A rchive Date
[ 03-06-2003 ]
Category
[ International Relations ]
sub-Categoy
[ Zimbabwe ]
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[http://cnews.canoe.ca/CNEWS/World/2003/06/02/101811-ap.html
Zimbabwean troops crush anti-government protests; opposition leader freed
By ANGUS SHAW
Mon, June 2, 2003
HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) - Government troops fired live ammunition and tear gas and beat demonstrators with clubs and rifle butts Monday as the opposition launched a week of strikes and protests aimed at forcing President Robert Mugabe to step down.
Police raids rounded up dozens of leaders and supporters of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change, which is seeking to make its most significant challenge yet to Mugabe's autocratic rule. Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai was arrested at his Harare home early Monday but was later released.
The opposition blames Mugabe for Zimbabwe's worst economic crisis since independence, with record inflation of 269 per cent and acute shortages of currency, gasoline, medicines and other essential imports and food. Only international food aid has averted mass starvation.
The government, through the state media, has vowed to use the army, police and its governing party militias to crush protests. Armoured vehicles with rotating machine-gun turrets patrolled the streets as demonstrations began in the capital, Harare, and the country's second-largest city, Bulawayo, both considered opposition strongholds.
In downtown Harare, soldiers forced about 20 protesters to lie on the sidewalk where they beat them with rubber batons, witnesses said. Some cried out in pain, shouting: "What have we done?"
On the campus of Zimbabwe University, witnesses also saw a group of about eight students beaten by soldiers. Riot police fired tear gas, driving back hundreds of students trying to march downtown.
More beatings were reported in the Harare township of Mabvuku where shoppers at a sidewalk fruit and vegetable stand were mistaken for protesters by soldiers and hit with rifle butts.
This week's protests are also seen as a blow to the efforts of African leaders, headed by South African President Thabo Mbeki, to win backing from western powers for an economic revival plan for Africa. That plan relies on an African promise to insure good-governance in Africa.
Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said in a statement that at least 154 people, most of them opposition activists or officials, were arrested across the country Monday.
A march in Bulawayo was broken up by riot police who beat three opposition supporters, injuring them before dragging them into a police truck, said democratic rights activist Jenni Williams.
"We are trying to find out where they are so we can get urgent medical attention to them," she said.
Bvudzijena, the police spokesman, said forces were forced to fire into the air in the Highfield township in western Harare after opposition protesters tried to use a group of school children as human shields, an allegation the opposition denied.
Opposition officials said three people suffered gunshot wounds in that incident.
Tsvangirai, a former trade union leader who now heads the main opposition, has become increasingly defiant in his calls for Zimbabweans to rise up against Mugabe and his policies.
He called five days of strikes and protests, beginning Monday, aimed at pushing Mugabe to step down and allow for new presidential elections. Zimbabwe's High Court declared the demonstrations illegal, but the opposition filed an appeal Monday.
Most of the economy was brought to a standstill by the national strike.
Downtown Harare was mostly deserted. Military police searched the few cars headed out of the city centre. Banks, factories, post offices, schools and all downtown shops remained shut Monday as police and troops drove through the streets.
"It's like we are under armed occupation and some kind of curfew. It's frightening. We have seen police chasing people away," said Alex Sibanda, a businessman whose office overlooks the city's central square.
The secretary general of the opposition, Welshman Ncube, called for more demonstrations.
"What is left is for the people to press on for the next four days with the complete stay-away from work and massive demonstrations," Ncube said. "People must all remain resolute. The end is in sight."
 World Fact Book (CIA)]
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