WOZA Stages Another Peaceful Demo Outside Parliament

More than 200 members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (WOZA) marched Tuesday through the streets of Harare and converged outside parliament, a day after staging peaceful protests in Bulawayo, calling for the holding of an all-stakeholders conference that will lead to a referendum.

WOZA coordinator Jenny Williams said the activists will not stop until the final draft constitution is released for public scrutiny.

“Today was just another warm up. If we do not get the (parliamentary constitution commitee) COPAC draft released and the people don't start having the opportunity to interrogate it then we will just carry on with these demonstrations. They have had three years and their time is up,” said Williams.

The three principals in the government of national unity are at loggerheads over the constitution-making process after Zanu PF came up with a counter proposal to the final draft document which negotiators of the former ruling party had endorsed.

Williams said instead of agreeing on the draft constitution, Zanu PF is now pushing for the release of an initial national report compiled by the committee "which it ‘rigged’ during the outreach phase of the constitution-making process".

“Our recommendations were not taken by the technical partners the United Nations Development Program to make sure that they restructured the manner in which the outreach program was conducted.

Interview with Jenni Williams

“Zanu PF is a party that only spoke to their war veterans ... their youth militias who had no freedom to express their personal views except to parrot a robotic phrase that they were brainwashed to parrot in those meetings.”