Zimbabwe

Six activists arrested in Harare, along with 39 others, were finally granted bail on March 16 after a month in jail. The activists were arrested for attending a video screening of footage from the people’s uprisings in Egypt and Tunisia. However, the six need to raise US$12,000 to pay their bail — far more than they can afford. An appeal is being launched internationally to raise the funds needed to pay the activists’ bail (see below for details). The bail conditions require the six to surrender passports and travelling documents. They must report three times a week to the police.

The following article by the International Socialist Organisation of Zimbabwe first appeared in the July issue of Socialist Worker, newspaper of the ISOZ. Visit http://iso.zim.googlepages.com.

On June 29, ZANU-PF’s Robert Mugabe was declared the winner by electoral officials of the presidential run-off vote on June 27, in which he was the only candidate. It was announced that Mugabe had won 2,150,269 votes against 233,000 for the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) Morgan Tsvangirai.

A May 19 statement by the International Trade Union Confederation reported that Zimbabwe’s High Court had granted Z$20 billion bail to Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions president Lovemore Matombo and ZCTU general secretary Wellington Chibebe. The two were are facing charges of “inciting the public to rise against the government and communicating falsehoods”. As part of the bail conditions, the two were being barred to “address any political gathering until this matter is finalised” and ordered to reside at their given home addresses. The ZCTU leaders were charged after they told workers gathered at Dzivaresekwa Stadium on May 1 that people were being killed during the current wave of political violence in the country.

Below is abridged from an April 11 statement by the Zimbabwean International Socialist Organization (ISO). A much longer version can be read at http://links.org.au.