it again - this time sanctioning an astronomical hike in rates that has hit hard defenceless pensioners.
With no steady income after the demolition of his backyard shacks, Mwale says his life is miserable as he battles to eke a living in what has turned out to be an inhospitable city. "I can now hardly afford to pay my monthly rates let alone buy enough food for myself," he says dejectedly.
A government appointed commission running Harare last month arbitrarily hiked rates by more than 1 000 percent, to levels well beyond the reach of most people. Mwale, who retired some five years ago, says he gets a pension of Z$3 000 a month – enough to buy 4 slices of bread at its current cost of 65,000 a loaf. Residents must now fork out Z$5 million for water and services, up from an average of Z$700 000 that they used to pay last year. "When the postman delivered my water bill for the month, I could not believe it. I thought he had delivered it to the wrong address. I also thought it could have been a computer error. But when I heard a widow down the street wailing in protest over her bills, I knew I was not the only one with such a huge bill," says Mwale.
"There is no way I can pay the amount with the $3 000 pension I receive every month," added Mairos Gawura. A spokesman for the Combined Harare Residents Association (CHRA), Precious Shumba, said residents must take collective action against the commission running Harare over its arrogance and insensitivity to the plight of the poor. CHRA says it is still planning to calling for a rates boycott or demonstrations against the rates increases.

Questions and Answers on The MDC, crisis in Zimbabwe and the way forward

Q. Is the MDC split final?
A. The holding of a congress by the Ncube-Sibanda faction, including election of officials and the impending Tsvangirai faction congress signal a permanent split.
Q. What are the causes of this split?
A. The immediate reason behind the spit was the insistence of the Ncube middle class faction to participate in the Senate elections, and the refusal of Tsvangirai, under pressure from below, to continue legitimizing the regime though participation in rigged elections. However, the origins of the split are much deeper. They lie in the hijacking of the MDC by the middle classes and capitalists in 2000. After the elections, under the leadership of Ncube, they used the money from western donors, NGOs and Mbeki to commercialise the struggle, to boot out radical workers, activists and socialists and to reduce the role of the ZCTU, which had formed the party, to nil. They cancelled the 2000 December mass action in favour of elections, courts and western sanctions, fearful that the jambanja route would further radicalize the masses against both Mugabe and capitalism. They won control because the masses allowed themselves to be bribed by their money and failed to develop their own working people ideology which would see the party being led by working people themselves and fighting for the interests of working people against dictators, bosses and capitalists.
But by 2005 with the worsening economic crisis and the failure of the elections route, threatening radicalized mass revolts, capitalist elite forces in both MDC and Zanu PF, supported by Mbeki, felt that they had to move rapidly, take control of their parties and strike a compromise deal, that would have the sanctions lifted, accelerate Gono’s IMF ESAP policies and stop the persecution of the MDC as a ‘loyal opposition.’ In Zanu PF, middle class - capitalist forces around the Mujuru –Msika- Nkomo camp seized power after Tsholotsho, and fearful of past events in Serbia and Ukraine, accelerated the drive for compromise with their colleagues in MDC. The army commander, General Chiwenga, concerned that Operation Murambatsvina had failed to destroy the spirit of resistance in the masses, pleaded with Gono and the politicians “to do anything possible so that my soldiers won’t have to meet hungry protestors in the streets.” To reach their Muzorewa – type settlement, it was necessary that in both parties, radical and nationalist forces had to be crushed or removed. Thus in Zanu PF the war veterans were silenced and placed under the army; Chinotimba and his ZFTU were castrated; nationalist middle classes like Jonathan Moyo crushed and Mugabe, assured of both his political legacy and his personal and family’s safety, promised to retire in 2008 to be replaced by the Mujurus -John Nkomo faction, which is very close to multinationals. In MDC the remnants of the radical unionists and activists were kicked out and Ncube, Coltart and Chinamasa under Mbeki’s tutelage, secretly drafted and signed a new constitution which excluded persons without degrees from becoming presidents. i.e. Tsvangirai. This is when Tsvangirai woke up and stared fighting, supported by the MDC rank and file, calling for a radical paradigm shift including boycotting elections, leading to the split.

Q. But won’t Arthur Mutambara make a change?
A. No he wont make much of a difference for several reasons:
i. He is now part of an MDC faction totally controlled by middle class elites like Ncube, Nyathi and Gasela, who are committed to collaboration with the Zanu PF dictatorship, including participating in fake elections under a rigged constitution. This is why they were given the $8 billion by the government, which was released just in time for their congress! This is why Chimanikire was rejected as president. Mutambara has been away for 12 years and lacks a support base to control the party. His statement that he was opposed to participation in elections is just empty talk, for he did not fight for that position at the Congress, nor was such a resolution passed. If he insists on this he will be immediately kicked out, which is why they have amended their constitution to say it is not the party president who will be its presidential candidate.
ii. Secondly, despite his heroic leadership role in the 1980s struggles against dictatorship and ESAP, the Mutambara of 2006 is a different person. He has abandoned the side of the poor and working people and joined the side of the rich and capitalists. He has worked and continues to work in his own business for huge multinationals and international banks responsible for ESAPs throughout Africa and the 3rd world. He is trusted enough by USA and UK imperialists to work in their most sensitive institutions like NASA. In his acceptance speech, he outlined his vision of what he saw as the mandate of his generation – and it is one for the black elites and rich and not one for working people. His vision is no longer as it was in the 1980s in his student days, which was one of abolition of capitalist private property and the redistribution of wealth so that the poor may eat, have houses, land, education or living wages. Now he talks of a vision of “commercial farmers, innovative entrepreneurs, productive workers and creative managers,” who will compete with other global capitalists in screwing the poor. Instead of redistribution of land to the poor peasants he now calls for title deeds in land, so that the chefs who looted the farms are protected for ever. Unlike before when he used to denounce ESAP, the IMF and so forth, today, like Gideon Gono, he supports NEPAD and calls for restoring ties with the “international community” – i.e. the IMF and multinationals and the Group of 8 led by Bush and Blair. Mutambara is now part of the elite and exploiter classes who fear jambanja of the masses which is why Ncube & co. invited him. This is a reality recognized even by the CIO fronted - Financial Gazette, which observed: “Analysts and those who went to college with him, however, said despite his militant words, Mutambara was not going to be confrontational. He was looking for a compromise…”

Q. So are you saying the Tsvangirai faction is the solution?
A. By calling for a paradigm shift and spearheading the boycott of the Senate elections, including risking the split of the MDC, we commend Tsvangirai. However, we must not forget that it is Tsvangirai himself who played a key role in inviting and protecting the middle classes – capitalists who ended up hijacking the party, and the party still continues participating in municipal elections, after the boycott of Senate elections. He must now correct this by spearheading the total cleaning out of the MDC of remnants of such forces such as capitalists like Eddie Cross and placing its leadership squarely back into tried and tested working people activists and leaders, who are ideologically clear. It is now time to walk the talk of a paradigm shift, which is in fact a full ideological and strategic paradigm restoration of our vision of the late 1980s. This means four key things: (i) a vision of democracy and society where the wealth of society is used to fulfill basic human needs like food, health, housing, education and leisure and not the profits of the few capitalists. This requires that the wealth of society is democratically owned and controlled by the majority and not as the private property of the few. This means rejection of the IMF and ESAP, i.e. neo-liberalism and capitalism; (ii) no to continued participation in rigged elections – no to collaboration with the regime and capitalist – imperialist forces and yes to mass popular resistance – jambanja ndizvo! Current MPs, mayors and councilors should remain in office only as long as they are prepared to participate in and lead the jambanja. (iii) yes to resistance based on a Working People’s Charter of Freedom demanding things like a living wage, right to strike, full subsidies for and reversal of the massive increases in costs of food, education, health including ARVs, farming inputs, transport and housing, restoration of services like water, sewerage and electricity; an immediate end to payments to the IMF and international banks; jailing of those responsible for state murders, corruption and seizure of their properties; redistribution of land to the poor and peasants; and a people driven new constitution guaranteeing these rights and truly democratic elections. (iii) no to commodification and commecialisation of the struggle and resistance. Yes to cadres and no to rented crowds and mercenaries! (iv) the building of an effective engine to spearhead this popular resistance, namely a united democratic front of the Tsvangirai MDC and all radical and democratic forces and social movements, modeled on the UDF in SA in the 1980s built by the ANC, COSATU, SACP and civic society. This calls for the immediate convening of a 2nd Working People’s Convention to map the way forward in terms of ideology, strategy and tactics, in particular the Charter and a Working People’s Calendar of Resistance for 2006 and in the long term.
We hope the MDC will consider these ideas at its forthcoming congress and come up with a new transformed leadership and resolute resolutions in favour of mass resistance.
Munyaradzi Gwisai