Letter to Mugabe from African American organizations
condemn repression by government

OPEN LETTER TO ZIMBABWEAN PRESIDENT ROBERT MUGABE

3 June, 2003

Dear President Mugabe,

We are writing today to implore you to seek a peaceful
and just solution to your country's escalating national
crisis. Those signed below are Americans of Africa
descent - many of them representing major organizations
of civil society in the United States - who have worked
for decades to support the liberation movements of
Africa and the governments that followed independence
which promoted and protected the interests of all of
their nation's people. We form part of an honorable
tradition of progressive solidarity with the struggles
for decolonization, and against apartheid and
imperialism in Africa.

We have strong historical ties to the liberation
movements in Zimbabwe, which included material and
political support, as well as opposition to U.S.
government policies that supported white minority rule.
In independent Zimbabwe we have sought to maintain
progressive ties with the political party and
government that arose from the freedom struggle. At the
same time our progressive ties have grown with
institutions of civil society, especially the labor
movement, women's organizations, faith communities,
human rights organizations, students, the independent
media and progressive intellectuals. In Zimbabwe today,
all of our relations and our deep empathy and
understanding of events there require that we stand in
solidarity with those feeling the pain and suffering
caused by the abuse of their rights, violence and
intolerance, economic deprivation and hunger, and
landlessness and discrimination.

We do not need to recount here the details of the
increasing intolerant, repressive and violent policies
of your government over the past 3 years, nor the
devastating consequences of those policies. The use of
repressive legislation does not, in our respectful
view, render such actions justifiable or moral, because
of their presumed "legality". We represent a long
tradition of opposition to unjust laws. We have
previously expressed to your representative in
Washington, DC, our humanitarian concerns about the
impact of the HIV/AIDS pandemic in Zimbabwe as well as
that of the famine triggered by the recent southern
African drought and exacerbated by the economic
policies and food distribution practices of your
government. We have shared our concerns that land
redistribution in Zimbabwe be used to fight the poverty
of the majority and not to promote the narrow interests
of another minority. But most of all, we have
communicated clearly that we view the political
repression underway in Zimbabwe as intolerable and in
complete contradiction of the values and principles
that were both the foundation of your liberation
struggle and of our solidarity with that struggle.

Today, Mr. President we call upon yourself and those
among the ruling party who truly value democracy, and
wish to protect the future of all of Zimbabwe's
citizens to take extraordinary steps to end your
country's political crisis and place it upon a path
toward peace. We ask that you initiate an unconditional
dialogue with the political opposition in Zimbabwe and
representatives of civil society aimed at ending this
impasse. We call upon you to seek the diplomatic
intervention of appropriately concerned African states
and institutions, particularly South Africa and
Nigeria, and SADC and the African Union, to assist in
the mediation of Zimbabwe's civil conflict.

Mr. President, the non-violent civil disobedience that
is growing in your country - such as that which took
place on Mother's day in Bulawayo - is increasingly met
with police brutality and excessive force. Such trends
in the abuse of human rights are not only unacceptable,
they are threats to your country's stability and they
are undermining the economic and political development
your people desire and deserve. We believe that a
peaceful solution is possible for Zimbabwe if you find
a way to work with others in and outside of your
government to create an effective process for a
transition to a more broadly supported government
upholding the democratic rights of all.

Sincerely yours in struggle,

William Lucy, President, Coalition of Black Trade
Unionists

Willie Baker, Executive Vice President, Coalition of
Black Trade Unionists

Salih Booker, Executive Director, Africa Action

Bill Fletcher, Jr., President, TransAfrica Forum

Horace G. Dawson Jr., Director Ralph J. Bunche
International Affairs Center, Howard University

Patricia Ann Ford, Executive Vice President, Service
Employees International Union (SEIU)

Julianne Malveaux, TransAfrica Forum Board Member

Rev Justus Y. Reeves, Executive Director Missions
Ministry, Progressive National Baptist Convention

Coordinating Committee, Black Radical Congress