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Last Updated: Oct 7, 2008 - 8:33:43 AM |
On 16 September, 23 regional representatives of ICEM’s Sub-Saharan
African Region met in Douala, Cameroon, and developed an ambitious
agenda around project work, organising, and health, safety, and
environmental matters. The forum was headed by Regional Chairman
Rayford Mbulu, General Secretary of the Mineworkers’ Union of Zambia,
and served as the Executive Meeting of the region.
Delegates took up the dire political situations on the continent,
including the power-sharing agreement now in place in Zimbabwe between
political parties headed by Morgan Tsvangirai and Robert Mugabe. The
committee gave a cautious nod toward the arrangement, but did call it a
step in the right direction for Zimbabwe. The ICEM African union
leaders called for monitoring of the power-sharing commitment by the
world’s political leaders.
The Sub-Saharan African committee also expressed concern over political
situations in the Democratic Republic of Congo, Côte d’Ivoire, Somalia,
and Sudan.
The committee gave whole-hearted support to the inauguration of an ICEM
project on Contract and Agency Labour in the region, with trade
unionists from the former WFIW present promising to explore avenues of
additional funding. They also discussed the possibility of development
of a project around Chinese investment in Africa, as well as a separate
women’s project.
They also took up a situation involving a uranium mining project in
Malawi. An NGO, Citizens for Justice Malawi, has brought the project
before the ICEM region on environmental and workers’ rights grounds.
The project, by Australian Paladin Energy Ltd., is expected to begin
extraction early in 2009. The regional committee will dispatch a
fact-finding team consisting of ICEM Regional Coordinator Fabian Nkomo
and Derrick Elbrecht, the General Treasurer of South Africa’s National
Union of Mineworkers (NUM).
Besides ICEM President Senzeni Zokwana of NUM, other representatives of
ICEM affiliates present at the 16 September regional Executive Meeting
includes comrades from Botswana, Cameroon, Côte d’Ivoire, Democratic
Republic of Congo, Nigeria, South Africa, Togo, Zambia, and Zimbabwe.
Source:Ocnus.net 2008
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