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Botswana: Unions Call Off Their Strike
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Mmegi/The Reporter (Gaborone)
31 March 2008
Posted to the web 31 March 2008
By Tumelo Setshogo
Tomorrows planned demonstrations against the recently introduced 15 percent salary increase for civil servants, have been postponed.
The demonstrations were to coincide with the inauguration of the country's fourth president, Lieutenant General Ian Khama.
Chairperson of the protesters' steering committee and BOSETU president Eric Ditau, confirmed the postponement to the Monitor last Friday.
"Yes we have postponed the demonstrations until probably Friday," Ditau said. The marches were to involve members of the Botswana Landboard and Local Authority Workers Union (BLLAWU), Botswana Secondary School Teachers Union (BOSETU), Tertiary Allied Workers Union (TAWU), Botswana Primary Teachers Association (BOPRITA) and Botswana Government Workers Union (BOGOU).
Ditau said they decided to defer the demonstrations because "we feel we have not yet exhausted all the available structures to air our concerns".
"We want to explore all the avenues available before we embark on the peaceful demonstrations," he said.
He said their failure to meet with Presidential Affairs and Public Administration Minister Daniel Kwelagobe last Thursday, as he chose to attend Botswana Democratic Party (BDP) special congress at the expense of workers' concerns, also "forced us to postpone our planned activities".
Another reason is that the unions did not want to be seen to be disrupting Khama's inauguration. "We felt we should not hold our demonstrations on the same day of Khama's inauguration because the public might think that we have lost direction," said Ditau adding that even the media would be focusing on Khama's succession and would therefore "give less coverage to our activity".
Ditau however refused to agree that they were "chickening out" in fear of "iron man" Ian Khama, a former commander of the Botswana Defence (BDF). He said the postponement would give them enough time to try their luck of meeting Kwelagobe to raise their concerns about the salary increment "which we are against".
"Our meeting with the minister will determine our way forward," said Ditau. BTU secretary general Keorapetse Kgasa concurred, saying they were not chickening out but merely making a strategic retreat. "We want to prepare ourselves well and mobilise our members," he said.
Kgasa also highlighted that they should not be seen to be fighting with the authorities by holding demonstrations on Khama's inauguration.
He said they also postponed the press conference they planned last week Tuesday "because we were promised that the minister would be available to meet with us, but this did not happen".
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Meanwhile, the Botswana Public Employees Union (BOPEU) and Manual Workers Union (MWU) are not part of the planned demonstrations. Their main contention is that there is another way of airing their grievances with the employer - not through demonstrations.
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