(HERALD) Sanctions: Sadc flexes muscles
Sanctions: Sadc flexes musclesPolitical & Features Editor Mabasa Sasa
Sadc labour ministers have rejected attempts by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions and the International Labour Organisation to derail the lifting of sanctions against Zimbabwe.
The ZCTU and the ILO have been implicated in a plot to scuttle efforts to have the illegal economic sanctions on Zimbabwe lifted by allegedly manufacturing "evidence" of gross human rights abuses in the country.
According to documents at hand, the ZCTU allegedly supplied the ILO with what it purports to be evidence of abuses warranting investigation and the continued imposition of sanctions.
The "evidence" already sent to the ILO’s department of human and trade union rights in Brussels, Belgium, includes video footage of what the ZCTU claims were farm invasions and political violence.
The department has since instructed the ZCTU to send more reports as well as come up with a list of "witnesses" to attend a hearing in Geneva, Switzerland, in May.
But Sadc labour ministers have negated the need for any commission of inquiry.
According to the official record of the ministers’ meeting in Cape Town early this month, the circumstances in which the commission of inquiry was initially mooted had changed.
The ministers also expressed their solidarity with the new inclusive Government of Zimbabwe.
ZCTU secretary-general Mr Wellington Chibebe yesterday referred questions to the labour body’s president, Mr Lovemore Matombo.
Mr Matombo said he was not aware of any evidence having already been forwarded to the ILO and that no one would be going to Switzerland for any hearings.
However, sources said ILO legal advisor Ms June Sorenson Bedaton on April 3, 2009 wrote to Mr Chibebe indicating that the labour body would provide the bulk of information to be used in the commission of inquiry’s recommendations for the continued imposition of sanctions.
But Sadc labour ministers have already rejected the need for any commission of inquiry and have instead called for "domestic remedies" rather than the pursuit of sanctions.
"Thank you for your kind reception in Zimbabwe. I appreciated my visit very much and hope that our common efforts will enable the commission of inquiry to issue some good recommendations.
"I am now back in Brussels with all of the files, and just wanted to make a quick listing of the things that we agreed that you will be sending me," Ms Sorenson wrote to Mr Chibebe.
She lists the items as: A paper on the farm invasions, a report on Operation Murambatsvina, a list of 10 "witnesses" to go to Geneva, and a budget for the "witnesses" and for Mr Chibebe to go to Switzerland to "brief" the selected individuals before they testify.
The hearings, according to the communication, will take place in June and before that the commission of inquiry is supposed to come to Zimbabwe to talk to the "witnesses".
Ms Sorenson also assured Mr Chibebe that they were still working on a budget for the ZCTU’s "organising/campaigning initiative" and would advise him on the outcome at a later date.
A source in the ZCTU said their organisation had been tasked "to supply a list of burning issues in Zimbabwe".
"The ILO is mainly concerned with the issue of farm invasions and ZCTU is supposed to package the issue as a violation of worker rights after which ILO recommendations will be made to the international community to assess the Global Political Agreement’s success and the matter of sanctions," he said.
But Mr Matombo said: "I don’t know about that. I don’t know about any footage. There is nothing like that, I would have known about it.
"Look, I’m the president of the ZCTU and I am telling you that there are no people going to Geneva."
The revelations come on the heels of indications that the ILO is planning on either downgrading its sub-regional office in Harare to a country office or entirely relocating to South Africa.
Interestingly though, it appears as if the ILO had made assurances that no changes would be made to field operations in Zimbabwe before abruptly informing Government of the turn of events.
The decision to either downgrade or completely pull out raises eyebrows in the context of the commission of inquiry.
Labels: NEOCOLONIALISM, SADC, SANCTIONS, ZCTU
posted by MrK @ 7:15 PM
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