Defend student activists in Zimbabwe

Statements — By on March 16, 2010 7:22 am

Campaign in defence of revolutionary left and student activists in Zimbabwe 

This is an urgent call to all working class and progressive organisations to stand up and be counted, to publicly oppose the latest attacks on the revolutionary left and student activists in Zimbabwe.

The leadership of a revolutionary group (Revolutionary Internationalist Group, Ex-ISOZ) in Zimbabwe, that has recently broken from the International Socialist Tendency (IST) and is in process of affiliating to the FLTI (International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction), has come under attack by the Zimbabwean state. 

Lovemore Manjonjo was arrested while in possession of the Africa Workers Organiser in February this year, roughed up by the police, then charged with assault of a policeman. Charges later were dropped. Cde, another leader of the revolutionary group (ex-ISOZ), was threatened with death and chased with an axe by MDC activists; four youth leaders (Mugwadi, Hoyi, Kutya and Mudzengi) of Zinasu -Zimbabwe National Students Union- were attacked by MDC youth on 6 March this year. 

The international significance of the attacks against the Zimbabwean working class 

The Zimbabwean working class was among the first in Africa to challenge the imperialist structural adjustment programmes through rolling general strikes in 1997. When the imperialists realised that their local manager, Mugabe, was no longer able to control the masses, they deliberately collapsed the currency and pushed the Zimbabwean masses into starvation; they turned Zimbabwe into a massive slave camp for cheap labour for imperialism in the Southern African region.

At the same time imperialism created the MDC to pose as a friend of the masses, building it from within the workers’ movement, a popular front with a programme to defend imperialism to the bitter end. The IST sent the ISOZ into the MDC to help chain the masses to the coat-tails of imperialism. A section of ISOZ broke from this process and has turned towards the FLTI.

Since the MDC has joined the government in late 2008, the masses have more and more lost faith in it as its pro-imperialist policy is demonstrated in practice. More and more the working class in Zimbabwe is turning to mass struggles. In this context the rise of an independent working class entity poses a threat to imperialism.

At the same time, the working class has started to go on the march once again in Greece and other parts of the imperialist centres. These latest uprisings of the world working class comes at the same time that imperialism has accelerated its attacks on the working class: 4 coups have recently occurred in Africa; the coup in Honduras last year by Obama’s surrogate army there also signalled an offensive by imperialism; the Obama invasion in Haiti over the bodies of the earthquake victims underlines the barbarism of the current imperialist epoch. 

The visit by imperialist puppet, Zuma, to Britain to call for the limited sanctions against Zimbabwe to be lifted, shows that imperialism is preparing for a generalised acceptance worldwide of bourgeois dictatorial regimes; the world trend to greater bonapartism and fascism by imperialism is also demonstrated by imperialist control of Chinese production, over the bodies of the Chinese working class, policed by their lackey the brutal Stalinist Chinese Communist party regime.

The ongoing inter-imperialist wars in the DRC and the wars in Iraq, Pakistan and Afghanistan are all part of this trend. The call by the MDC for UN intervention in Zimbabwe is an admission that the unity regime has lost credibility and is unable to control the masses- the UN, like in the DRC, will oversee the disarming of the masses and the intensifying attacks against the Zimbabwean working class. 

In short, imperialism is preparing concentrated attacks on the proletarian vanguard fighters around the globe. This is the real reason why they have waged an international campaign against democratic gains and have expanded the power of their terror apparatus, through secret torture centres, through coups, through greater militarization, through so-called anti-terror legislation, and indeed through greater attacks on the vanguard fighters. Imperialism knows that if they can behead the working class resistance, they stand to defeat any revolutionary uprising against their rule. 

Under these conditions of state attacks against the vanguard, much of the left remain silent. The question then arises, who is this left serving? On which side of the barricade, in the fight against imperialism-capitalism, are you? The working class needs to quickly draw the lesson that imperialism also operates through forces, knowingly or unknowingly, who act within the workers movement, to divert and contain the revolutionary action of the masses. 

The way forward 

In Zimbabwe, and all other places on the globe where the working class is under attack, we need to set up workers self-defence committees. Let us not allow capitalism imperialism to beat down and defeat the current working class resistance. The first step must be for this campaign to be taken to every working class neighbourhood, every factory, farm and mine.

As the petroleum workers from Las Heras in the South of Argentina say, we have the same programme, the same enemy and it is in such battles that the Fourth International is being rebuilt; the shameful silence of the ‘revolutionary socialists’ while fighters are harassed and tortured, show that their real role is to impede our struggle; our call must be touch one, touch all!

We appreciate also the voices of the Revolutionary Socialist League (LSR)- Argentina, the NOR (Peru) and an activist in Romania, the workers from the Posada Hospital in Argentina as well as the entire ranks of the FLTI, who have stood up in practice while the world left remain silent. We appreciate the workers Central Union in Bolivia (COB) who sent a message of support to our struggle, but we have a question:

While clearly the ZANU-PF is condemned, we need to draw the line against the MDC who is part of the regime that attacks workers today; indeed the Popular front that comes from within the workers movement and poses to be with us but in reality acts against us and are the real agents of imperialism, are much more dangerous, as they are the enemy within.

We call on you to not only declare yourself on the MDC and Popular fronts, but to take this campaign to the entire base of the COB. As the LSR says: we need to act against the capitalist-imperialist  who directly oppresses and exploits us, as the defence of the Zimbabwean activists, oppressed by the same imperialism, is indeed a defence of the entire world proletariat and ourselves. 

Defend the revolutionary left in Zimbabwe! Defend the student leaders of ZINASU against the MDC popular front! Viva proletarian internationalism! 

Political Committee of the Revolutionary Internationalist Group (IRG) Zimbabwe (Ex-ISOZ)

Build a fighting socialist alternative

[newsletter]

Did you find this information helpful? If you did, consider donating to fund our operations.

For breaking news alerts on Zimbabwe click here Tags: ,