Zimbabwe: IST digs deeper hole

From: Munyaradzi Gwisai <munyag@hotmail.com>
Date: Nov 16, 2009 1:55 PM
Subject: RE: Court Case
To: sociallabour@gmail.com
Cc: iso zim <iso.zimbabwe@gmail.com>, munya gmal gwisai gmal <munyagwisai@gmail.com>

Comrades

The NCC of ISO recently met and considered your above letter and responds as follows:

1. We reject out of hand the falsehoods, lies and insiuations in your letter and other documents you and your allies have widely circulated in relation to this dispute, including your being the legitimate ISO leadership in Zimbabwe, but which it will serve no purpose to go into detail or rebut at this stage.

2. As we informed you right from the start of this case and indeed as shown in our various offers to you to settle the matter out of court, it has never been our objective to have this matter resolved through the bourgeois courts.

3. Be that as it may, we remain willing as has always been the case, to settle this matter and welcome you finally coming to the same conclusion. We remain prepared to have this matter settled in an amicable manner that allows both organisations to proceed with their work without unneccssary distraction by this case. To that end we propose the following:

a. Jointly approaching the Harare Provincial Prosecutor, who had initially suggested this route but which you then rejected, and your confirming your willingness to have the disputed property currently in the hands of the police, being restored to our custody with yourselves reserving the right to initiate civil proceedings to assert your claim to the property, should you so wish, and our simultaneously withdrawing our complaint on such agreed settlement of the criminal matter.

b. The setting up of an arbitration tribunal made up of experienced revolutionary comrades from the region to determine on the dispute. We propose a tribunal made up from members of the IST Africa, since both organisations claim allegiance to such tendency and to ensure that we do not allow other hostile forces to take advantage of this dispute to accelerate division in the Zimbabwean left.

If you are agreeable to the above or have modifications to make please advice accordingly as soon as possible and thereafter we may arrange to effect the same, on or before the 19th November 2009, when the matter comes before court.

regards
M Gwisai
[General Co-ordinator ISO on behalf of NCC, International Socialist Organisation]

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From: ISO ZIM <sociallabour@gmail.com>
Date: Nov 18, 2009 12:34 PM
Subject: Court Case
To: munyagwisai@gmail.com, munyag@hotmail.com

Gwisai

1. We thank you for finally clarifying that the case against us is by the International Socialist Tendency and the group that it recognises in Zimbabwe, and not a case made in your individual capacity.

2. We still maintain that we are the only legitimate group of the ISOZ but such dispute cannot be resolved over the email;

3. As we indicated earlier, one of our major concerns is that the secret information of the organization is in the hands of the state and now that you, for the first time indicate that you want to settle the matter, we immediately agree that we must do anything possible to get equipment and information from the workers' movement, out of the hands of the state. Out of concern, not only for our members but also for whoever supports you and even for you yourself, we are prepared to put the assets of the organisation (ISOZ) in the custody of an independent respected comrade agreed by both parties. We reject any mention of civil claims as we do not think that the courts can decide something like this. We maintain that the dispute be resolved by an International Moral Tribune. It is none of the business of the court which forum is used, that in the settlement agreement we can merely state that the dispute over ownership be resolved within the workers movement.

4. We reject a panel of comprised of any member of the IST as not a single group has up to now publicly stated, despite acknowledgement of receipt of our concerns, that they are in principle against the use of the bourgeois courts to settle disputes in the workers movement.

5. As we are the aggrieved ones, having been charged in the bourgeois court and having spent 4 days in Mugabe's Gulag, we are the only ones who can decide who should be on the panel of the International Moral tribune. Of course, these should not be members or supporters of yourself or us, but people of impeccable moral standing in the workers's movement, who absolutely do not believe in the use of the bourgeois courts to settle disputes in the workers' movement. We will be discussing the names and be forwarding them to you so that we can discuss the practicalities so that should you wish to give evidence before it, you are most welcome to.

6.We are happy that you have finally admitted that the assets in dispute are indeed ISOZ property, not of your private law firm.

Please send a draft settlement agreement to us for our consideration. Please call us so that we can make arrangements to go together to have the case withdrawn. We are also arranging for a witness to accompany us to the office of the prosecutor so that the first part can be handled in a transparent manner.

Comrade Mutero

National Coordinator

0733295722

For the National Coordinating Committee of the International Socialist Organisation Zimbabwe (NCC -ISOZ)

Zimbabwe: Case of the IS tendency against members of the ISOZ to continue on Friday 6 Nov 2009 ...

Despite the principled position from the members of the ISO-Zimbabwe in defence of Mutero, Rera and Manjongo, the IS Tendency has not moved a finger to prevent the incarceration of these members in the gulag of one of the world's most hated dictatorships.

The principled position of the members of the ISOZ declare boldly that despite Gwisai charging them in a bourgeois court of the dictator Mugabe, they will not testify against him and will do everything in their power to ensure that the secrets and inner party documents that are currently in the hands of the state, are released therefrom, even if it means surrendering organizational material into the private ownership of Gwisai.

Already in the build up to this case, the ISOZ 3 had to endure 4 days in the cells of the dictatorship. Let us be clear, in Zimbabwe today, many activists are disappearing; their families, friends and organizations are looking for them, without success. We fear the worst for them. From the profile of investments in Zimbabwe, it is clear that US imperialism is the dominant player there and the dictatorship is bound hand and foot to it. In the backdrop of support by US imperialism, the Honduras coup was launched, thousands of the FARC rebels were massacred in Colombia. Yet Gwisai, with the support of the International Socialist Tendency, has no problems in handing over 3 members who he has a dispute with.

In the document, The case for revolutionary Socialism, (7 December 2003), by one of the main leaders of the of the IS, Alex Callinicos, himself an ex-Rhodesian, argues that one of the main pillars of the new world movement be based on justice. 'But what is justice?' he asks. He answers: 'it seems to me that the movement is committed to an egalitarian concept of justice'. Just how 'egalitarian' it is, is clearly shown by the use of the courts of a bloody dictatorship to settle inner-party disputes.

In the same document, Callinicos argues that the main vehicle for the way forward are the Social Forums. Well, dear comrades, when the ISOZ was arguing for breaking from the MDC when it was clear that it adopted the programme of the IMF, Callinicos was arguing that they should be patient due to their having the very Gwisai as an MDC member of parliament. When Gwisai was deposed as leader of ISOZ in November last year, he convened a faction meeting to give a cover to him becoming the chair of the Zimbabwe Social Forum (the IS path to not just socialism, but 'revolutionary socialism'). It is as head of the Zimbabwe Social Forum that Gwisai is vice-chair of the land committee that is preparing the 'new' Zimbabwe Constitution. Now, in order to smooth the path of another historic betrayal of the Zimbabwean masses who will still not get their land, where the families of the 20 000 peasants who were massacred by the very Mugabe regime in Matabeleland in 1983, will still not get their land- this time with the blessing of Gwisai, the main leadership of the ISOZ are about to be put in the jails of the bloody dictatorship. Is this what Callinicos means when he talks of the primacy of politics, in his paper , 6 Oct 2008, (Where is the radical left going?), written after the British SWP split into at least 3 parts.

It is true that the middle ground is rapidly giving way to 2 extremes, the radical left and the ultra-right. After Friday, it will be clear for the world working class that the answer to the question: Where is the radical left of the International Socialist Tendency going? The answer: to the ultra-right!

We call on the rank and file of the IS tendency to choose a divergent path from the opportunism of your leadership. Stop the case in the bourgeois courts for a dispute in the ranks of the working class movement, or at least in the movement that purports to be one.

send messages of protest to Gwisai to iso.zim@gmail.com

send messages of support to the rank and file of the ISOZ at sociallabour@gmail.com

Forward to an International Moral Tribune, comprised of irreproachable working class representatives, such as from the families of the 20 000 peasants who were massacred in Matebeleland in 1983, like prisoners of Las Heras, like the Oakland dockers, like the soliders unions in South Africa, like the Huanuni Mineworkers, like the minerworker leaders in the Peruvian jails, to judge those like Gwisai and the IS tendency who hand the heads of the proletarian movement over to the hands of a bloody dictatorship. Such is the real task before revolutionaries!


--
Shaheed Mahomed
African Secretariat
International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction.
with the support of the International Co-ordination Secretariat
1st Floor, Community House
41 Salt River rd
Salt River
South Africa
7925
ph 0822020617
fax 0865486048
workersinternational@gmail.com
web www.workersinternational.org.za

affiliated to the International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction integrated by
Liga Trotskista Internacionalista , (LTI) de Bolivia
Fraccion Trotskista , (FT) de Brasil
Partido Obrero Internactionaista- CI (POI-CI) , de Chile
Communist Workers Group (CWG) New Zealand
Liga Obrera Internacionalista- CI (LOI-CI) Argentina
Liga Trotskista Internacionalista- (LTI)Peru
Humanist Workers for Revolutionary Socialism (HWRS) USA
Workers International Vanguard League (WIVL) South Africa

Zimbabwe: Open letter to Gwisai and the entire IS tendency- URGENT 31.10.09

M Gwisai

It has come to our attention that you have laid a criminal charge against 3 fellow ISO-Zimbabwe members for allegedly forcible entry into the ISOZ office and for theft of ISOZ equipment. We call on you to immediately withdraw such charges as clearly the dispute is within the ranks of the proletariat and thus deserves proletarian methods to resolve it and not the bourgeois courts.

We urge the entire IS tendency to intervene to prevent activists from being subjected to the notorious jails of the Zanu-PF-MDC regime. The criminal case comes up before the bourgeois courts on Monday 2 Nov 2009 so your intervention is urgently required.

The first queston we would like to pose to Gwisai and the entire IS tendency is why members are denied access to their own office in the first place? Surely members have that basic right to enter and to use their own equipment. Such office and equipment are the collective property of the ISOZ, so why are members denied the use of the office and the equipment?

Secondly, the intention of those ISOZ members who took the equipment was to use it for advancing the collective interests of the proletariat, it was not for private use or for private gain. How can this be theft? (even in the bourgeois sense). Why does Gwisai now claim in front of the bourgeois courts that the office and the equipment were part of the private property of his own law firm? Why does he allow that the secret information (on the computers) of the ISOZ be so easily handed over to the hated intelligence services of Zimbabwe?

This forces us to believe that the real fight is over deeper political differences that we outline below:

Background:

1. For years a group within the ISOZ has been raising criticisms of the subjugation of the ISOZ to entryism into the MDC and thus to its politics. This compromising of the revolutionary programme to long term entryism into a reformist party is similar in essence to the subjugation of the SWP to the petty bourgeois coalition, Respect, as well as the subjugation of the SWP to the Labour Party in Britain. This criticism by this group in ISOZ was itself not consistent and has only reached decisive shape in October this year by the declaration of this group to adopt a campaign to expose the bourgeois fraud of the Constitution-making process;This is the ISOZ grouping around Mutero;

2. The dominant grouping, until Nov 2008, was the grouping around Gwisai, which has long defended the entryism into the MDC, stood as MDC parliamentarian, and has tied itself to a bourgeois constitutional approach to the struggle in Zimbabwe. [From the beginning the MDC has had representatives from the bourgeoisie in its ranks and thus was at no stage even a workers' party];

3. In November 2008 at a Congress supervised by members of the IS tendency from South Africa and Botswana, Mutero was elected as national co-ordinator along with a new leadership. A struggle ensued between the 2 factions, which, while it took administrative form, was underpinned by the different political positions- proletarian (Mutero) versus petty bourgeois(Gwisai).

4. Gwisai was accused of changing the password on the email in order to monopolise correspondence. The National Co-ordinating Committee of ISOZ expelled Gwisai for this after having found him guilty.

5. A faction meeting on 18 January 2009 convened by Gwisai 'overturned' the decision. This was purely to provide an organizational platform for the candidature of Gwisai to be chair of the pro-imperialist Zimbabwe Social Forum. From this platform Gwisai is now the deputy chair of the subcommittee on land of the bourgeois Constitution-making process which is being convened by the pro-imperialist coalition government of the MDC-Zanu-PF.

This meeting also 'expelled' most of the leadership that had been elected at the 2008 Congress, that were grouped around Mutero. Under the cover of this expulsion, the rank and file members who wanted to carry on the serious fight of opposing the betrayals in the Constitution-making process, were denied access to their own office. After repeated pleas for the organizational equipment to be returned to the office and to be made available for use by the members, the Gwisai faction continued the lockout. The members forced their way into the office and took posession of their equipment. [The massive Marxist library which members are denied access to until today, is still in the home of Gwisai]. Gwisai laid a criminal charge of forcible entry and theft of possessions of the ISOZ, with the police. The police now have the office equipment. Three, including Mutero, of the large group of members who gained entry into their own office, have been charged and without funds, face the prospect of being jailed in Zimbabwe's notorious prison system.

Call:

1. The International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction calls for the immediate dropping of charges against the 3 members of the ISOZ;

2. We call for the immediate composition of an International Moral Tribune, comprised of members who believe that disputes among the proletariat cannot be resolved in bourgeois courts, to hear Gwisai and to carry out proletarian justice against him for his betrayal of working class principles.

Forward to proletarian justice!
Down with the use of the bourgeois courts to settle disputes among revolutionaries!

--
Shaheed Mahomed
African Secretariat

International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction
1st Floor, Community House
41 Salt River rd
Salt River
South Africa
7925
ph 0822020617
fax 0865486048
workersinternational@gmail.com
web www.workersinternational.org.za

affiliated to the International Leninist Trotskyist Fraction (sections in Peru, Bolivia, Argentina, Brasil, Chile, New Zealand, USA, South Africa)

------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Response to Keep Left

2 November 2009, 12:42 pm

With regard to the allegations that Claire Ceruti (of the IS group Keep Left in South Africa) raised with us telephonically on 1.11.09:

WIVL, FLTI or any worker with a minimal class conscience must declare oneself immediately when a current which claims to be socialist denounces another current and puts it in the hands of the bourgeois State; it does not matter in what part of the world we live or wherever we are, since workers do not have frontiers but only chains to be broken. Thus we do not accept your question as to why we are involved in issues in Zimbabwe.

We are not facing a political discussion on the differences you have with the fraction that has got no agreement with the IS tendency position, but we are facing a discussion on the moral and elemental class principles.

Evidently you from the IS Tendency from South Africa (Keep Left) are accustomed to mixing the political discussions with moral discussions (when you make allegations against Adonia and others without a shred of proof); and that method is foreign to the elemental class principles, for us this is the method of Stalinism and the labor bureaucracy within the workers movement.

You tell Gwisai, or whomsoever is sending you, if he condemns or not those methods that are foreign to working class principles; and if he is willing to present the proof about what he says, in an International Moral Tribune, so that an institution of our class judges the issues, as it is correct between organizations that claim to belong to the working class.

We are not discussing the differences you have with the dissident fraction, because we are not discussing the political questions why you have split; what we are discussing about are the questions on the elemental class principles as regards the situation resulting of the accusation of Gwisai before the bourgeois State against the dissident fraction.

If Gwisai does not provide the proof and withdraw the case from bourgeois court, you, Keep Left, part of the same IS tendency of Gwisai, will be accomplices of this.

Shaheed Mahomed