Zimbabwe - November 30th, 2017

NEITHER MUGABE NOR MNANGAGWANOR THE GENERALS THAT MADE THE COUP D’ÉTAT!
THEY ARE ALL SERVANTS OF IMPERIALISM AND ENSLAVERS OF THEIR OWN PEOPLE!

LET THE EXPLOITED ZIMBABWE RISE

Let’s call right now to a congress of the workers and students organizations to prepare the struggle! Workers and rank and file soldiers committees to defend ourselves from the coup d’état members!
Dissolve the officers caste of the army!

 

For the people to have bread, work and freedom...

Break with imperialism! Disregard the foreign debt!

Expropriate the properties and land that are in hands of the black bourgeoisie
and the transnational companies!

For a revolutionary workers and peasants government!

Mnangagwa and Mugabe

The Army in the streets of Harare

After 37 years under the rule of Robert Mugabe, Zimbabwe has a new presiden: EmmersonMnangagwa, who reached office after the coup made by the army generals, a parliamentary impeachment and finally Mugabe’s resignation.
Let’s remember the 75-year-old former spy chief is a Zanu-PF leader (Mugabe’s party) and he was Zimbabwe’s vice president during the recently deposed government.

Mnangagwa has become the third president of Zimbabwe since the country gained independence in 1980. He took oath of office in front of 70,000 people in Harare’s main sports stadium. In his speech, he praised Mugabe as a hero of the anti-colonial resistance, when for 37 years Mugabe just plunged the impoverished masses of the farms and the cities into misery and starvation, bounding the country with double chains to imperialism as it has a 9 billion dollars foreign debt (in a nation where GDP is 16 billion dollars) used only to enrich the pockets of the low black bourgeoisie.
37 years in which the so-called “hero" imposed by blood and fire under-human living conditions for the masses, turning Zimbabwe into one of the poorest countries of the world, with an obsolete industry and with one of the best arable lands of the world that is not producing. Furthermore, he put a huge army of reserve at the service of Anglo American and the big transnational companies, which lowered the wages of all the workers of the Black Africa.

This accumulation mode of Zimbabwe, based in the plunder of gold, diamonds and lithium and on a slave labour force for the entire Southern Africa, has reached to an end. The wealthy land of Zimbabwe, in the hands of a black oligarchy that expropriated the anticolonial struggle, such as Mugabe and his gang, is nowadays without any production, without watering system, without fertilizing and without investments in technology. A bunch of parasites destroyed the land and now lives as millionaires as the old British colonialists and white slavers.
Now IMF and the transnational companies, the big creditors and the owners of the plundered Zimbabwe, who has now the economy in bankruptcy, want to take all the wealth of the nation for nothing.
The coup of the direct agents of imperialism has assured that they will be the guarantors to give back the land that was expropriated in the anticolonial fight in late 70’s. It is the movie played backwards. This is how the native bourgeoisie ends, as junior partner of imperialism, giving back the land to the plunderers of the nation.

That’s why in his speech Mnangagwa affirmed that he will “pay the foreign and domestic debts”. He also assured that his government “will compensate those farmers whose land was taken in a legal manner”, which means that a broke Zimbabwe will pay the white farmers and transnational companies with the same lands they lost in the anti-colonial war of liberation.

Mnangagwa continued saying “Our economic policy will be based on agriculture” and to promote it, he “welcomes mutually beneficial partnerships with our investors”, i.e. joint ventures (mixed companies between the state and foreign capitals) so that Cargill, Monsanto and the big cereal companies take the land. In short, the black bourgeoisie will manage and the white and imperialism will take the farming income (including the derivatives emerging from it such as machinery, seeds and fertilizing) in moments when the prices of commodities are still rising in the world market.

At the same time, Mnangagwa said “AU is our natural home we will play our role fully”. This means that now Zimbabwe will open the path for “relaxation of export procedures, and establishment of special economic zones to be accelerated”, i.e. free tax areas for imperialist investors, with a totally enslaved labour force.ThusMnangagwa offers the transnational companies the chance to relocate their companies or part of their production in Zimbabwe, to take advantage of the slave labour reservoir, as workers are getting paid less than a dollar a day for the tasks they do in infernal working conditions. They want to turn Zimbabwe into the new “Bangladesh” in Southern Africa.
The true plan of imperialism is no other than to make Zimbabwe a maquila (sweat shop) country, thus plunging the wages of the workers around the region, particularly in South Africa. Today, this is done by taking there slave labour force from Zimbabwe, Mozambique, Angola, Botswana, that they have the worst and less paid jobs.
Now imperialism wants to take more. It wants more free trade areas for its transnational companies, to install them as sweat shops in Zimbabwe.
Ultimately, if the workers of South Africa fight to topple president Zuma and for a 12500 rand wage for all (as Marikana miners demanded) and they rise against the bureaucracy of the unions, imperialism wants to respond to this offensive by relocating part of its production in Zimbabwe. It is a matter of life or death for the working class of South Africa and the entire region to defeat this government of the pact between Mnangagwa, the coup member generals and MDC, agent of imperialism. To conquer the unity of the workers for the struggle against imperialism and its lackeys from southern Africa is an urgent need. Otherwise, slavery will be deeper as well as plundering and barbarism on the exploited of the region.

 

Coup d’état in Zimbabwe: a true plot against the masses made by imperialism, transnational companies, Mugabe’s generals, Zanu-PF and MDC

What rushed the IMF to make this change in the commands in Zimbabwe, with a coup by the army’s officers, supported by Zanu-PF and MDC? The fear that Mugabe may have the same fate of the dictators and autocrats of Maghreb and Middle East. That is to say, they wanted to prevent the Zimbabwean masses, after years of huge waves of struggle of workers, peasants, vendors who hated the murderous starvation regime so much, ended up defeating Mugabe with revolutionary actions. It would’ve been the power of the exploited and it would’ve put into question not only the IMF desires for a new economic plan but also the crumbs that today the black bourgeoisie receives as enslaver and junior partners of the imperialist pirates. They wanted to reassure the continuity of the dictatorial regime of Mugabe (who is 93 years old!) to a successor, saving him from the masses that over the last years have staged national struggles, strikes, picket lines, strikes by sector, fighting on the streets…

On the other hand, with the coup d’état in Zimbabwe and Mnangagwa taking office, they intended to stop the expansive waves caused by the general strike in South Africa against Zuma’s government, which shows that the governments that expropriated the revolutionary struggles in Southern Africa for liberation have entered in crisis.

They want to make us believe that the officers by this coup d’état have put an end to Mugabe’s dictatorship, since there will be a democratic opening calling for elections in 2018. Meanwhile with Mnangagwa they will establish a “national unity” government between Zanu-PF and MDC, which only prepares (with all the announced measures) bigger sufferings and torment for the people.

As for everything we exposed here, it is evident we are before a “resignation” that was agreed with the coup members, which is the same officers caste that supported Mugabe’s dictatorship for 37 years. This shows that the true “power” in Zimbabwe is the officers caste of the army, which yesterday supported Mugabe against the people and now it is doing the same with Mnangagwa to safeguard the power and the interests of the bourgeoisie as a whole, staring for the imperialist gang. The trap ahead for the massesmust be revealed. There is nothing to celebrate. After Mugabe’s fall they prepare bigger torments against the poor in Zimbabwe. WE CANNOT LET THAT HAPPEN.

How can this working class and poor of Zimbabwe, which has fought against Mugabe for years, couldn’t take advantage the crisis of those on top in its favour, intervening as the leader of the oppressed classes of the nation, opening the road with the beginning of the revolution in the struggle for power and the solution of all its problems? The answer is simple. The unions and reformist left currents subordinated the energies and forces of the workers to MDC policy and to Mugabe’s “opposition” inside Zanu-PF.

The task was to coordinate the struggles, set up dual power organs and fight for a workers program for a way out of the crisis, against the coup and the trap for the change in commands that imperialism and the black bourgeoisie made by conspiring behind the back of the workers. Instead, unfortunately, ISO kept the left wing of the workers movement entertained in impotent meetings, preventing them to encourage the exploited to take to the streets taking the solution of their problems in their own hands.

 

MDC, an imposture and a fraud to the most elementary democratic struggle for overthrowing the military regime in Zimbabwe
Out with Mnangagwa, the officers caste, the judges and the whole Zanu-PF Mugabe regime!
Recover the land and break with imperialism
Free sovereign national constituent assembly!

Today, as Mnangagwa is settled as new government, the unions and the reformist left are joining the MDC voice in demanding elections with a new electoral law. This is a scam. They only want to put some “democratic” make up to this ferocious dictatorship of the generals. Furthermore, they want to be managers -as MDC was in 2008- of the business deals of imperialism and the coup member gangs in Zimbabwe.

Even from the point of view of the democratic liberties gains what MDC proposes is an imposture and a deception on the exploited, who don’t stand Mugabe police regime anymore neither the brutal repression that every worker fight for the most minimum demands has to deal with . MDC asks the officers caste to hold elections, thus guaranteeing for it to manage all the state institution.
In this deception on the masses, MDC is joined by the bureaucracies of the unions and the ISO, which has renegaded from socialism long time ago. While the political crisis in Zimbabwe was being developed, ISO paid tribute to 100 years of Russian revolution in conferences where it guised as “rrred” only to end up at the feet of this pseudodemocratic mass policy deception.
Imperialism needs the most totalitarian government at hand it can have to plunder the nation. But it also needs from these pseudodemocratic counterrevolutionary agents to deceive the people- The revolutionary socialists claim that only the working class, by fighting and demonstrating, is the only one that can guarantee the democratic freedoms that these ferocious Zimbabwean dictatorship, yesterday with Mugabe and today with Mnangagwa, cannot give the people.

There are no democratic freedoms, not even free elections, if all the assets of the officers members of coup d’etat are not expropriated. There is not a single chance of marching to a free sovereign constituent assembly if the repressive forces and the judge caste (under the rule of the imperialist master and the murderous officers of Zimbabwean army) are not dissolved.

The MDC and its partners from ISO are a huge lie and a scam to the fight for democratic freedoms to overthrow the dictatorship in Zimbabwe. A free and sovereign constituent assembly will only be established on the basis of the ruin and the overthrow of all the institutions of this infamous regime.
A constituent national assembly should guarantee, together with these elementary democratic measures, to break with imperialism and disregard the foreign debt (which contracted the black oligarchy) and return to the people the lands that it expropriated with the anti-colonial revolution, to be able to eat.
To this task, only the working class in arms will guarantee it, disarming these counterrevolutionary officers and upholding the power of the workers, the rank and file soldiers, the poor peasants.
The banners of the struggle for extreme democratic freedoms, along with the struggle for land and national independence, rely onlyon the hands of the working class and its allies.
Only a provisional worker and peasant government can guarantee the struggle against imperialism and a free and sovereign constituent assembly that, over the ruin of the Mugabe regime, imposes a single chamber with one representative per 10,000 inhabitants, removable by their constituents at any time, and that collect the salary of a worker. If they do not collect their wages, then the representatives won’t do it.
It is time to regroup the working class and its allies independently of their executioners and oppressors, whether they come with uniforms of generals or with the lie of pseudodemocrats that uphold their bayonets against the people.
Only the working class of Zimbabwe, united to the working class of all South Africa, is the one that can guarantee the bread, the land, the national independence and even the struggle for the most extreme democratic liberties.

The task of the moment is none other than demanding the unions and all the organizations that speak on behalf of the working class to break with the bourgeoisie. We must expel from our ranks the union bureaucrats who collaborated for years with the Mugabe dictatorship and today they continue to do so with the coup leaders. And we must separate from our ranks those who want to submit to the pseudo-democratic guardians of the plundering of the nation, like the MDC.

The bourgeoisie prevented the mass irruption, but the masses haven’t been defeated. The solution for the black workers movement is not with the black bourgeoisie.
The allies of the workers and exploited in Zimbabwe are not the MDC or Zanu-PF, but the workers of South Africa, the immigrant workers in Europe, the black workers in USA and Brazil, those who feel hatred as seeing class brothers sold as slaves in Libya by the Qadafyist bourgeoisie.
We have to put those forces in movement, in Zimbabwe and in the whole Southern Africa. For that reason, we have to call NUMSA, the workers of Marikana and all the workers organizations in Southern Africa to organize a unified fight against imperialism and its lackey governments.

Imperialism and the capitalists are burdening their crisis on the masses
The catastrophe is already here: we need to fight it!
For aworkers and popular economic plan!
Let the crisis be paid by those on the top: the capitalists and the generals agents of imperialism!

Only a provisional revolutionary government of workers and poor peasants can get Zimbabwe out of barbarism

It is urgent to take immediate measures to put an end to the misery of the exploited. In the poorest country in the world, with a life expectancy of no more than 50 years, with the highest infant mortality rate in Africa, Zimbabwe shows the workers and oppressed peoples of the world at what level of barbarism they can lead capitalists exploited parasites and the global regime of imperialist plunder.
There is no more immediate task in Zimbabwe than to finish organizing a real revolutionary offensive, this time expelling and expropriating not only imperialism but also the black bourgeoisie, which for decades fought the anti-colonialist struggle of the masses of Africa and Zimbabwe. They call themselves "war veterans" when today they manage wealth and fortunes equivalent to or greater than those of the whites who plundered Rhodesia until the end of the 70’s.

Preparing, organizing and advancing towards the socialist revolution, together with the working class of all Africa and international is the task of the moment. There is no other way out. Otherwise, the exit will be given by imperialism with a double looting of Zimbabwe in all the nations of South Africa.
The catastrophe is here. Hit the workers of Zimbabwe, South Africa and the entire region. The imperialist transnational companies take away all our riches. The time has come for the international unity of the working class. Expropriating those from above and organizing the rebellion of the slaves is the task of the moment!

The gold, diamonds, lithium and all the huge riches of Zimbabwe cannot be carried away by imperialism! We must expropriate without pay all the mines and deposits and put them to produce under the control of the workers!
In order to eat, conquer decent health and housing, we must break with imperialism and ignore the fraudulent external debt contracted by the oligarchy of Zimbabwe to the IMF, behind the backs of the people!
We must re-nationalize the land without any payment, and put it to produce under the control of the workers' organizations, the poor peasants and popular organizations!
The banks must be expropriated without payment! For a single state bank that grants cheap credits to the ruined small producers!
Minimum salary of 12,500 rand, as the Marikana workers put forward in their struggle! Decent work assured for all, distributing work hours in all available hands!

For a public works plan under the control of workers' organizations!
With the recovery of the land and the rupture with the IMF and the expropriation of the banks, it would be possible to guide the surplus of the national wealth to conquer a public works plan, beginning with the construction of houses, roads, hospitals, schools, guarantee that the workers and the poor people eat.

The working class must irrupt with its own program to provide a way out for the exploited and for the capitalists to pay for their bad businesses deals. The land in the hands of the working class and the exploited, under production in collective farms, would guarantee cheap quality food for all Zimbabweans and for our class brothers and sisters of Southern Africa. Such a struggle will awaken solidarity from millions of workers around the region and will weld an unbreakable unity that would get us closer to victory in our struggle. For this, the workers organizations must break with the boss parties… with Zanu-PF and MDC. They fight for their business deals, we workers fight for bread and freedom. Open the road for the working class and the exploited of Zimbabwe!

 

For committees of workers, poor peasants, vendors, students and rank and file soldiers!
Set up the power of those of below, the broad majority of the subjugated nation, to disarm the bourgeoisie!

To take a first step forward, we need to conquer rank and file assemblies in all remaining factories, mines and workplaces! It is necessary to set up a coordination organ of all the workers in struggle, of the unemployed workers, militant youth, poor peasants, the vendors, civil servants and municipality workers and students to fight together!

Enough of collaborationist union bureaucracies! For a revolutionary leadership of the unions!

We need to set up self-defense committees and the workers' militia to impose a revolutionary General Strike that will shake Zimbabwe from its foundations and put the fall of the infamous regime on the agenda!

The struggle of Zimbabwe is part of the struggle of our class brothers from all over South Africa. Outside Mugabe and Mnangagwa! Out Zuma! Enough of governments of the imperialist transnational companies!
For a South African congress of workers' organizations, to break with the bourgeoisie and fight to expel imperialism!

We have to fight like in Marikana, with stoppages, pickets, and with the method of workers' democracy!

Standing with our colour class brothers all over the planet! Black lives matter ... in Zimbabwe, in South Africa, and in the US, Brazil, Libya!
We are not indifferent to the genocide of our Syrian class brothers! Let's not allow the massacre to continue in Syria! Let's fight against the dog Bashar and the murderer Putin, who do dirty work for imperialism!

Expel Mugabe, Mnangagwa, the bourgeois politicians and all the corrupt generals, agents of the imperialist powers that have ruled Zimbabwe for years!
Enough with governments of representatives of black millionaires partners of the banks and the TNCs that rule in a sea of black slaves. For a government of the workers and the poor people!

For a provisional revolutionary government of workers, poor peasants, students and ruined middle sectors, supported on rank and file soldier’s committees, self defense committees and workers militias!
The liberation of the workers will be done by the workers themselves!

For the workers to live, imperialism must die! Zimbabwe will be socialist or Wall Street colony!

Open the road for the tormented Africa! For the Federation of Black Republic in Southern Africa!

Issued by Workers International League of Zimbabwe (WIL)

Mnangagwa, former vice presidentand Mugabe’s friend Mnangagwa is a stalwart of the ruling Zanu-PF party, and is widely known as “the Crocodile” – a liberation war nickname suggesting tenacity and ruthless cunning. Critics have questioned his role in the Gukurahundi massacres in Matabeleland in 1983, when an estimated 20,000 people were killed in a crackdown on Mugabe opponents by the North Korean-trained Fifth Brigade. Mnangagwa has denied any part in the atrocities. Many Zimbabweans, especially the ethnic Ndebele who bore the brunt of the Gukurahundi slaughter, will see his appeal on Friday to “let bygones be bygones” as an attempt to gloss over his nation’s darkest chapter. EmmersonMnangagwa who appealed for national unity and promised compensation for dispossessed white farmers as he sought to draw a line under the Robert Mugabe era in his inaugural speech as president of Zimbabwe. Mnangagwa in his address, “free and fair” elections will go ahead as scheduled next year when the current five year presidential term, which Robert Mugabe began in 2013, ends. What we have witnessed in Zimbabwe is a dispute among the different gangs of capitalists and imperialist bandits to split the loot of the inheritance of the business deals that the dictator Mugabe leave. The coup member generals, vicepresidentMnangagwa, Mugabe, his wife and people around them only defend their millionaire profits. The coup did represented primarily a power struggle inside the ruling elite and its ZANU-PF party. The faction around former President EmmersonMnangagwa had succeed in appropriating power. After 37 years of Mugabe’s regime which led to the killing, disappearance, imprisonment and torture of tens of thousands of opponents, the popular masses hope for “a new era” and Indeed Mnangagwa is trying to bring in hopes into support for his regime. Mnangagwa called "the crocodile" because of his political shrewdness - his Zanu-PF faction was known as "Lacoste" had been Mugabe’s chief lieutenant in all those 37 years of dictatorship, he was at his side during the fight against white minority rule, and during the post-liberation government. And his regime will represents the continuation of the Mugabe state apparatus without Mugabe. Meanwhile, the people is starving, living in miserable conditions and the workers not even collect their wages.