ILO probes torture of ZCTU leaders

HARARE – A three-member team of International Labour Organisation (ILO) lawyers arrived in Zimbabwe on Wednesday to begin investigations into the alleged torture of Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union (ZCTU) leaders in 2006, the labour union has said.

“The three distinguished lawyers appointed by the ILO on the basis of impartiality and knowledge of industrial relations and human rights are now in the country to investigate whether the there was any human rights violations when people where beaten for expressing themselves in 2006,” ZCTU president Lovemore Matombo told ZimOnline.

The lawyers, who are from South Africa and Mauritius, will mainly conduct interviews with ZCTU leaders, labour and workers rights activists assaulted by the police after they staged protests against deteriorating working and living conditions for workers.

The ILO lawyers are also expected to meet with the police, several government ministers, security agencies and labour leaders.

"They are going to meet several people but I can not go into the details of their work because it will be pre-judicial to do so," said Matombo.

Several ZCTU leaders and activists incurred serious injuries including broken limbs while others are said have suffered some permanent disabilities.

Police however denied assaulting or torturing the ZCTU officials, insisting that the unionists were injured after they tried to jump off a moving police truck.

But lawyers representing the union leaders alleged at the time that their clients were tortured while in police detention at the notorious Matapi Police Station in Mbare.

Torture and other forms of inhuman punishment are illegal in Zimbabwe.

Western governments and local human rights groups condemned the torture of the ZCTU activists but President Robert Mugabe publicly backed the police for ill-treating the unionists who he accused of plotting to topple his government.

An ILO delegation visited the country early this year to access the situation of workers’ rights in Zimbabwe and urged the country to adhere to the international statutes on workers’ rights.

A report on Zimbabwe is to be presented at an ILO meeting in Geneva, Switzerland later this year. The report will encompass the findings of the three-man ILO investigating team.