WEDNESDAY, 3.00PM:
SOME 300 school children, all of them aged under 12, rioted in Harare on Tuesday, vandalising a bar belonging to a local MP when they discovered that their school had been turned into a high school without their knowledge.
The pupils of Glenview Primary School arrived for the first day of term on Tuesday to discover that the local MP, Clive Chimbi, had arranged for their school to be turned into a high school — without bothering to inform the parents.
Some 300 of the students attacked a bar belonging to Chimbi, smashing windows, a jukebox and steel screens surrounding the bar counter, and injuring the barman. Although Zimbabwean school pupils have rioted in the past, this is the first case involving primary school children.
The Harare daily, the Herald quoted residents saying they were “dumbfounded to see so many young children charging in anger and shouting for the MP’s head”.
There were also incidents in the Harare suburb of Mabvuku, where other primary schools were also closed to make way for high schools, and the children sent home.
WEDNESDAY, 11.00AM:
HUNDREDS of marchers protested in Harare on Tuesday over price rises of between 17 and 40% on basic commodities, forced by increased costs and the fall of the Zimbabwean dollar against hard currencies. Protesters appealed to President Mugabe to intervene and subsidize basic goods. On Sunday the mainly white business community was accused by Information Minister Chen Chimutengwende of retaliating against government plans to forcibly buy 5,5 million ha. of mostly white-owned farmland.