TUESDAY, 4.00PM
ZIMBABWEAN liberation war veterans, who have for the past week been demonstrating in support of demands for compensation pay-outs from the government’s War Victims’ Compensation Fund, on Tuesday disrupted traffic to a Harare conference centre where an African-American summit was due to begin.
Riot police stood by as the protesters were prevented from entering the grounds of the Sheraton hotel in Harare, where the four-day summit kicked off on Tuesday. Several delegates to the summit were delayed after the protest led to a huge traffic jam.
On Monday, the angry former fighters who waged the liberation war that culminated in independence in 1980, marched on President Robert Mugabe’s heavily fortified official residence, Zimbabwe House, demanding that he address them. The Zimbabwean leader, himself a former guerrilla leader and patron of the Zimbabwe National Liberation War Veterans’ Association, on Monday announced the appointment of an 11-member commission to look into allegations that senior ruling party figures have rifled the veterans’ fund.
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