News Africa Extended

News Africa Extended

‘I don’t want to protest. I just want peace but...’

Posted: 27 Aug 2016 12:13 AM PDT

For demonstrators in Zimbabwe the day began badly as riot police with water cannons descended on the small crowd and hurled tear-gas at them.

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Harare - It was a strange protest on Friday. In some ways disappointing for the main opposition parties which joined forces against Zanu-PF in Harare for the first time.

Party leaders could not or would not join the few hundred tough, thin, veterans of more then a decade of anti-government protests who regrouped several times after police tear-gassed them early in the day.

The protests in Harare also saw violence from both sides - the police and opposition party supporters - but few turned up for this demonstration which began on the western edge of the city and was meant to move through some of the main roads into the city centre and end outside the Zimbabwe Election Commission.

But that never happened.

For the demonstrators, many hardened by years of protest and state violence, the day began badly. At least 100 riot police with their two water cannons descended on the small crowd which gathered on a huge field, nowadays known as Freedom Square, and hurled tear-gas at them, while lawyers at the Harare High Court were arguing in chambers that the demonstration for reform of election laws and against the Zimbabwe Election Commission should be allowed to take place.

At this stage there were about 200 people, most of them wearing the red T-shirt of the Movement for Democratic Change party, who had gathered to being their protest march, but did not yet have police permission to go ahead.

Police then fired more tear-gas into the grounds of the nearby Harare Magistrate’s Court where scores of protesters fled the first tear-gas. One of those was Sten Zvorwadza, chair of the National Vendors’ Union. “Why do we have to suffer this tear-gas from the police? No one was violent. We must be allowed to protest, it is in our Constitution,” he said. He was arrested earlier this month for a similar “offense”. He and several others who had fled the tear-gas said they didn’t support any political party, but hoped all groups opposed to Zanu-PF would unite against the ruling party and President Robert Mugabe.

“He must go. He is too old and we are too poor to have him rule us any more,” said an off-duty nurse, who asked not to be named. “I don’t want to protest. I just want peace but nothing is working in Zimbabwe. Most people have no jobs, and when we do earn, we can’t get our money out of the banks,” she said.

Zimbabwe has largely run out of its favoured currency, the United States dollar and all ATM machines are closed and banks are limiting customers to withdrawals of about R1200 per day

Other small groups of anti-government protesters were busy elsewhere.

They laid barricades along several main roads into the city centre paralysing traffic. People in red MDC T shirts, both men and women, threw rocks, stones, slabs of concrete, bits of pavements, branches of trees onto the streets. Some protesters also burned tyres in these roads. Never before have so many city roads been made impassable by protesters. And there were so few of them.

By mid-day, when the court granted permission for the demonstration to take place, many who had gathered in town waiting to begin marching to town, had moved away.

“They are hungry and have gone home,” said one man who said he was not a member of a political party, but was interested in the protest. “We don’t know where the leaders are. Also, the tear-gas is very efficient. We can’t stand the tear-gas,” he said. He lost his job as a technician in a cellphone company in 2014.

Small groups of mostly younger men swooped on shops in the densest and poorest parts of western Harare and looted.

“They mostly went for the Chinese and Nigerian shops as far as we can tell, plus a night club, and a food shop, and police were too slow to stop them,” said one MDC supporter who was worried about the violence.

“People will get hurt, this is getting dangerous,” he said. But several vendors also complained their goods had been looted and they had been unable to trade on Friday.

The police continued to throw tear-gas about until the hard copy of the High Court judgment was released. And then the police withdrew to the main road on the western edge of the city.

The demonstration and march through the city never took place, but a small group of people stormed down the street to the offices of the Zimbabwe Election Commission and threw stones at it.

By mid-Friday afternoon most shops in central Harare had closed.

But leaders of the main opposition political parties, Morgan Tsvangirai and former vice president Joice Mujuru, never showed up at the demo or in the streets and a large police truck with about 20 policemen parked outside the MDC’s headquarters in Nelson Mandela Road and remained there for several hours.

“We are sick and tired of this government because it has allowed everything to collapse,” said one man who claimed he had not been paid for the last four months. He would not say who he worked for but said he had to support three children. He lives in the dormitory town, Chitungwisa, south of the city. “We will continue to demonstrate until the old man has gone,” he said. “I am hungry. We are all hungry.”

By early evening the city was quiet but many taxis could not operate as the western part of the city was still littered with barricades.

But it was a normal day for others in the city and they gathered as usual at their favourite drinking spot, on the street, outside a bottle store on the east of the city in the early evening. “What protest?” said a man, in a suit, drinking a beer. He laughed and walked away and joined his boozing buddies leaning up against their 4 x 4’s.

Foreign Service

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Harare burns as protesters grind business to a halt

Posted: 26 Aug 2016 12:36 PM PDT

Business was ground to a halt in Harare as protesters turned violent and burned tyres in streets and smashed shop windows.

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Harare - Business was ground to a halt in Zimbabwe's capital, Harare, on Friday as protesters turned violent and burned tyres in streets, smashed shop windows and looted shoes, clothing, food, cash registers, cellphones as well as computer gadgets.

The protests started early in the morning at the open grounds - termed Freedom Square by opposition party supporters - near Rotten Row Magistrate's Court as the demonstrators gathered for the “mega” event.

Protesters gathered as early as 8am, singing the “war mode” song “Ihondo Muchengete Vana”, meaning “It's war, those who will remain behind, please look after the children”.

Anti-riot police officers gathered and parked three water canons nearby. The protesters grew in numbers and police tried to chase them away. The rioters argued the High Court had okayed the protest march, where political parties under the banner National Electoral Reform Agenda (NERA) wanted to hand over a petition to Zimbabwe Electoral Commission calling for electoral reforms.

However, when police realised they were being outnumbered, they started firing teargas canisters at the protesters, who rushed for cover inside the courts.

The riot police fired two more canisters at the entrance of the courts, before business was adjourned for the day. Tearsmoke affected exhibitors at the Harare Agricultural Exhibition Park, where business also came to a standstill for some time, as demonstrators ran towards the exhibition park and scaled perimeter metres to find their way into the park.

The demonstrators would disperse and regroup a few seconds later, gathering their arsenal and stoning the anti-riot police officers as well as their trucks. Along Samora Machel Avenue and Rotten Row, the protesters barricaded streets with burning tyres and huge stones.

The protesters then walked into town and defaced Robert Mugabe Way street signs. The group had also defaced street signs at Freedom Square, which were put up just before the Zanu PF congress in December 2014.

At the busy Copacabana commuter omnibus terminus, there were fierce clashes between Zanu PF youths and the protesters, mostly opposition party supporters.

The Zanu PF supporters were defending their market stalls and second-hand bales from being burnt, but despite their resistance, their efforts the two rival parties hurled stones at each other. Protesters accused the Zanu PF youths of benefiting alone from their party, which has been in power since independence at 1980.

The protesters torched the market stalls and bales of second-hand clothes worth thousands of dollars. At around mid-day, a military helicopter hovered over the central business district. Several Toyota Landcruiser trucks carrying Zimbabwe Republic Police military units roamed around the town.

Protesters smashed the cellphones of people and accused them of circulating pictures of the violent protests on social media groups. They feared the photos could be evidence enough to secure their arrest. Stones were hurled at those watching from balconies of high-rise building.

As the number of protesters swelled, the police ran out of the water canon skunk spray and had to resort to what seemed as tap water to control the crowd. Several groups led the protests from different points in the city, while police reinforcement teams were still outnumbered to take on the protesters.

Choppies Supermarket, in which Vice-President Phekelezela Mphoko is said to have a stake, was closed for business. Pick n Pay on Second Street would close its shutters each time there was commotion on the streets.

Joina City, a posh central business district shopping mall, pulled down shutters as early as 11am.

After lunch, police fired tearsmoke canisters in Harare's streets, as they sought to chase crowds out of town. Water canons continued roaming the streets late in the day, with sirens continuously whirling.

African News Agency

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Botswana warns SA tour operators over 'k-word'

Posted: 26 Aug 2016 05:50 AM PDT

The Botswana government has warned SA tourism industry operators that they will be charged with crimen injuria and deported for using the k-word.

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Gaborone - The Botswana government has warned South African tourism industry operators who have been accused of routinely calling locals “k****rs” that they will be charged with crimen injuria and deported soon after prosecution if they continued “degrading and impairing” the dignity of the Batswana.

Addressing tourism workers in the tourism capital of Maun in the north of the country, Labour and Home Affairs minister Edwin Batshu said as crimen injuria was a crime back home in South Africa, offenders should not expect to get away with it in Botswana.

The k-word is a derogatory term used to describe black people.

“We have received several reports from Batswana workers in the tourism sector in the Okavango Delta area who are routinely called k****rs and referred to in other f-words by their employers. Any expatriate found to be responsible for this will face the relevant criminal charges and deportation soon after prosecution,” Batshu said.

The minister said in Botswana it is a crime to call anyone a “k****r”, which he defined as a degrading word used unlawfully but intentionally as hate language to demean and impair the dignity of other persons.

African News Agency

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