COSATU protest campaign starts next month

The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) is to demonstrate outside the Zimbabwean embassy on 9 March to press for free and fair elections. The demonstration will form part of a series of protest actions, including a blockade of the border, in the run-up to Zimbabwe's elections on 31 March, a senior official told IRIN. "We are currently in talks with our counterparts in the neighbouring countries in the region to join our blockade of the Zimbabwean border, which is likely to happen in the next two weeks," said COSATU president Willie Madisha. "We want to express our solidarity with the working class and the poor in Zimbabwe, whose rights as citizens must be protected. We are not supporting the opposition MDC [Movement for Democratic Change] or the ruling ZANU-PF," he stressed. COSATU intends to holds weekly demonstrations at the embassy and the border, details of which will be announced next week. The campaign has been prompted by the Zimbabwean authorities' decision to expel a second 18-member COSATU "fact-finding" mission earlier this month. The first "solidarity" trip to Zimbabwe in October 2004 also ended abruptly when the group was deported.