Zimbabwe’s riot police battled all week to restrain angry citizens, using batons, tear gas and arrests — but the surging crowds smashed windows and stormed restricted areas.
These are not anti-government protests but the actions of furious depositors at banks across the country demanding their money. In addition to dire shortages of food, cooking oil and petrol, Zimbabweans now face a drastic shortage of the most precious commodity of all — cash.
Zimbabwe’s banks are surrounded by snaking queues of hundreds, sometimes thousands, of people who wait until a shop or business deposits some cash. The bank doles out meagre portions of Zimbabwe dollar notes to the restless crowds.
Iddah Mandaza, a Harare factory supervisor, said: ‘Women are sitting on the floor and crocheting, they feed their babies. Some people sleep on the floor. At night people sleep in the queues outside. It is chaos, but we need our money!’
Mandaza said people blamed President Robert Mugabe for the latest crisis. ‘They say Mugabe should have to come to the banks to get his pay. They say betta andaye (better for him to go).’
With inflation of 360% and rising, the government has not provided enough banknotes to keep the economy afloat. As a result banks do not have cash to pay people whose salaries have been deposited into accounts. People desperate to buy whatever food and petrol they can find and pay their monthly bills cannot get money from their accounts.
Some banks that have money are limiting people to Z$5 000 a day, which does not go very far when bread costs Z$1 000 a loaf.
Those storming the banks to demand their money include police and army officers and schoolteachers. Most civil servants got hefty pay raises this month. But they cannot get their pay.
The crisis even affects the dead. Harare’s mortuary cannot cope with the number of bodies unclaimed by families unable to afford burial costs.
Zimbabwe was once one of the most prosperous countries in Africa, but now has the fastest-shrinking economy in the world. It has lost a third of its Gross Domestic Product in four years. Such a contraction is usually only experienced in war, say economists, who point to Mugabe’s over-budget spending, fixed exchange rate, price controls and negative interest rates.
Mugabe’s economic policies are now becoming one of the most potent pressures against his continued rule. Those in the bank queues and their hungry families are pressing for political change. Last week, Mugabe was forced to admit to a delegation of church leaders that his people are suffering. He agreed to co-operate with their efforts to mediate in negotiations with the opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC). Bishops from the Catholic, Anglican and evangelical faiths also met with the MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai.
Evangelical bishop Trevor Manhanga, one of the mediators, expressed ‘cautious optimism’ about talks. ‘The President understands the urgency of the matter, just as Mr Tsvangirai does,’ he said.
Both sides need to agree to a credible solution before the heads of government meeting in Nigeria in December to prevent Zimbabwe from being expelled from the Commonwealth. – Guardian Unlimited Â