Their arrest and detention prove that Robert Mugabe is doing everything he can to destroy the Government of National Unity. It demonstrates the correctness of the joint COSATU/ZCTU statement of 29 January 2009 which pointed out then that "the police are still under the control of ZANU-PF, abducting, detaining and torturing political opponents of the ruling elite".

As the federations warned, the GNU will never work while one party - ZANUPF - has sole control over the police and judiciary, and uses that control to frustrate the whole GNU project and retain power in the hands of the party who lost the elections on 29 March 2009.