SW Radio Africa (London)
Lance Guma
5 July 2008
South Africa's main labour union the Confederation of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) held a demonstration at the Beitbridge border post Saturday protesting against Robert Mugabe's regime. Spokesman Jan Tsiane urged continental bodies to intervene in the crisis and help restore democracy in the wake of Mugabe's one-man election. No incidents were reported during the protests except the arrest of one man who was later released.
Newsreel spoke to Patrick Craven from COSATU who said their federation was opposed to the formation of a government of national unity adding that a transitional authority was the best way forward. Such an authority would be formed using proportional results from the March 29 poll and this body would organize fresh elections that reflect the will of the people.
Earlier in the week the federation slammed the one-man run off election, shortly after Robert Mugabe was sworn in as President on Sunday, and called on African governments to refuse to recognise Mugabe as a legitimate head of state. They also said he should be barred from attending meetings of the African Union or SADC.
'It would be a disaster for Africa if its highest representative bodies, AU and SADC, were to recognise the outcome of such an 'election' and the Mugabe government as legitimate. We urge the African governments not to recognise the Zimbabwean government and cancel all invitations to it to attend continental and international meetings,' COSATU said in a statement.
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Some South Africans are so LOST! It is a crying shame this childish demonstration against fellow Africans is.
South Africans should be demonstrating against the invading white thieves who STILL control their lands and wealth!
Instead of be overly concerned with FREE Zimbabweans, South Africans should be agitating to regain their ancestral Lands, Wealth & Resources from the Europeans thieves who still monopolize South African Lands and South African Wealth!
Africans in South Africa are living in abject poverty and squalor, and as renters and servants in their ancestral lands. This while the racist and homosexual invading thieves are living in the splendor of their African loot.
And the mentally enslaved South Africans find the time to be demonstrating against the LIBERATED Zimbabweans? Demonstrating against Zimbabwean Patriots who help South Africans to have a semblance of liberty.
Is this how the ungrateful South Africans repay their benefactors?
Instead of be overly concerned with FREE Zimbabweans, South Africans should be agitating to regain their ancestral Lands, Wealth & Resources from the Europeans thieves who still monopolize South African Lands and South African Wealth!
So the racists, nativists, homophobes and other such characters should gain control of the country instead? Please...
And apparently this seizure of land won't help the economy any more than the seizure of Asian-owned businesses by Idi Amin of Uganda in 1972, or the series of anti-Chinese legislation promulgated by Sukarno and Soeharto in Indonesia.
Trying to remove or dislodge an ethnic group that has a disproportionate amount of wealth through skills that aren't being provided in a similar mass by a majority ethnicity or race tends to screw up the economy of a country. Apparently, you don't see that many recipients of land redistribution in Zimbabwe being productive at the same level as the white Zimbabweans.
Plus, why can't Zimbabwe offset the importance of agriculture by at least industrializing and getting out of the "banana/oil/blood diamond republic" phase in which most African countries are seemingly perpetually stuck? Agriculture isn't the be-all, end-all profession, and that Zimbabwe's government is hearkening to racial-populistic demands for agricultural, rather than industrial empowerment shows that it is reverting to the less-desirable state that most countries outside of Africa would kill to get away from.
For OMUGABE would it surprise you to know that most"ancestral" land is in the hands of the government,specificly the defence force and that the majority has been in their hands since 1992-1994?
Cosatu is right and we thank it for sympathysing with the people of Zimbabwe. However this is not what their president, Mbeki wants. Mbeki is a betrayer and is inhuman.
I have never liked this organization in any way whatsoever, but what they are doing makes me feel good,I still think is this the true agenda? A group of communists expousing democracy? just dosn't sound right.