The streets of the Zimbabwe capital, Harare, were quiet early on Thursday after civil rights groups and the opposition called for a two-day strike to protest growing social and economic hardships and a crackdown by police against the urban poor.
Three weeks after Zimbabwe launched an unpopular urban clean-up drive that has drawn widespread criticism and made thousands homeless and destitute in the height of winter, authorities on Wednesday widened the crackdown to previously white-owned farms now in the hands of blacks.
Hundreds of police were deployed in the Zimbabwean capital on Wednesday and army units were reportedly on standby before a two-day strike called by critics of President Robert Mugabe to protest his clampdown on street traders and slum dwellers.
An official from Zimbabwe’s ruling party has told a court in Harare he was tortured into making statements over his alleged role in selling state secrets to South Africa. Kenny Karidza, a security official in President Robert Mugabe’s Zanu-PF party was arrested with four other top party members in December.
A Zimbabwean jailed for his role in an alleged plot to overthrow the government of Equatorial Guinea has finally been released, several weeks after 61 of his South African counterparts, a newspaper said on Wednesday. Moses Moyo was released last week but was not deported back to South Africa.
Zimbabwean police briefly detained an opposition legislator and his two aides on Wednesday, the eve of a mass two-day strike against a highly controversial urban clean-up campaign which has displaced several thousand people.
Cash-strapped Zimbabwe is prosecuting about 50 hotels and tourist resorts for allegedly failing to remit foreign currency earnings to the central bank, a newspaper reported on Monday.
Zimbabwe’s police force issued a warning to government opponents not to protest President Robert Mugabe’s two-week blitz on street traders and urban shack dwellers, saying extra manpower had been deployed to suppress any disturbances.
Zimbabwe’s central bank governor has admitted authorising a bank transfer by the country’s former finance minister who is on trial for corruption. Reserve Bank Governor Gideon Gono, who is spearheading an anti-corruption drive, was speaking at the trial of Chris Kuruneri, accused of siphoning scarce foreign currency out of the country.
The Zimbabwean government has cracked the whip on an errant deputy minister for violating government policy and has ordered the minister of anti-corruption and anti-monopolies to launch an investigation into his activities. Bright Matongo has been personally instructed by President Robert Mugabe to vacate land owned by Tom Beattie.
Zimbabwe said Thursday it didn’t ask for and doesn’t need the food aid the United Nations has promised, insisting it can provide for its own people amid a mounting humanitarian crisis rooted in politics. The minister of social welfare said Zimbabwe has bought 1,2 tonnes of corn from South Africa.
Zimbabwean opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai on Wednesday called for action against a ”tyrannical” urban clean-up campaign that has left thousands destitute and homeless and led to the arrest of about 22 000 people in Harare.
The head of the United Nations World Food Programme (WFP) met with Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe in Harare on Wednesday for what was described as ”a good conversation” on Zimbabwe’s growing food crisis. UN envoy James Morris said the WFP was ready to provide Zimbabwe and other Southern African countries with humanitarian assistance following a drought.
A Zimbabwean man who recently spent three weeks in prison for ”shouting subversive statements” about President Robert Mugabe has been discharged by a court, the state-controlled Herald reported on Tuesday. Several Zimbabweans are arrested every year for insulting Mugabe.
The oldest, most populous township in Zimbabwe’s capital was filled with debris on Monday as police pressed on with a highly unpopular drive to clean up Harare, while resident complained they were hit by a ”tsunami”.
Police in Zimbabwe continued demolishing thousands of shacks and vendors’ kiosks in opposition strongholds on Monday, burning a 10km-long line of curio stalls near Victoria Falls. A spokesperson for the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change called the crackdown a ”tyranny” and urged people to resist.
United Nations envoy for humanitarian needs James Morris winds up his trip to drought-stricken Southern African this week, meeting with Zimbabwe’s President Robert Mugabe to discuss food needs. Morris has already been forewarned by the state media not to overstep his mandate when he visits the country on Wednesday.
Zimbabwe’s struggling national airline has been criticised by the government for launching a new route from Harare to Dubai which saw the national carrier recently flying home with one passenger, the state-controlled Herald newspaper reported on Monday.
Zimbabwean church representatives on Sunday denounced the week-long crackdown against street traders and shack dwellers, while police continued arrests and demolition work.
Major increases in the price of the staple diet of bread and maize meal went into effect on Saturday in Harare, but the Zimbabwean capital was reported quiet after a weeklong blitz on street traders and shack dwellers that saw ten of thousands arrested or left homeless in the midwinter cold.
Zimbabwean President Robert Mugabe said on Friday that his party is considering amending the country’s Constitution to make it easier for the government to take over land owned by the country’s former white farmers. He told a meeting of his ruling Zanu-PF that the government’s five-year-old land reform lacks finality.
A Zimbabwe court on Friday sentenced the country’s registrar general to a two-month suspended jail term for defying a series of court orders to surrender ballot boxes used in disputed presidential elections held two years ago. However, the judge suspended the prison sentence for 10 days.
The Zimbabwean government has deployed 3Â 000 paramilitary police as it begins an operation to demolish illegal settlements around Harare, state television reported on Thursday. The television news showed a parade of hundreds of officers in full riot gear preparing to be deployed to demolish 25 illegal settlements in and around the capital.
Hundreds of residents from one of Zimbabwe’s townships rioted on Wednesday after police destroyed street stalls in an ongoing crackdown on vendors and other illegals in the capital. Residents used old cars and scrap metal to set up roadblocks along the main road leading into Glen View, a working class area south of the capital.
President Robert Mugabe and his wife Grace will splash out close to R3-million on a 10th wedding anniversary party at their rural home in Kutama, about 60km west of Harare. Several Southern African regional leaders are expected to attend, including best man at the wedding, former Mozambican president Joachim Chissano.
The government threatened on Tuesday to demolish squatter shacks in what it calls an urban beautification campaign, following the arrests of about 10Â 000 street traders in the capital, a stronghold of the opposition. The campaign against vendors has already sparked clashes between traders and police and unrest has been reported elsewhere.
Authorities in Zimbabwe’s capital who have destroyed thousands of market stalls as part of a clean-up campaign are now planning to rid Harare of backyard shacks housing tens of thousands of people, a spokesperson said on Tuesday. Operation Restore Order has led to the arrest of nearly 10 000 people.
Most rural households in Zimbabwe will harvest nothing this year amid a worsening food crisis, a famine watchdog announced on Tuesday ahead of a visit to the Southern African country by the head of the United Nations food programme.
Paramilitary units armed with batons, riot shields and tear gas patrolled main roads in Harare on Monday as police warned they would not tolerate protests against their crackdown on street trading — the only livelihood for thousands of poor township dwellers.
A second prosecution witness on Saturday denied that Zimbabwe’s former finance minister Chris Kuruneri smuggled out funds to buy a mansion in South Africa and flouted the country’s tough foreign-exchange laws. Kuruneri faces seven counts of breaching Zimbabwe’s exchange-control laws.
The reserve bank governor announced an effective 45% devaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar, a ban on luxury imports and heavy subsidies for agriculture and exporters to try to end an economic crisis that has seen mass arrests of black market traders, long lines for gasoline and stampedes for scarce foods.
Zimbabwe’s former finance minister Chris Kuruneri, facing charges of funnelling funds abroad to buy a mansion in South Africa, has been convicted of breaching citizenship laws by holding dual nationality. Twenty witnesses, including 11 South Africans and Zimbabwe’s central bank governor are still to testify against Kuruneri.