Zimbabweans brace for strike protests
Hundreds of police were deployed in the Zimbabwean capital Harare today 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.
The protest starting today is meant to coincide with the state’s opening of parliament, at which the 81-year-old president is due to make a major policy statement. This is expected to include his plans to create a 65-seat Senate - thus extending his pool of political patronage – and to cancel all private land titles, thus blocking further court action by 5,000 white farmers evicted from their land by ruling party militants.
Mugabe has the power to make sweeping legislative changes, following March 31 general elections that gave his Zanu-PF party the two-thirds majority needed to amend the constitution. He addressed 100 politicians in a closed session yesterday.
Troops flying recently acquired jet fighters rehearsed military manoeuvres for the pomp-laden ceremony – to the quiet indignation of ordinary motorists who have to wait for days in lines for petrol and diesel.
Early yesterday, several hundred policemen were seen cycling through Harare’s industrial sites and poor townships, where hundreds of homes have been demolished over the past two weeks.
The United Nations estimates more than 200,000 people have been left homeless in midwinter cold, while police say 30,000 roadside vendors were arrested in the blitz.
A loose alliance of opposition figures called the nationwide strike on today and tomorrow to protest the demolition.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena warned that anyone appearing to support the strike would be arrested. In 1998, nine people were killed when Mugabe deployed troops backed by tanks and helicopter gunships to suppress countrywide food riots.
The opposition Movement for Democratic Change has alleged the blitz was a plan to drive its main supporters – the urban poor – back to rural areas where they could be controlled by denial of access to food supplies.
Retired army colonel Samuel Muvuti, head of the government’s Grain Marketing Board, issued a statement yesterday saying the country “has enough food to feed the whole country”.
World Food Program chief James Morris visited Mugabe last week to discuss “an enormous humanitarian crisis” facing four million people who need relief. But a Cabinet minister said aid was unnecessary, as 1.2 million tons had been “secured” from South Africa. Muvuti said maize shipments were already being sent to problem areas.
Bread, cooking oil and corn meal – staples for Zimbabwe’s 11.6 million people - are scarce. Many families survive on cash from the four million people who have emigrated to South Africa, Britain and North America.
