Police brandishing whips and some carrying guns broke up demonstrations by women and students in Bulawayo city and arrested 159 of the protesters who were marching across the city calling on President Robert Mugabe to resign.
The students from the National University of Science and Technology and members of Women of Zimbabwe Arise (Woza) were by late on Tuesday night still being detained at Bulawayo central police station. A one-year-old baby — taken along with its mother, who was part of the demonstrators — was also in police cells.
Woza leader Jennifer Williams, who was among those arrested, said the protest was part of a Valentine’s Day message to Mugabe and his ruling Zanu-PF party to address Zimbabwe’s fast-deteriorating economic crisis and ensure availability of basic commodities.
Williams said: “We were marching for bread and roses. We deserve roses and the dignity they stand for. Our message to the regime, Mugabe in particular, is that he has failed and should just leave office. We are tired of starvation.”
Zimbabwe is in its sixth year of a severe economic recession described by the World Bank as unseen in a country not at war. The economic crisis has manifested itself in high inflation that, according to figures released by the government’s Central Statistical Office on Tuesday, shot up to 613,2% in January, up from the 585,5% recorded the previous month.
In addition, the economic crisis has also spawned acute shortages of food, fuel, electricity, bread, essential medical drugs and just about every basic survival commodity.
The women and student marchers, who numbered more than 500, were carrying red roses and waving placards, some of which read: “We are dying of starvation and all we need is food on the table. Not cheap politics.”
Mugabe, blamed by critics for ruining Zimbabwe’s once-vibrant economy, routinely pleads innocent of the charge of wrecking the economy and instead blames Western countries he says are sabotaging the Southern African nation’s economy to fix Harare for seizing white-owned land for redistribution to landless blacks.
Police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena confirmed the arrest of the Bulawayo protesters, but said no charges had been laid against them yet because police were still carrying out investigations.
The police — sometimes with the help of Zimbabwe army soldiers — regularly use force to break up demonstrations by opposition supporters and other government opponents.
Traders assaulted
Meanwhile, the police on Sunday night heavily assaulted informal traders near Harare’s Market Square bus termini. Baton-wielding police officers descended on the traders as they checked their goods after arriving by bus from Botswana.
One of the traders said: “It was hardly 15 minutes after we had disembarked from the bus and we were checking our goods to see whether everything had been offloaded from the bus when a police truck suddenly appeared from around a corner.
“The policemen jumped off the truck and just started beating us without saying why they were beating us. We just had to run away.”
A police spokesperson, Oliver Mandipaka, said he was not aware of the incident but added people are free to make formal complaints to police authorities if they feel they were treated unfairly by members of the law-enforcement agency.
“I am not aware that anybody was beaten up by the police. Anyone who thinks he has been unfairly treated by the police should make a formal complaint and we will look at that,” Mandipaka said. — ZimOnline