Uneasy calm in Zimbabwe

An uneasy calm returned to Zimbabwe’s main cities but businesses and schools remained closed and mobile networks enforced a government internet shutdown on the final day of a national strike triggered by a steep rise in fuel prices.

In central Harare, shops, banks, fast-food chains, and some government offices were closed yesterday with little traffic on the roads. There was no public transport and some people could be seen walking from townships into the city centre.

Workers’ trade unions called for a three-day nationwide shutdown to protest the government’s decision to more than double the price of fuel. The action came shortly after junior doctors ended a 40-day strike demanding salaries in US dollars and better working conditions.

Since 2009, after hyperinflation and the devaluation of the Zimbabwean dollar, authorities refused to use national currency in payments and replaced it with US dollars, Euros, South African rands and yuan. The southern African nation has experienced an acute shortage of dollars that has hampered imports of fuel and drugs and caused a spike in prices.

Zimbabwean President Emmerson Mnangagwa broke his silence and called for calm while he is out of the country.

“I have been deeply saddened by the events in our beloved homeland,” Mnangagwa said in a statement on Twitter. He is on a European trip that is meant to shore up investment in Zimbabwe’s ailing economy.

“As I have said numerous times, everyone in Zimbabwe has the right to express themselves freely – to speak out, to criticise and to protest,” he said, before adding that the demonstrations involved “violence and vandalism” and were not “peaceful, legal protests”.

The news agency Reuters reported that three people, including a police officer, died during Monday’s demonstrations in the capital and second city Bulawayo.

Eight people were killed on Monday when police and military fired on crowds, according to Amnesty International. Another rights group said 26 people suffered gunshot wounds and that some were afraid to go to hospitals for fear of arrest or assault.

Police fired tear gas to disperse a crowd gathering for bread at a shopping centre near central Harare yesterday, as businesses remained shut, a Reuters witness said.

Activist pastor, Evan Mawarire, who led a national shutdown in 2016, was arrested from his house in a Harare suburb.

“They are alleging that he incited violence through Twitter and other forms of social media in the central business district,” Beatrice Mtetwa, Mawarire’s lawyer, said yesterday.

Zimbabweans accused President Mnangagwa of failing to live up to pre-election pledges to kick-start growth and to have a clean break from the 37-year rule of Robert Mugabe, who was forced out in a de facto coup in November 2017.

Aljazeera & news agencies

 

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