Authorities arrested Zimbabwe's opposition leader yesterday, vowing to crush the launch of anti-government demonstrations the opposition hopes will mark the most significant challenge yet to President Robert Mugabe's decades-long rule.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, was arrested at his home yesterday and accused of planning an illegal demonstration, said William Bango, an opposition official.
Police had come several hours before, around midnight, but left when they found Tsvangirai was not at home.
Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader, has become increasingly defiant in his calls for Zimbabweans to rise up against Mugabe and his policies which the opposition blames for sinking the country into economic and political disarray.
This opposition has called for a week of strikes and protests against the government began yesterday.
In Harare it appeared the strike was taking hold, with most shops, banks, and factories closed. Traffic was light, and only a few commuter buses were running.
Opposition officials said they were planning for street demonstrations later in the day.
It was not clear whether or not Tsvangirai would appear as scheduled in court later yesterday where he is standing trial for treason. The government says he was part of a plot to assassinate Mugabe, charges he and his fellow defendants -- two senior opposition officials -- deny.
As part of their crackdown against demonstrations, police set up roadblocks along all the main roads leading into the capital, Harare, and military helicopters swooped over the western city of Bulawayo. Both cities are considered opposition strongholds.
In Bulawayo, two lawmakers were arrested, accused of planning an illegal demonstration, opposition officials said.
Over the weekend the High Court declared the demonstrations illegal, but the opposition planned on filing an appeal against the ruling at the Supreme Court yesterday.
State television, in its nightly news on Sunday, said demonstrations and strikes this week called by the main opposition party will be "met with the full wrath of the law."
It said ruling party youths loyal to the government would break up opposition street demonstrations and quoted Defense Minister Sidney Sekeramayi as saying "enough measures" were being taken to stop anti-government unrest.
"Our soil is very sacrosanct. We shall not allow it to be recolonized," Sekeramayi told the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp.
The government has repeatedly accused Britain, the former colonial ruler, of funding the Movement for Democratic Change and opposition-backed labor unions to mount a campaign to oust Mugabe.
The television showed footage of troops and riot police being deployed in Harare and file footage of tear gas being fired at demonstrators in previous protests.
Government vehicles sped through Harare late on Sunday throwing out printed fliers urging Zimbabweans to ignore opposition calls for the protests, saying: "No to mass action. No to British puppets. Let the workers go to work, let the children go to school and let the banks and businesses remain open. Remain strong."
It was the first time the government distributed political fliers that littered the streets, with few being picked up by passers-by.
Armored vehicles and troop carriers headed into Harare on Sunday from their base at Inkomo barracks, 40km northwest of the capital.
State television quoted Local Government Minister Ignatius Chombo as saying that business owners who supported the protests by shutting out their workers will have their operating licenses withdrawn and be forced to close.
"They are playing a risky game. They must be ready to shut permanently," he said.
The government's response to the opposition calls for protests across the country beginning yesterday was seen as an unusually forthright and a desperate effort, tinged with panic, to pre-empt the biggest challenge to its rule, analysts said.
The opposition says it wants Mugabe to negotiate on the nation's deepening political and economic crisis and agree to step down so new presidential elections can be held.
In weekend advertisements headed "Countdown to the final push," the opposition said: "Any thought of the dictator giving up power quietly is sheer delusion. The Zimbabweans story begins to unfold -- sadly, in our streets. We are now ready to go. The end is now in sight."
Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic crisis since independence with record inflation of 269 percent and acute shortages of hard currency, local money, gasoline, medicines and other essential imports and food. Only international food aid has averted mass starvation.
Showcasing phallus-shaped portable shrines and pink penis candies, Japan’s annual fertility festival yesterday teemed with tourists, couples and families elated by its open display of sex. The spring Kanamara Matsuri near Tokyo features colorfully dressed worshipers carrying a trio of giant phallic-shaped objects as they parade through the street with glee. The festival, as legend has it, honors a local blacksmith in the Edo Period (1603-1868) who forged an iron dildo to break the teeth of a sharp-toothed demon inhabiting a woman’s vagina that had been castrating young men on their wedding nights. A 1m black steel phallus sits in the courtyard of
HIGH HOPES: The power source is expected to have a future, as it is not dependent on the weather or light, and could be useful for places with large desalination facilities A Japanese water plant is harnessing the natural process of osmosis to generate renewable energy that could one day become a common power source. The possibility of generating power from osmosis — when water molecules pass from a less salty solution to a more salty one — has long been known. However, actually generating energy from that has proved more complicated, in part due the difficulty of designing the membrane through which the molecules pass. Engineers in Fukuoka, Japan, and their private partners think they might have cracked it, and have opened what is only the world’s second osmotic power plant. It generates
JAN. 1 CLAUSE: As military service is voluntary, applications for permission to stay abroad for over three months for men up to age 45 must, in principle, be granted A little-noticed clause in sweeping changes to Germany’s military service policy has triggered an uproar after it emerged that the law requires men aged up to 45 to get permission from the armed forces before any significant stay abroad, even in peacetime. The legislation, which went into effect on Jan. 1 aims to bolster the military and demands all 18-year-old men fill out a questionnaire to gauge their suitability to serve in the armed forces, but stops short of conscription. If the “modernized” model fails to pull in enough recruits, parliament will be compelled to discuss the reintroduction of compulsory service, German
Hundreds of Filipinos and tourists flocked to a sun-bleached field north of Manila yesterday, on Good Friday, to witness one of the country’s most blood-soaked displays of religious fervor, undeterred by rising fuel prices. Scores of bare-chested flagellants with covered faces walked barefoot through the dusty streets of Pampanga Province’s San Fernando as they flogged their backs with bamboo whips in the scorching heat. Agence France-Presse (AFP) journalists said they saw devotees deliberately puncturing their skin with glass shards attached to a small wooden paddle to ensure their bleeding during the ritual, a way to atone for sins and seek miracles from
RSS