Shocking Footage of Zimbabwe Beatings Screened

(Metropolitan Washington Council, AFL-CIO)

It’s a familiar scene: a group of peaceful demonstrators is being loaded into a waiting police van. Suddenly, though, there’s a flash of white, then another and another, as police batons begin to rain down and though we cannot see the blows landing it’s clear that something brutal and terrible is happening. The dramatic footage of the beatings at the September 13 demonstrations in Harare, Zimbabwe elicited gasps of shock and outrage when it was screened Thursday in a special briefing by Bill Lucy, Chairman of the International Committee of the AFL-CIO, Secretary Treasurer of AFSCME and President of the Coalition of Black Trade Unionists (CBTU), who was turned away at the Harare airport last week, and who set the scene by citing the dismal economic and health statistics in Zimbabwe that led to the recent demonstrations, at which 256 Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) activists were arrested, out of more than 1,500 who gathered in a peaceful rally in Harare. Metro Washington Council President Jos Williams reported on what he had seen during his trip to Zimbabwe earlier this year. A packed audience filled the Gompers Room at the AFL-CIO and a spirited discussion followed the screening on how US trade unionists can help. The Zimbabwe video is now posted on the AFL-CIO website: www.aflcio.org