South African president Cyril Ramaphosa has waded into a potentially explosive diplomatic tiff between Zanu PF and the ANC over threats by Zanu PF to “leak a bombshell” that would expose and embarrass South Africa’s ruling party.
Ramaphosa yesterday came out guns blazing, daring Zanu PF’s
director of information Tafadzwa Mugwadi to come out with his “bombshell” and
reveal the “real reason” which he claimed was behind his party’s visit to
Zimbabwe last year.
Mugwadi has threatened to expose the ANC’s alleged sinister
agenda behind their trip to Zimbabwe last year. The threat was an angry
reaction to what Mugwadi views as hostile reportage against Zanu PF by the
South African Broadcasting Corporation. He is demanding that the ANC intervenes
to stop SABC news reporter Sophie Mokoena from reporting what Zanu PF deems is
fake news about the goings-on in Zimbabwe.
“If the ANC and SABC news do not restrain and rein in
Sophie Mokoena, whose Zimbabwe has been red-flagged as one of the world’s 10
worst countries regarding workers’ welfare. Violations of workers’ rights,
including abductions and other forms of violence and threats of harm, are
cited.
According to the International Trade Union Confederation’s
documentation of violations of workers’ rights, Zimbabwe joined the bad boys’
club including Bangladesh, Brazil, India, Colombia, Egypt, Honduras,
Kazakhstan, the Philippines and Turkey where workers’ rights were brazenly
violated.
“In the aftermath of the violent attacks against workers
during the general strikes organised by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions
(ZCTU) in October 2018 and January 2019, Zimbabwe continued its crackdown
against trade unions,” the report said.
“Twenty-eight ZCTU members still faced criminal charges
after their arrest over a year ago. If convicted, they could be sentenced to a
mandatory 10-year jail term. ZCTU president Peter Mutasa and general secretary
Japhet Moyo, both of whom had been arrested and charged with subversion, were
released in February 2019, but they remained under strict release conditions,
banned from travelling and forced to check in regularly at the police station.”
The report said Mutasa and Moyo also received anonymous
letters with death threats and bullets inside.
“Furthermore, both leaders received anonymous letters
containing death threats and bullets. The letters warned them against
continuing with the planned strike action on 22 July 2019 and threatened to
kill the two and harm their families,” it said.
The letters said: “We have hired mercenaries to deal with
you once and for all – unless you stop what you are planning.”
Moyo, the report said, also received further threatening
letters, with one of them containing a threat to rape his daughter.
The report also noted the harassment and abduction of the
then president of Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association, Peter Magombeyi who
was kidnapped in 2019 by three unidentified men, and for days his whereabouts
were not known.
“Before his kidnapping, he had received a message from an
unknown source which contained death threats. For years, Dr Magombeyi has been
at the forefront in fighting for better working conditions for all doctors in
the country. He was eventually released and left outside Harare.”
“Earlier in the year, on 5 June 2019, Obert Masaraure, the
president of the Amalgamated Rural Teachers’ Union of Zimbabwe, was abducted at
his house,” the report said.
Most violated rights by the named countries, according to
the report, included the right to strike which was criminalised.
The right to civil liberties, the report said, was also
violated with arbitrary arrests, detention and imprisonment.
The ruling Zanu PF government has threatened all workers
intending to go on strike labelling them opposition allies. Standard
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