GENERAL STRIKE IN ZIMBABWE ENTERS SECOND DAY:

A two day general strike called by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) against the policies of the Mugabe government ended its first day with very much mixed results. The government flooded the streets with police and soldiers in an attempt to intimidate the strikers. Activists were once more assaulted and kidnapped. Military helicopters flew over the capital Harare, and soldiers often forced people to go to work with the threat of force. Reports of the success of the strike vary from source to source, but all agree on the degree of intimidation exercised by the government. It should also be noted that the economic conditions in Zimbabwe- a 1,700% inflation rate, unemployment of 80% and a life expectancy that has shrunk to 37 years- that few who have jobs can afford the loss of even two days' pay.

Tomorrow will be the second day of the strike, and union leaders have appealed for a larger turnout. The continuing events in Zimbabwe can be followed on the website of exiled Zimbabwean journalists at http://www.zimbabwejournalists.com . The online labour solidarity site Labour Start has repeated their call for online solidarity with the unions of Zimbabwe. The campaign can be joined at http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=212 .

ZIMBABWE: SOLIDARITY WITH THE ZIMBABWE CONGRESS OF TRADE UNIONS:

The on line labour solidarity site, Labour Start, has launched a campaign at the request of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU). Under the dictatorship of President Robert Mugabe the people of Zimbabwe have watched their situation sink into daily crisis. The country's GNI shrunk by 54% from 2000 to 2005, and inflation presently runs at 1,700% while unemployment is over 80%. protests against the regime have been led by the ZCTU, student, youth and church groups. In 2005 more than 30,000 arrests were made against opponents of the regime, thousands of people were displaced by the government's forced demolition of entire neighbourhoods under the guise of a "clean-up campaign" which was mainly aimed at workers in the informal economy (something most Zimbabweans depend on now) who had been turning to the trade unions for help. The dictatorship has now banned all political protests for three months, but trade unionists and others have stepped up their protests instead. A general strike has been announced to begin April 3rd and 4th. The government has responded by intensifying its attacks on the unions and other opposition leaders.

The ZCTU has asked for international solidarity for their struggle. To join this campaign go to : http://www.labourstart.org/cgi-bin/solidarityforever/show_campaign.cgi?c=212

Molly Note:

The Mugabe regime has shown its brutality very plainly in the past few years. What has disturbed Molly about the matter is that she has more than occasionally come across mealy mouthed "defenses" of this regime on the part of so-called "leftists". Most of these have come from people or organizations that can easily be tagged as Stalinist (yeah those crazy buggers still exist). Some, however, have come from others who should know better. Many commentators have observed that there is a certain portion of the so-called "left" who will extend support to any regime, no matter how brutal, totalitarian or even fascist, as long as that regime is "anti-American". Moral considerations fall away when some of this "anti-imperialist", Third Worldist, "left" gets to make its mindless choices by the sole criteria of who makes noises against the USA. Not that this is unique in history. For those interested see routine Communist propaganda in the period between the Hitler-Stalin pact and the invasion of the Soviet Union. In that time some of the left, the Communists and their sympathizers, also made their decisions on only one criteria ie what Moscow said.