Zimbabwean banks ran out of cash and supermarket shelves were emptied as panic that a new showdown between the government, the opposition and trade unions was looming gripped the Southern African country.
The crisis has deepened to the point where South African President Thabo Mbeki and Nigeria’s President Olusegun Obasanjo are to press President Robert Mugabe to retire, in an attempt to break the country’s economic and humanitarian deadlock.
In Harare, queues snaked in and out of banks as thousands tried to withdraw their cash to buy and hoard basic commodities in anticipation of the possible indefinite stayaway hinted at by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU), the country’s largest labour movement.
Last week’s ZCTU-organised three-day stayaway, to protest against fuel price hikes of more than 300% a week before, paralysed the nation.
ZCTU president Lovemore Matombo said the union would organise indefinite mass action unless the government reversed the new prices.
Last weekend Amos Midzi, Zimbabwe’s Minister of Energy, insisted his government would not revise the increases, saying ”the ZCTU can keep on dreaming”.
Meanwhile, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has also officially responded to a conditional call from Mugabe for dialogue by telling the Zanu-PF leader to denounce violence first.
”As a demonstration of its sincerity, the Mugabe regime must immediately put a stop to all forms of state-sponsored violence, uphold the rule of law and respect human rights,” MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai said on Wednesday.
Mugabe recently said he was prepared to talk to Tsvangirai to solve the country’s economic and political crisis.
”All Zanu-PF militias must be disbanded … and the war veterans must be disarmed,” Tsvangirai told senior party officials in Harare.
Additional reporting by The Guardian