Video interview with
Wellington Chibebe
Zimbabwe – ZCTU
"They were out to destroy the labour movement"
An overview of the policy of harassment and repression implemented by the Zimbabwean government to try to divide and weaken the resistance of the independent trade union movement. By Wellington Chibebe, ZCTU general secretary.
The ruling authorities are seeking to undermine the image and the very existence of your trade union organisation. What form has the government’s harassment of the ZCTU taken during the year 2005?
On 8 November 2005, you were arrested along with the president of the ZCTU, Lovemore Matombo, and some fifty other trade unionists in various towns around the country. What were the grounds for these arrests, and in what conditions were you held?
At the end of 2004, the passing of the NGO Bill emerged as part of a government offensive to silence democratic civil society organisations. How has the debate on NGOs developed since then?
The government seems to have done all it can to destroy the ZCTU from the inside. In what way has the "dissidence" been used as a weapon?