Harare turns into war zone

By Blessings Mashaya

Harare was turned into a war zone yesterday as police fought running battles with angry MDC youths who had gathered in the capital to present a petition to Home Affairs minister Ignatius Chombo over what they said was growing police brutality.

The mayhem left dozens of people injured and property worth tens of thousands of dollars destroyed — including the torching of cars belonging to the Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corporation Holdings (ZBC) and the Zimbabwe Republic Police in downtown Harare.

This forced panicking security chiefs to deploy aerial surveillance in the form of two helicopters and three military aircraft, to track the rioters, as the violence threatened to overwhelm authorities.

As a result, most shops around the Market Square area were forced to shut their doors,  while a supermarket in which Vice President Phelekezela Mphoko has interests, Choppies, was reported to have been looted.

Yesterday’s clashes came as Harare holds its breath over a mammoth demonstration by 18 political parties scheduled for tomorrow, who are pressing the government to disband the Zimbabwe Electoral Commission (Zec) secretariat, which they claim is packed with people sympathetic to President Robert Mugabe’s ruling Zanu PF.

The orgy of violence also came as the internationally-respected Group of Elders, who include former American president Jimmy Carter and ex-UN secretary-general Koffi Annan, issued an unusually frank call to Sadc to intervene in the worsening Zimbabwean political crisis.

Yesterday’s trouble started after the MDC youths, who have launched a campaign dubbed #MyZimbabwe, marched to the Home Affairs ministry, prompting police to try and stop them.

But the restive youths overpowered the assembled officers and proceeded with their march to the ministry, where they were once again confronted by more truckloads of heavily-armed riot police who fired teargas indiscriminately, affecting business at the ministries of Health, State Security, Home Affairs and Transport.

The youths were further pegged back by water cannons, which saw the determined demonstrators retreating into the capital’s central business district where they re-grouped along First Street.

It is here, where all hell broke loose, as they gathered an assortment of weapons, including stones, and started fighting back tenaciously against the police — triggering more than an hour of violent clashes which later spread to downtown Market Square.

“#My Zimbabwe is an opportunity for any Zimbabwean, regardless of political affiliation, to come and make their voice count to tell those who stay in fancy hotels that we are tired. Let us fight for the full realisation of the aspirations for which the liberation struggle was waged,’’ said MDC youth chairperson Happymore Chidziva.

“We reject the false narrative that Zimbabwe is one person and one family. Our strength rests in the diversity of our nation and plurality of our voices. We need to liberate our country from vampires who are stealing our generational mandate to freely sow our dream of a vibrant and prosperous Zimbabwe.

“Mugabe can have the soldiers and police but we have three things he doesn’t have — the people, time and history. It’s time for Mugabe and his regime to stand aside now. We can’t trust them with our future.

“At 92, he is not old but ancient and a man whom we see sleeping on TV, sleeping while standing, cannot be fit to continue ruling over this once great nation. 2018 is far away and elections are not the only way of removing a democratically-elected government or president from power in a democracy.

“Peaceful protests are a legal means of removing a government from power, whether they were elected by Nikuv or dead voters.

“#My Zimbabwe is a vehicle to achieve this very important objective and milestone in our country,” a charged Chidziva added.

Yesterday’s deadly clashes also followed hard on the heels of last week’s violent and brutal crackdown on protesters who had gathered in the capital to stage a demonstration against the imminent introduction of bond notes.

Mugabe and Zanu PF, in power since 1980, are facing their biggest challenge to their long rule, which is blamed for destroying the country’s once vibrant economy.

Last month, riots also broke out in the border town of Beitbridge when angry traders protested against the government’s ill-advised decision to ban the importation of basic consumer goods. Daily News