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.
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