[Marxism] Green Left - Zimbabwean socialist: ‘A new movement is emerging'

[glparramatta <glparramatta@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

http://www.greenleft.org.au/2007/707/36721


 Zimbabwean socialist: ‘A new movement is emerging'

Chris Atkinson, Sydney
21 April 2007

Around 100 people filled Newtown Neighbourhood Centre on April 18 to 
hear visiting Zimbabwean socialist Munyaradzi Gwisai explain the 
background to the Zimbabwean people’s struggle for democracy.

“A new movement from below is begging to emerge”, Gwisai said. “The 
people are beginning to shake off fear and exhaustion” and are advancing 
their own strategy to fight President Robert Mugabe’s brutal rule and 
the economic dictates of the International Monetary Fund and the 
business elite (the “twin dictatorships”).

Gwisai spoke 27 years to the day since Zimbabwe won independence from 
British white minority rule and installed Mugabe as president. Gwisai 
explained that despite Mugabe’s radical rhetoric and encouragement of 
black farmers to seize large farms, often owned by rich whites, “Mugabe 
is a ruthless, self-serving tyrant who celebrates brutality”.

Gwisai explained how the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions formed the 
main opposition organisation, the Movement for Democratic Change, in the 
aftermath of huge strikes in the late 1990s with the support of 
rich-country governments. Gwisai was elected to parliament for the MDC 
in 2000 until he and his group, the International Socialist 
Organisation, were expelled from the MDC in April 2002 after openly 
supporting poor farmers’ land seizures.

Gwisai warned the democracy movement not to rely on the “dangerous and 
naive” hope that the 2008 presidential elections will be fair or that 
Mugabe will recognise the result, even if South African president Thabo 
Mbeki negotiates a settlement. For Gwisai, it is in “mass revolts from 
below” that the hope of solving Zimbabwe’s terminal crisis lays.

Gwisai also addressed a public meeting in Melbourne on April 20.

From: Australian News, Green Left Weekly issue #707 
<http://www.greenleft.org.au/back/2007/707> 25 April 2007



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