Zimbabwe’s army warned on Thursday it will bring its ”full force” to bear on next week’s anti-government strike and protest marches if they turn violent.
The Zimbabwe Defence Forces ”will not be an idle observer” to the planned street demonstrations, it said in a statement cited in the state-run Herald daily.
”Instead it will bring to bear its full force upon those perpetrators of uncalled for violence,” it added.
The Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) has called for a week of anti-government national strikes and street marches starting June 2.
The MDC says it wants peaceful protest marches but the authorities anticipate outbreaks of violence that have characterised previous strikes.
”It is a fact that previous stayaways turned violent with both innocent lives of citizens and property being deliberately destroyed,” the army said.
The MDC has been running advertisements in the private media urging the armed forces not to subvert their professionalism by aligning themselves to the ruling party of President Robert Mugabe as if they were a ”private force”.
”National security forces are not and should never play the role of political arbiters or judges in the people’s struggle against dictatorship,” the MDC said in its advert.
But the army said its key role is to guarantee peace, stability, territorial integrity and the preservation of law and order. It also warned the opposition not to interfere with the military in the performance of their duties.
The police force through its minister this week warned it will crush the opposition demonstrations if it turns violent.
”We are ready to crush any demonstrations which will lead to the destruction of property or is a threat to national security,” Home Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi said.
Pro-government war veterans also warned the MDC last week that they would clamp down on any anti-Mugabe demostrations. – Sapa-AFP