By Fanuel Chinowaita
HARARE — Zimbabwe’s liberation struggle will remain incomplete as long as the country’s vast natural wealth fails to translate into decent livelihoods and economic justice for ordinary citizens, the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) has said.
In a National Heroes Day and Defence Forces Day message, ZCTU Secretary-General Tirivanhu Marimo said Zimbabwe’s mineral wealth must benefit workers, communities and the wider population instead of being concentrated in the hands of a privileged few.
Marimo said the country could not claim to have fully realised the aspirations of the liberation struggle while workers, pensioners, war veterans and millions of ordinary Zimbabweans continued to face poverty and economic hardship.
“Zimbabwe must not become a country where minerals are abundant but human beings are poor,” Marimo said.
He said Zimbabwe’s gold, platinum, lithium, diamonds, chrome, coal and nickel reserves had to be managed in the national interest, with greater transparency and accountability in the mining sector.
Marimo called for mineral revenues to be channelled towards decent jobs, living wages, healthcare, education, housing, infrastructure and social protection.
“The extraction of minerals cannot become a mechanism for transferring national wealth from the many to the few,” he said.
The ZCTU secretary-general said the meaning of the liberation struggle went beyond the attainment of political independence in 1980, arguing that it also encompassed economic justice, equality, human dignity, workers’ rights and the right of Zimbabweans to determine their own economic destiny.
He said workers had played a critical role in the liberation struggle and should not be treated as spectators in the country’s post-independence development.
Marimo also demanded stronger action against corruption, illicit financial flows and the leakage of national resources, alongside progressive taxation and greater investment in productive sectors and public services.
“Zimbabwe cannot continue to export its wealth while importing poverty,” Marimo said.
He called for improved welfare for liberation war veterans and pensioners, saying those who sacrificed their lives and livelihoods for independence deserved dignified social security, healthcare and housing.
“A society that celebrates its heroes once a year but allows them to live in poverty for the remaining 364 days has failed to honour their sacrifice in any meaningful sense,” he said.
Marimo also said the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans Association should remain non-partisan, arguing that liberation war veterans fought for Zimbabwe rather than for any particular political party.
On the security sector, he said the Defence Forces had a constitutional responsibility to protect Zimbabwe’s sovereignty and territorial integrity and should remain professional, disciplined and non-partisan.
“The Defence Forces must defend the State and its Constitution, not particular office-holders or political interests,” Marimo said.
He also raised concerns over alleged corruption within law enforcement, particularly among sections of the traffic police, and called for impartial investigations into complaints involving roadblocks and alleged extortion of motorists.
Marimo said citizens exercising their constitutional rights to freedom of expression, assembly and peaceful protest should not be treated as enemies of the state.
He further warned against criminalising legitimate trade union activity and lawful industrial action, saying workers’ rights were part of the country’s liberation legacy.
As Zimbabwe commemorates its national heroes, Marimo said the occasion should prompt a national reckoning over the country’s unfinished economic transformation.
“The true measure of the success of our liberation is not merely that Zimbabwe attained independence in 1980. It is whether every Zimbabwean can live with dignity, security, equality and hope in the country for which our heroes and heroines sacrificed their lives,” he said.
“The struggle for political independence must culminate in economic justice.”