Zimbabwe police arrested at least 10 trade unionists ahead of planned nationwide anti-government demonstrations on Tuesday, a Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) official said.
Mlamleli Sibanda, a ZCTU information official, said eight ZCTU officials had been arrested in the central city of Gweru, another in the second city of Bulawayo and one in Gwanda, a southern Zimbabwean town.
Police were not immediately able to confirm the arrests, but they had announced on state media that the intended ZCTU action was illegal.
The arrests came as the ZCTU, Zimbabwe’s largest labour body, geared up for planned nationwide demonstrations to protest high taxation, alleged human rights abuses and the escalating cost of living.
In the capital, Harare, groups of baton-wielding riot police stood guard on every street corner. The ZCTU had announced plans to gather at midday in central Harare and march to government offices to hand over a petition to the country’s finance minister.
Sibanda added that union supporters in Bulawayo on Tuesday held ”running battles with riot police” moments after they started to gather in the city centre.
He claimed one person was struck and injured by a lorry as he tried to flee the police.
Meanwhile, riot police had surrounded a hotel in Harare where the ZCTU general council, including the body’s president, Lovemore Matombo, and secretary general, Wellington Chibebe, were holding a meeting, Sibanda said.
”The place where our leaders were having a meeting has been cordoned off by riot police,” Sibanda said.
Last week Chibebe had called on members of the 250 000-strong ZCTU to support the planned national protest ”so that we can ultimately push government to act on the crisis in Zimbabwe”.
Zimbabwe is in the throes of severe economic hardship, with the annual inflation rate above 455%, 70% of the work force unemployed and chronic shortages of food, fuel and medicines due to a lack of hard currency to import them.
Those Zimbabweans who do have jobs have seen take-home wages eroded to levels that barely cover monthly transport costs. — Sapa-AFP