Zimbabwe: Stop the Repression!

 

 

Neither ZANU-PF nor MDC – for an independent political alternative of the workers and oppressed!

 

Statement of the Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT), 4 August 2018, www.thecommunists.net

 

 

 

1.             Zimbabwe’s President Emmerson Mnangagwa and his ZANU-PF claim to have won the presidential and parliamentary elections. Supporters of Nelson Chamisa and his MDC, the main opposition party, have entered the streets to protest against what they call rigged elections. The army reacted brutally, deployed tanks and fired live ammunition on demonstrators. At least three people have been killed until now.

 

2.             Neither ZANU-PF nor MDC represent an authentic alternative for Zimbabwe’s working people. ZANU-PF represents the old, corrupted, capitalist regime which hijacked the country in 1980 after the victorious popular liberation struggle against the colonialist white settler elite. For many years, Mnangagwa was the right-hand man of long-time dictator Mugabe. However in November 2017 he, together with army chief Constantino Chiwenga, ousted Mugabe in a military coup d'etat, arranged with the support of imperialist China. Since then Mnangagwa has promised to “renew” the country by implementing neo-liberal reforms.

 

3.             The MDC is a capitalist party too. While it was in opposition for many years, it became part of a coalition government with Mugabe for some time after 2009. While ZANU-PF is orientated towards Chinese imperialism, the MDC leans rather towards US and EU imperialism.

 

4.             Socialists in Zimbabwe support neither of these parties. However, this does not mean that we are indifferent the current wave of repression which is sweeping the streets of Harare. We call for:

 

* Stop the repression! Free all arrested demonstrators! Get the army out of the streets!

 

* No to neoliberal reforms and austerity programs!

 

* Build action committees of the working people in workplaces, neighborhoods, villages and universities to organize the resistance!

 

* Down with the corrupted authoritarian capitalist system! For a revolutionary constituent assembly, elected and controlled by the working people!

 

* No agricultural counter-reform serving the interest of the white settlers! The land belongs to the black poor peasants – not to capitalists and crony politicians!

 

* Neither Chinese nor Western imperialism! Against all economic sanctions of Great Powers against Zimbabwe! For an independent, socialist Zimbabwe!

 

* For a workers and poor peasant government which nationalizes the economy, eradicates the corrupted authoritarian capitalist system and opens the road to socialism!

 

* Neither ZANU-PF nor MDC – for an independent political alternative of the workers and oppressed! For an independent workers party based on a revolutionary program!

 

 

 

The Revolutionary Communist International Tendency (RCIT) has sections and activists in Zambia, Kenya, Democratic Republic of Congo, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Yemen, Tunisia, Israel / Occupied Palestine, Brazil, Mexico, Aotearoa/New Zealand, Britain, Germany, and Austria.

 

 

Additional Signatories

 

Pacesetters Movement (Nigeria), Facebook: PACESETTERS MOVEMENT OAU

 

Courant des Jeunes Penseurs Congolais (Democratic Republic of Congo), Facebook : Cogito RDC

 

Pan-Afrikan Consciousness Renaissance (Nigeria), https://m.facebook.com/pacorenaissance/?ref=bookmarks