Zimbabwe’s main labour movement has called a two-day strike from Friday to demand the release of union leaders and rights activists arrested this week during protests against the government’s economic policies.
The start of the strike will coincide with tomorrow’s budget speech to parliament by the finance minister, Herbert Murerwa.
Riot police arrested Zimbabwe’s main trade union leaders and dozens of rights activists around the country on Tuesday as they broke up marches called to protest against a deepening economic crisis.
The Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions (ZCTU) said police had arrested more than 360 people in the capital, Harare, and several other towns, but police said they had detained 88 people who would be charged with staging illegal demonstrations.
The ZCTU urged people to stay at home to press President Robert Mugabe’s government to cut taxes, respect human and trade union rights and to keep transport and consumer prices at affordable levels.
Mugabe’s opponents accuse him of economic mismanagement and blame the country’s woes partly on land reforms that saw white-owned commercial farms handed to landless black Zimbabweans. Mugabe says his land reforms are designed to redress an injustice of British colonial rule and accuses opponents at home and abroad of sabotaging the economy. – Guardian Unlimited Â