"The Zimbabwe government's decision comes after the brutal suppression of a planned peaceful demonstration by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions"
Zimbabwe denied entry to a delegation of black U.S. trade unionists on Friday, the latest group of labor activists barred by President Robert Mugabe's government.
The AFL-CIO delegation had hoped to meet officials of the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), which saw dozens of its members arrested and some badly beaten this month when police stopped them from marching to protest against low wages.
Bill Lucy, a member of the AFL-CIO executive council and head of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists, said the seven members of the team had been stopped at passport control at Harare's international airport and told they were not welcome.
"(Zimbabwe's) security and police forces have to be condemned worldwide for this kind of harsh treatment," Lucy told a news conference in Johannesburg, adding that all members of the delegation had valid Zimbabwean visas.
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"In economic life there is extreme inequality and exploitation. Although colonialism no longer exists openly in the political and economic sphere, still it persists indirectly, and this should not be tolerated... In this respect you should remember that in economic life, we will have to guarantee the minimum requirements of life to one and all... There cannot be any sort of adjustment as far as this point is concerned. The minimum purchasing requirement must be guaranteed to all. Today these fundamental essentialities are not being guaranteed. Rather, people are being guided by deceptive economic ideas like outdated Marxism, which has proven ineffective in practical life and has not been successfully implemented in any corner of the world. Why do people still believe in such a theory, which has never been proved successful? The time has come for people to make a proper assessment of whether they are being misguided or not." |
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"Human beings have still not been able to form a human society, and have still not learned to move with the spirit of a pilgrim. Although many small groups, motivated by self-interest, work together in particular situations, not even a small fraction of their work is done with a broader social motive. By strict definition, shall we have to declare that each small family unit is a society in itself? If going ahead in mutual adjustment only out of narrow self-interest or momentary self-seeking is called society, then in such a society, no provision can be made for the disabled, the diseased or the helpless, because in most cases nobody can benefit from them in any way... in that case there always remains the possibility of some people getting isolated from the collective. All human beings must attach themselves to others by the common bond of love and march forward hand in hand; then only will I proclaim it a society." |