The Congress of South African Trade Unions (COSATU) has continued its solidarity with the workers of Southern Africa by organizing a march this Saturday at the Southern African Development Community (SADC) summit in Johannesburg to support democracy and human rights in Zimbabwe and Swaziland and to oppose Robert Mugabe and King Mswati III.  COSATU announced the plans for the march at a Zimbabwe/Swaziland Solidarity Conference they convened this past weekend.  They are also considering a boycott of goods destined for Zimbabwe and Swaziland in September.  Click here to read a declaration from the conference.

It is inspiring to see the commitment of trade unionists in Southern Africa to working together in solidarity.  Zwelinzima Vavi, COSATU Secretary General, said in his address to the solidarity conference:

For the freedom of workers in [Zimbabwe and Swaziland] we will fight until the last drop of blood in our bodies is dried up. We shall, with the same determination as we fought against the apartheid monster, continue to wage a struggle until all of us in the region can proclaim that we succeeded to free human kind from not only the bondages of oppression and repression but from the clutches of poverty.

As I said to the preparatory meeting for this conference, to us international solidarity is the lifeblood of trade unionism. To us there are no borders when it comes to practicing the universal slogan of the working class – an injury to one is an injury to all.