In a country dealing with a severe economic crisis, many fear steps to curb coronavirus will hit the poor people hard.
Mangwana declares national disaster over coronavirus, COVID-19 had infected seven people in Zimbabwe and caused the death of one person, 30-year-old broadcast ZororoMakamba. MDC-ALLIANCE leader Nelson Chamisa praised the decision by President Mnangagwa to lockdown the country for 21 days from as a measure to contain Covid-19.This shows their full support for the government's plan, which will only cause even more sufferings for the workers and the poor.
The threat of the new disease could not have come at a worse time for millions of Zimbabweans already struggling with a deepening economic crisis bringing soaring food prices, stagnant salaries, water shortages and daily power blackouts.
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe's annual inflation soared to more than 500 percent in February. The unemployment rate stands at more than 90 percent, medicines are scarce, and depleted state coffers mean that the government is unable to purchase sufficient supplies for the already weakened state-run medical facilities.
Self-quarantine is Elitist and only the bourgeoisie can afford to do so. The workers and the poor always suffer most of all pandemics, due to abject poverty and because the bourgeoisie burdens the blunt of the crisis on them.
Workers from industries and services declared "essential", those who are really guaranteeing that everything works during quarantine, continue to work without any protection, exposed to contagion and death. Among the workers of;
• banking institutions
• supermarkets & food retail outlets
• fuel outlets
• pharmacies
• laboratories
• health care providers
• transport for staff working in essential services etc.
Lockdown for the poor, the informal sector but business as usual for the bosses and capitalists & leaving workers totally at the mercy of employers.
Bosses and workers are "facing together" the crisis? Fakers! We are ruled by a handful of exploiters who guarantee their profits in the midst of hell for the vast majority of the people! The generals of the military dictatorship, the ZANU-PF and also the MDC, which as we have said have praised the measures taken by Mnangagwa, they are all together against the workers. They have multiplied a thousand times the sufferings that the workers were suffering with the economic crisis.
But they know that misery and pandemic could very well end up causing an outburst of the exploited.
We need to mobilize for pro-worker and real response to Coronavirus. A Workers' Health Emergency Plan must be imposed right now in the streets, which guarantees that the people do not pay for this crisis or stop before any privilege or property right, to make the necessary resources available to a health plan for the population. From the ZCTU, the worker's' organizations, militant student organizations and doctors, a public health committee must be set up so that the people survive the pandemic, hunger, unemployment and misery.
The people must do the quarantine, but with wages equal to the family basket for all workers, employed and unemployed, with food and all necessary services guaranteed, and those who operate in the necessary sectors must have all the necessary prevention measures, sanity and security. Banks and mines must be nationalized without payment to put all the resources for the health and food for the people! Expropriation without payment of all the transnational corporations that plunder Zimbabwe! Not a dollar to pay the foreign debt! Out with the IMF!
The committees of consumers, poor peasants and agricultural workers must be set up for food! The large tracts of land must be expropriated without compensation and the entire chain of food intermediaries to guarantee there are not lacking of food in workers' and the poor people's homes.
In this quarantine, we must have maximum health, hygiene conditions and decent housing for the exploited. Expropriation without payment of the hotels and anyone who owns more than two properties dedicated to profit to guarantee a decent house for the exploited so that they can do the quarantine!
Let no one go to work if it is not controlled by doctors from all the social health services in defense of the workers.
Those on top only think about them and their profits, we don't delegate to the bosses!
The working class must lead the fight against the coronavirus pandemic!
Enough of military dictatorship! For a revolutionary provisional government of workers and poor peasants!
Workers International League (WIL) of Zimbabwe