More than 100 leading trade unionists and civic leaders in Zimbabwe were arrested yesterday when riot police broke up groups countrywide who were peacefully demonstrating against Robert Mugabe’s increasingly autocratic rule.
Hundreds of officers, many armed with automatic rifles, took up positions across the capital, Harare, in anticipation of the protest, which was organised by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZTCU) ahead of the government’s budget tomorrow.
Police arrested eight union leaders yesterday morning in a pre-emptive strike to try to stop the demonstrations. But more than 100 people gathered in Harare’s city centre and took off their shirts to reveal ZCTU T-shirts. Police immediately arrested them before they could march more than a few metres.
In Zimbabwe’s second city, Bulawayo, an estimated 50 trade union members were arrested and many were assaulted by police, according to witnesses. Labour movement protesters were also arrested in the industrial city of Gweru, in Zimbabwe’s midlands, as well as in the eastern border city of Mutare, and at Victoria Falls in the west.
Yesterday’s action was to protest against the government’s disastrous economic policies, which have led to an inflation rate of 525%, one of the world’s highest, and an unemployment level of 70%. The demonstrations were also against the persistent abuse of trade union and basic human rights by the government of President Mugabe.
”These arrests are proof of the charges by Zimbabwean civil society and others in the Commonwealth that there is no rule of law in Zimbabwe,” said Tawanda Hondora, a lawyer, who was working to get the arrested unionists released yesterday.
”There are gross human rights violations here. We are under a state of siege. Union members cannot engage in any form of public expression. They are arrested and brutally beaten and illegally incarcerated.” Hondora said that he and other lawyers were being illegally prevented from seeing those arrested.
The demonstrations were also a clear warning to the finance minister, Herbert Murerwa, not to raise taxes and prices in his budget statement. Protesters in Harare plan to converge on parliament, where Mr Murerwa is due to make his speech.
Police warned that anti-government protests would not be tolerated and accused ”rogue elements” of trying to disrupt the economy. Officers have also broken up meetings of the labour union’s general council, declaring them illegal political gatherings under the country’s stringent security laws. These outlaw public gatherings of more than three people without police approval.
The ZCTU labour federation is closely allied to Zimbabwe’s main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change. The two groups have succeeded in holding national strikes to protest about economic mismanagement, and acute shortages of food, fuel, local cash and other essentials.
Once known as ”the breadbasket of southern Africa” for its harvests, Zimbabwe now depends on international aid to feed nearly half of its 13 million people, following seizures by the government of thousands of white-owned farms.
Rather than redistributing land to poor black farmers, as Mugabe claimed happened, the government gave many of the best farms to leaders of the ruling party, Zanu-PF. Most of the seized farmland now lies fallow because of acute shortages of seeds and fertilisers.
Those still in jail last night included the secretary-general of ZCTU, Wellington Chibhebhe; Lovemore Matombo, the group’s chairman; Raymond Majongwe, a teachers’ union leader; Lovemore Madhuku, head of the National Constitutional Assembly; Brian Raftopoulos and John Makumbe, of the Zimbabwe in Crisis Coalition; and Andy Moyse, of the Media Monitoring Project.
Despite continuing fears about the tactics of the Mugabe regime, the president has insisted the country’s suspension from the Commonwealth is not valid. He said on state television that it was only ”white racists” in the Commonwealth who were preventing his attending the summit in Nigeria. – Guardian Unlimited Â