Health workers hold a candlelight vigil to protest the disappearance of Peter Magombeyi, the leader of their union, in Harare
HARARE, Sept 20 (NNN-AGENCIES) — Striking doctors in Zimbabwe marched to parliament on Thursday to protest the disappearance of their union leader and press the government to increase their pay after a court ruled that police should not interfere with the march.
Police had blocked previous attempts by the doctors to march to President Emmerson Mnangagwa’s offices and to parliament to present petitions after Peter Magombeyi, the leader of the Zimbabwe Hospitals Doctors Association (ZDHA), went missing.
The group challenged the police actions and High Court Judge Clement Phiri ruled that the doctors could go ahead with Thursday’s march after lawyers for the police conceded that the actions by law enforcement agents were unlawful.
ZDHA represents junior and middle level doctors at public hospitals. The doctors have been on strike since Sept. 3, demanding a further pay increase as living costs soar.
As in the past, the government has called in army medics to help in the hospitals, which are already struggling with shortages of medicines.
“The situation in our hospitals is so saddening and we don’t draw any pleasure from it. The sooner it ends the better for us,” Tawanda Zvakada, ZHDA acting secretary general said after handing in a petition to parliament.
Riot police were out in full force and cordoned off a park near parliament where the doctors gathered, to stop ordinary citizens from joining the demonstration.
Peter Magombeyi, president of the Zimbabwe Hospital Doctors Association (ZHDA) and one organiser of an ongoing strike to demand higher wages for state doctors because of soaring living costs, disappeared on Saturday night.
“As health professionals we are being threatened by security elements. Both nurses and doctors are regularly being told that resisting what the government offers them will result in their death,” according to a doctors petition to parliament.
“Evidence of the threats is available in audio and text messages,” the petition said without giving more details.
Edric Nhema, secretary general for the country’s nurses union who was part of the salary negotiating team with Magombeyi, told doctors at Parirenyatwa Hospital before the march that he had received death threats from unknown people.
State security minister Owen Ncube said in a statement that the government was treating Magombeyi’s case as a disappearance and not an abduction as alleged by the doctor’s colleagues.
He said the timing of Magombeyi’s disappearance, ahead of the United Nations annual meeting and at a time a U.N. special rapporteur on human rights was in Zimbabwe, pointed to work by a “third force” meant to tarnish the country’s image.
Dozens of riot police blocked more than 200 doctors on Wednesday as they marched to parliament to present their petition chanting “no Peter, no work”.
Human rights groups say they have recorded more than 20 cases of abductions of activists by state security agents since January. The government denies any involvement.
Churches under the Zimbabwe Heads of Christian Denominations (ZHOCD) groups said they were worried that after many reported cases of abduction, no one had been arrested.
“This has put the security of citizens at the highest level of vulnerability,” ZHOCD said in a statement, adding that Mnangagwa should publicly condemn abductions and torture of civilians. — NNN-AGENCIES
