President Robert Mugabe’s security forces clamped down hard on unrest during a general strike in Zimbabwe, arresting dozens of opposition supporters before the stoppage fizzled out on Wednesday.
The security forces scaled back their presence in the capital as it became clear that the call from the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) for people to remain off work until the results of March presidential results are released had failed.
”They have arrested a lot of people, more than 50, mostly MDC staff members, including a member of Parliament,” Nelson Chamisa, a spokesperson for the opposition MDC, said.
Police have confirmed the arrest of 30 opposition supporters for offences linked to the general strike, which was launched on Tuesday but struggled to win much support in a country where unemployment stands at more than 80%.
Anti-riot police were conspicuously absent from the streets on Wednesday, while traffic flowed unhindered by the roadblocks that had dotted the capital on the opening day of the strike.
A torched mini-bus in the capital’s Glen View suburb was one of the few visible signs of anything out of the ordinary as workers ignored the call to stay at home, either out of choice, fear or desperation to feed their families.
A few slabs of rock littered the main road out of Glen View while a police van loaded with about a dozen young men sporting opposition T-shirts was seen driving out of the suburb.
The MDC has tried to put a brave face on the strike’s failure and hit out angrily at the detention of its supporters.
”We don’t know for what reason they have been arrested. There is no crime in staying away. The crime is the one being committed by ZEC [the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission], which is withholding the results,” Chamisa said.
UN meeting
Meanwhile, Zimbabwe’s state media accused former colonial power Britain and the United States on Wednesday of seeking a United Nations resolution authorising military action to oust Mugabe.
The Herald daily, a mouthpiece for Mugabe’s ruling Zanu-PF party, said ambassadors for Britain and the United States had been ”frantically trying to get Zimbabwe on the agenda” of Wednesday’s high-level UN meeting.
”The move is calculated for the UN Security Council to pass a resolution and provide a basis for the US and Britain to use military intervention to topple President Mugabe,” it said.
The Zimbabwe crisis was set to overshadow Wednesday’s talks in the Security Council on closer security cooperation between the UN and the African Union.
Officially, the delayed results of Zimbabwe’s presidential election are not on the agenda of the meeting, but Western diplomats and UN chief Ban Ki-moon have served notice that they will definitely focus on the issue.
Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai claims he beat 84-year-old Mugabe outright in the presidential battle, but the ruling party says neither man won a clear victory and insists a run-off will be needed.
Tsvangirai had previously ruled out his participation in a second ballot, but back-pedalled from that position on Tuesday, indicating he would be prepared to compete under certain conditions.
But the 56-year-old opposition leader also accused Mugabe’s ruling party of trying to lay the groundwork for a run-off that would be fixed in his favour.
”We will not be part of it … unless the new electoral environment is assured with the participation of the Southern African Development Community [SADC], with the participation of the international community, with the confidence of Zimbabwe to go through another election.”
At an emergency summit in Lusaka on the weekend, SADC offered to send an observer mission for any run-off, but stopped short of criticising the poll result delay or Mugabe’s government.
After the double-blow of the soft SADC statement and the rejection of its legal bid, the opposition had hoped its strike call would re-energise efforts to put pressure on the veteran strongman.
Tensions have been steadily mounting in the Southern African nation over the poll. The opposition said two of its members were killed by Mugabe supporters over the weekend in politically motivated murders.
A Zimbabwean court on Wednesday acquitted a US journalist and a British national charged with reporting on March elections without accreditation. — AFP
