Paramilitary units armed with batons and tear gas patrolled Harare's main roads yesterday as police said they would tolerate no more protests against their crackdown on street trading -- the only livelihood for thousands in Zimbabwe's shattered economy.
The crackdown on streets traders -- who include teachers and other professionals unable to make a living at their old jobs -- came as the government took drastic measures to address an economic crisis it once denied.
Angry demonstrators had clashed with police over the weekend in the most serious unrest since President Robert Mugabe's ruling ZANU-PF won a landslide victory in March 31 parliamentary general election, widely condemned by Western governments for alleged rigging and intimidation. Mugabe, 81, has been in power since independence in 1980.
During the election campaign, the government had scoffed at critics who said the economy was on the verge of collapse. But since winning, it has taken drastic action, last week announcing an effective 45 percent devaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar to 9,000 Zimbabwe dollars to the US dollar, a ban on luxury imports and heavy subsidies for agriculture and exporters.
Morgan Tsvangirai, leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, accused Mugabe of trying to provoke conditions for declaring a State of Emergency, which would give him unlimited powers of detention, seizure and censorship.
Tsvangirai accused Mugabe of ordering the crackdown in response to pressure from newly arrived Chinese businessmen to stop second-hand dealers undercutting their cheap imports.
"The country has been mortgaged to the Chinese," Tsvangirai said in a statement. "How can we violently remove Zimbabweans from our flea markets to make way for the Chinese? The majority of Zimbabweans depend on informal trade to feed, clothe and educate their families."
Under Mugabe's "Look East" policy, the country has recently acquired airliners and jet fighters from Beijing, rejecting calls to make up with the International Monetary Fund and World Bank. Links were severed in 1998 over chronic budget indiscipline.
Police Chief Superintendent Oliver Mandipaka said 9,653 people were arrested in the five-day blitz on street vendors, flea market stalls and other informal businesses.
He said people were preparing to demonstrate but that police were ready and commuter minibuses were prevented from entering the city center.
Mandipaka said operators of informal businesses had been fined for operating without city council licenses or possessing scarce staple items such as maize meal, sugar and gasoline intended for resale on the black market.
"Police will leave no stone unturned in their endeavor to flush out economic saboteurs," said Mandipaka.
Crackdowns also were launched in the cities of Gweru and Bulawayo, strongholds of the opposition. In Harare's Mbare township police had seized 36 tonnes of sugar. Ten filling station attendants had been arrested with 30,000 liters of gasoline.
In a policy statement Thursday, Reserve Bank governor Gideon Gono blamed speculators for a new surge of hyperinflation, after last year's fall from 622 percent to 123 percent.
After seven years of unprecedented economic decline leaving 80 percent of the work force unemployed, 4 million of Zimbabwe's 16 million people have emigrated.
DOUBLE-MURDER CASE: The officer told the dispatcher he would check the locations of the callers, but instead headed to a pizzeria, remaining there for about an hour A New Jersey officer has been charged with misconduct after prosecutors said he did not quickly respond to and properly investigate reports of a shooting that turned out to be a double murder, instead allegedly stopping at an ATM and pizzeria. Franklin Township Police Sergeant Kevin Bollaro was the on-duty officer on the evening of Aug. 1, when police received 911 calls reporting gunshots and screaming in Pittstown, about 96km from Manhattan in central New Jersey, Hunterdon County Prosecutor Renee Robeson’s office said. However, rather than responding immediately, prosecutors said GPS data and surveillance video showed Bollaro drove about 3km
Tens of thousands of people on Saturday took to the streets of Spain’s eastern city of Valencia to mark the first anniversary of floods that killed 229 people and to denounce the handling of the disaster. Demonstrators, many carrying photos of the victims, called on regional government head Carlos Mazon to resign over what they said was the slow response to one of Europe’s deadliest natural disasters in decades. “People are still really angry,” said Rosa Cerros, a 42-year-old government worker who took part with her husband and two young daughters. “Why weren’t people evacuated? Its incomprehensible,” she said. Mazon’s
‘MOTHER’ OF THAILAND: In her glamorous heyday in the 1960s, former Thai queen Sirikit mingled with US presidents and superstars such as Elvis Presley The year-long funeral ceremony of former Thai queen Sirikit started yesterday, with grieving royalists set to salute the procession bringing her body to lie in state at Bangkok’s Grand Palace. Members of the royal family are venerated in Thailand, treated by many as semi-divine figures, and lavished with glowing media coverage and gold-adorned portraits hanging in public spaces and private homes nationwide. Sirikit, the mother of Thai King Vajiralongkorn and widow of the nation’s longest-reigning monarch, died late on Friday at the age of 93. Black-and-white tributes to the royal matriarch are being beamed onto towering digital advertizing billboards, on
POWER ABUSE WORRY: Some people warned that the broad language of the treaty could lead to overreach by authorities and enable the repression of government critics Countries signed their first UN treaty targeting cybercrime in Hanoi yesterday, despite opposition from an unlikely band of tech companies and rights groups warning of expanded state surveillance. The new global legal framework aims to bolster international cooperation to fight digital crimes, from child pornography to transnational cyberscams and money laundering. More than 60 countries signed the declaration, which means it would go into force once ratified by those states. UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres described the signing as an “important milestone,” and that it was “only the beginning.” “Every day, sophisticated scams destroy families, steal migrants and drain billions of dollars from our economy...
RSS