Veterans challenge organised labour

Canada has become the latest Western government to protest to Zimbabwe over the intimidatory behaviour towards its nationals by so-called “war veterans”, who have targeted foreign employees in a rash of labour disputes.

Canadian high commissioner James Wall was jostled on Friday as he tried to prevent CARE director Dennis O’Brien from being abducted by veterans from the Canadian aid organisation’s headquarters, the ‘Ottawa Citizen’ reported on Tuesday. The veterans were protesting the dismissal of a former employee. O’Brien was forced on to a small truck and taken to the headquarters of the ruling ZANU-PF party.

“He was taken against his will,” Wall was quoted as saying. None of the vets carried weapons, and Wall said he wasn’t hurt in the incident. “There was just a lot of them. There was a lot of yelling,” he said. In what has become a familiar pattern that has affected British, German and South African nationals, O’Brien reached a settlement in the dismissal case “under duress”, said CARE deputy executive director Nancy Gordon. “He was forced into making a settlement.”

Sanjeev Chowdhury, a spokesman for Canadian Foreign Affairs Minister John Manley said on Monday that the Zimbabwean government has been warned of possible negative consequences for aid to Zimbabwe. “In the course of the next few days, we’ll consider what other measures need to be taken,” he was quoted as saying. The veterans have accused some Western governments and aid organisations of backing the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC).

Brian Raftopulous at the University of Zimbabwe’s Institute of Development Studies, said the role of the veterans in urban labour disputes was a deliberate strategy to undermine the opposition. He told IRIN that by championing the rights of workers, the ruling party militants aimed to cut into the MDC’s urban support base, solidly represented by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU).

Raftopoulos alleged that the ministry of labour was colluding with the veterans by providing information on outstanding disputes, a situation exacerbated by the “slow process of labour relations” procedures in Zimbabwe. He added that recent changes within the senior leadership of the ZCTU meant that the labour movement had “responded slowly” to the challenge.

However, while the veterans have won political mileage in the countryside by leading the seizure of white commercial estates and their redistribution to poor black farmers, Raftopoulos said urban communities were more politically sophisticated: “It’s a different case in urban areas, people are not just fighting on economic issues but issues of accountability and good governance,” he said. “It’s broader than bread and butter issues.”