Posted on 12/12/2002 1:31:22 AM PST by Cincinatus' Wife
While the government has denied influencing food distribution to its supporters, church leaders say government authorities are denying realities on the ground, distorting facts and telling "downright lies."
"We have asked for sanity and reason but to no avail. In the face of evil, the rhetoric of self justification continues to resound from the corridors of power and the official media," the leaders from Anglican, Roman Catholic and other churches said.
HARARE, Zimbabwe - Calls for a mass labor strike in Zimbabwe to protest food and fuel shortages went largely unheeded Tuesday with most employees showing up for work, managers and factory owners said.
Many taxivans were off the road, waiting for fuel in long lines of vehicles outside gas stations.
Meanwhile, church groups and independent lawyers marking worldwide Human Rights Day protested continuing abuses, including unfair food distribution to the hungry by the government, state officials and ruling party militants.
Lovemore Madhuku, head of the National Constitutional Assembly, one of the national strike organizers, said officials of his reform group estimated about 25 percent of workers in Harare observed the one-day strike and stayed at home.
"There has been some response. It would be misleading to say the action has failed. It is part of a mass mobilization process that will continue until the message gets across," Madhuku said.
He said the strike had been called at short notice with little advance publicity.
Police immediately warned it was illegal and said the organizers were "bent on causing disharmony and civil disorder."
President Robert Mugabe also warned earlier this month troops would be used to quell any protests against his government.
"There is definitely a climate of fear," said Madhuku.
Tuesday's one-day strike has been backed by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change, labor leaders and civic groups.
The main labor federation, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions, said eight of its leaders, including secretary general Wellington Chibhebhe, were arrested Monday while attending a routine labor meeting, and later released.
"It was an annual review meeting. The reasons for their arrests were not given," said federation president Lovemore Matombo.
Gowned lawyers marched through Harare Tuesday distributing flyers calling on the government to restore the rule of law and the independence of the judiciary to stop political violence and torture blamed mainly on ruling party militants.
Police have enforced the law in a partial manner, showing a marked intolerance to alternative views to those of the ruling party, the lawyers said.
"Numerous magistrates and lawyers have been assaulted and threatened by militias and police ... the intimidation of the legal profession can only lead to complete anarchy," the lawyers said.
Church leaders from various denominations in the eastern Manicaland district on Tuesday reported biased food distribution by state agencies, calling it "a callous and deliberate policy of rewarding or punishing voters" as at least half the population face famine.
While the government has denied influencing food distribution to its supporters, church leaders say government authorities are denying realities on the ground, distorting facts and telling "downright lies."
"We have asked for sanity and reason but to no avail. In the face of evil, the rhetoric of self justification continues to resound from the corridors of power and the official media," the leaders from Anglican, Roman Catholic and other churches said.
An opposition lawmaker was arrested by riot police after taking photographs at a U.N. Human Rights Commission ceremony in an impoverished suburb of western Harare where she had heckled government speakers. Trudi Stevenson said she was freed after erasing digital photographs of police.
Hard currency, gas and food shortages and disruptions in agricultural production have been blamed on the government's chaotic program to seize thousands of white-owned commercial farms for distribution to black settlers.
Unemployment and inflation have soared.
Alex Tamba, a factory worker in the southwestern Harare district of Workington, said he ignored the strike call Tuesday because he risked losing pay.
None of the employees at the factory where he is a general hand had received traditional year-end Christmas bonuses because of the firm's shrinking business, he said.
"I am only trying to feed my family. It's harder and harder and this festive season will be bleak," said Tamba, a father of four.
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