Harare, Zimbabwe (News of the South) – Zimbabwe Yadzoka/Mayibuye iZimbabwe condemns the use of force by the government on defenseless and innocent citizens.
ZYMiZ condemns in strongest terms the use of unwarranted force towards defenseless citizens by the government of Zimbabwe.
On Thursday (04/05/17) the whole nation of Zimbabwe watched with horror as tobacco farmers were beaten and teargassed for rightfully demanding their payments.
It cannot be overemphasized that farming is a very difficult enterprise especially in a context like Zimbabwe where the government is doing almost nothing to assist farmers in accessing various credit lines and farming inputs.
Tobacco is a very difficult crop which is labour intensive and very demanding and to imagine that after going through that process, the hard working farmers are not even paid what is due for their crop is absurd to say the least. ZYMiZ’s membership is broad-based including these farmers.
In the last few days many of our membership in the farming community have raised concerns on how the government’s heavy-handedness is destroying their livelihoods.
We urge the government of the day not to politicize all matters, riot police and brute force is not the answer to everything. There are instances where civility and common sense must prevail.
Zimbabwe is an agro-based economy and as such farmers constitute an important section of our society. ZYMiZ has watched with disdain on the lack of compassion and empathy by the government of the day to its people.
The ruling party ZANU-PF need to step back for a moment and reflect on the crisis the country is in, acknowledging its failures while at the same time propose alternative policies which will take the country out of this economic quagmire.
Sadly we do not see this happening, what we see is a clueless leadership not even attempting to proffer solutions to the current crisis. Instead the leadership of today has resorted to use of brute force and violence to anybody who dares to demand what is rightfully theirs, including farmers in this case.
It is with a heavy heart that as a movement we have observed that our country is on auto-pilot, there is a vacuum in the corridors of power.
We therefore call upon our members and all Zimbabweans in our diversity to remain vigilant, our country is going down a steep slope and we cannot allow this to happen to our beautiful country.
ZYMiZ in its diversity is calling upon all citizens to carry out an unprecedented mobilization exercise leading up to 2018. We certainly do not deserve this unresponsive and insensitive government.
We call upon the civil society, political parties, churches, war veterans and war collaborators, farmers, businesses, parents, youths and everybody to start a mobilization drive which is grassroots anchored, which will result in a new administration in 2018 under a grand coalition.
We cannot afford to be divided as we have noticed each section of our community brutalized, attacked, teargassed and tortured.
As a nation we cannot allow this to happen anymore. The time is now. Ngaidzoke Zimbabwe kuvanhu/Let us reclaim our country back!
Dr Victor Chimhutu
Chairperson- #ZimbabweYadzoka/ #MayibuyeiZimbabwe (#ZYMiZ)
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