Offices and factories in Zimbabwe’s two main cities were operating as normal on Wednesday on the second day of a 48-hour strike called by the main labour organisation over the deepening economic crisis. Many workers said they can ill afford to forsake part of their pay or risk losing their jobs.
Inflation in crisis-riddled Zimbabwe is projected to reach at least 2 500% this month, the official Herald newspaper reported on Wednesday. The annual inflation rate in once-prosperous Zimbabwe is already at 1 729,9% — the highest rate in the world.
Zimbabwe’s state media ratcheted up its attacks on Western diplomats accused of supporting government opponents on Tuesday with an apparent death threat against British embassy political officer Gillian Dare. ”It will be a pity for her family to welcome her home at Heathrow airport in a body bag,” wrote David Samuriwo in the Herald.
Fear crippled a national strike called by Zimbabwe unions on Tuesday as workers, companies and shops heeded government warnings to continue with business in an economy verging on collapse. The government says the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Unions called the strike as part of a plot by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change to oust it.
Zimbabwean police and troops fanned out through impoverished townships on Tuesday on the first day of a two-day national strike called to protest deepening economic hardships blamed on the government. Four trucks carrying soldiers were seen headed to the southern town of Chitungwiza, 25km from Harare.
Zimbabwean police have asked a special police branch to maintain order during Tuesday’s two-day general strike called by the country’s main labour body, a spokesperson said. ”The National Reaction Force … will be deployed in all problem areas to ensure that there is law and order during this illegal stayaway,” police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena said.
Nine opposition activists who were to be arraigned on charges of attempted murder and illegal weapons possession all required medical attention for injuries sustained since their arrests, doctors said. One of the activists collapsed in the courthouse, and the judge agreed to lawyers’ appeals to adjourn Saturday’s hearing and allow them to get medical treatment.
A police crackdown in Zimbabwe moved into well-to-do residential suburbs in the nation’s capital where scores of teenagers were detained in a raid on a popular disco, witnesses said on Sunday. Some of the teenagers were hit with riot batons and slapped by paramilitary police who said they were clamping down on alleged underage drinking, witnesses said.
Zimbabwe’s ruling party endorsed President Robert Mugabe as its candidate in presidential elections next year, papering over internal divisions about the country’s economic meltdown and shrugging off international criticism of the clampdown on opposition activists.
A defiant Robert Mugabe openly acknowledged an assault on Zimbabwe’s opposition leader on Friday as he sought his ruling party’s nomination to stand once again in next year’s presidential election. The veteran president told supporters he had not received one word of criticism from his fellow Southern African leaders at a summit the day before.
Zimbabwe’s ruling party was expected to pick Robert Mugabe again as its candidate on Friday for next year’s presidential election after the beleaguered leader won strong public backing from his peers. The central committee of the Zanu-PF was to meet in Harare where it was set to rubberstamp a decision by its politburo earlier this week to extend Mugabe’s tenure.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe can expect to come under growing behind-the-scenes pressure to engage with his opponents despite escaping public censure from his peers, analysts said on Friday. Leaders of a 14-member regional bloc held off from criticising the veteran president over the political and economic crisis on their doorstep at a summit on Thursday.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition party denied it was stockpiling weapons or waging a terror campaign, as state media reported that police had seized weapons and explosives at the party’s headquarters during a raid. The leader of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) was freed after being held by police for several hours after Wednesday’s raid.
Zimbabwe police said on Wednesday they had arrested 10 opposition supporters during a raid on the offices of the Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) but denied leader Morgan Tsvangirai had been detained. ”We never arrested him,” police spokesperson Wayne Bvudzijena told reporters after the MDC said Tsvangirai been arrested.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested on Wednesday in a raid at the headquarters of his Movement for Democratic Change in Harare, a party spokesperson said. Tsvangirai and about 20 administrative members of staff were detained by members of President Robert Mugabe’s security services.
Zimbabwe’s main opposition leader announced on Tuesday he will boycott presidential elections scheduled for next year unless the poll is carried out under a new democratic constitution that ensures they are free and fair. Morgan Tsvangirai said a free election was the constitutional and democratic right of Zimbabweans.
Zimbabwe President Robert Mugabe will attend a regional meeting in Tanzania this week, official reports said on Tuesday, as pressure mounts on African leaders to tackle his controversial rule. Mugabe will brief leaders from the Southern African Development Community at the special summit, the official Herald newspaper said.
A British woman and her 10-year-old daughter were killed by a rogue elephant while her husband escaped unhurt during a hunting tour in Zimbabwe, state media reported on Tuesday. The tourists were apparently watching a lone elephant while they were hiding behind an anthill, said a parks official.
Zimbabwe’s opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) on Monday accused the government of sponsoring recent acts of violence, including petrol-bombing incidents, to justify a major crackdown on the resurgent party. The police have accused the MDC of leading a ”militia-style” campaign of violence to topple President Robert Mugabe from power.
Drought has wiped out 95% of maize crops in a province of southern Zimbabwe, reports said on Monday. Matabeleland South is now expected to harvest just 5 580 tons of maize, out of the province’s required 115 565 tons, the official Herald newspaper said.
Long-ruling Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe on Friday castigated opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai as being a stooge of the West and vowed he would never rule the country. ”Tsvangirai, you want to rule this country on behalf of [British Prime Minister Tony] Blair,” Mugabe told hundreds of supporters at his party headquarters.
The government of Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe on Friday issued a chilling threat against Western journalists working in the Southern African country. The information ministry warned journalists, including Jan Raath of the Times and Peta Thornycroft of the Daily Telegraph that the government might be forced to act against them.
A top Zimbabwean Roman Catholic cleric said on Thursday he was ready to face bullets in anti-government street protests to help restore the rule of law in President Robert Mugabe’s Zimbabwe. Pius Ncube, archbishop of the southern Bulawayo diocese, told a news conference that Zimbabweans must take to the streets over rights abuses by Mugabe’s government.
The Zimbabwean government has urged African nations to join hands to fight domination by powerful Western countries, state-media reported Thursday. ”The new global village … poses the danger of forcing the poor, newly independent and formerly exploited countries .. to play the game when the table is badly tilted against them,” Information Minister Sikhanyiso Ndlovu said.
The Angolan embassy in Zimbabwe rejected on Thursday as ”completely false” reports that the Angolan government would send 3 000 police officers to Zimbabwe to bolster the security forces there. ”This information is completely false,” it said in a statement.
Zimbabwe’s High Court has allowed two opposition officials to travel abroad for medical treatment after they were barred from leaving the country by police last weekend, official media reported on Thursday. High court judge Barat Patel ordered that Sekai Holland and Grace Kwinje be released and their travel documents returned, according to the Herald newspaper.
Lecturers at Zimbabwe’s three state universities have called off a three-week pay strike after being ordered back to work by the country’s labour court, their union said on Wednesday. The lecturers are to go immediately into fresh negotiations with their employers, hoping to resolve an ongoing salary dispute.
Zimbabwe’s food crisis will worsen this year because of a drought that has decimated maize and other key crops, a government minister said on Tuesday amid rising tension in the economically depressed African country. Zimbabwe is struggling with an economic crisis marked by chronic shortages of food, fuel and foreign currency.
Zimbabwe’s foreign minister told Western diplomats on Monday they would be expelled if they gave financial or diplomatic support to government opponents. Pressuring diplomats would make it even harder for the international community to keep tabs on a government accused of repressing its people and ruining its economy.
The Zimbabwe government brushed off fresh criticism on Monday over its crackdown on the opposition Movement for Democratic Change. After a senior opposition figure trying to leave the country was beaten so badly he had to be hospitalised on Sunday, the European Union and United States issued strongly worded condemnations.
Zimbabwean police say opposition leaders Morgan Tsvangirai and Arthur Mutambara and more than 40 other activists arrested last week are not allowed to leave the country until their case is finalised in court, a newspaper reported Monday. Mutambara, who leads a breakaway faction of the Movement for Democratic Change was arrested at Harare International Airport on Saturday.
Zimbabwe’s opposition vowed to finish off its campaign to topple President Robert Mugabe as its leader left hospital in a wheelchair on Friday following his beating at the hands of the security services. Senior Movement for Democratic Change officials and other opposition leaders promised to take to the streets again to demonstrate against the government.