WOZA Calls Zimbabweans To Action Saturday 18 June 2005 - A Day
To Restore Our Dignity

June 7, 2005 - (WOZA) Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) deplores the ongoing treatment by the Zimbabwe Republic Police of citizens attempting to eke out a living by informal trade. With unemployment at over 70%, most Zimbabweans have tried to survive by becoming fulltime or part time vendors.

Many members of WOZA, widowed mothers, grandmothers and youth fit into this category and have been affected by this mindless clamp down. We sympathise with their loss of livelihood but call on them to remain determined to free themselves from this cruel tyranny.

In a statement issued on the 4th April, WOZA called for Zimbabweans to make a choice between Mass Action or Mass Starvation but it has become important as mothers of the nation to remind Zimbabweans what type of Mass Action could bring pressure to bear and yield our better enjoyment of basic freedoms.

We call on our sisters and brothers who are fighting to defend their livelihood to use peaceful means of mass action as a way to safeguard their dignity. Mugabe and his regime have ’degrees in violence’; striking back or hitting back will not work, as violence only begets violence.

The Mass action referred to by the women of WOZA is a nationalist version of civil disobedience or resistance which we call ’Tough Love’. We promote the concept of loving your country and fellow citizens enough to sacrifice yourself and suffer the consequences. We sacrifice by acting to show that laws or treatment by government are unjust and suffer the consequences of being beaten, tortured or imprisoned. Mahatma Ghandi once said, "The willing sacrifice of the innocent is the most powerful answer to the insolent tyranny that has yet been conceived by God or man." Martin Luther King said, "Just men cannot follow unjust laws."

The women of WOZA are inviting Zimbabweans to join them in peaceful protest on Saturday, 18 June 2005, ahead of UN World Refugee Day on 20 June. We have especially selected this day, as Zimbabweans are living the lives of refugees in their own country especially so if they cannot even earn a basic living by the honest trade of a vendor.

We invite Zimbabweans in the Diaspora to organise protests outside their Zimbabwean Embassies to highlight the plight of their kith and kin back home. We know that as we make this call the ’slaves of POSA’, will begin to hunt us down to deter us from organising this peaceful expression against the indignities we are made to suffer at their hands. But we are reminded of the sacrifice of a great African Statesman, Nelson Mandela, who led South Africans in a spirit of ’Amadelakufa’ (Self sacrifice for the nations good).

To the leadership of the Movement for Democratic Change, and other politicians who care about the living standards of Zimbabweans, we have a simple message. Provide leadership to the Zimbabweans on the street, participate in teaching principles and methods of peaceful resistance, plan and organise to join us on the 18 June, when we restore our nations dignity.

To Zimbabweans: face facts Freedom is not for free. Stop criticising what leadership you do have; if they are peaceful and are ready to do battle with ’Tough Love’, be they male, female, rich or poor, black or white, play your part and you will find yourself blessed with the courage to act.

For more information, please email wozazimbabwe@yahoo.com (for security reasons, WOZA will filter through written correspondence)