Zimbabwe police break up anti-Mugabe protest
August 17, 2016
Zimbabwe police have fired tear gas and water cannon to disperse several hundred protesters calling on President Robert Mugabe to step down, a week after the longtime ruler warned that protests “don't pay”.
Some 200 people had gathered in central Harare on Wednesday, carrying flowers for peace and holding posters reading “Mugabe Must Go”, when baton-carrying police moved in.
An AFP journalist reported seeing police officers beating protesters with batons before firing on the crowd with tear gas.
Images taken by wire agencies and posted on social media also showed several people beaten by police.
Reuters reported that at least one of the protesters sustained deep cuts to the head from a baton beating.
Onlookers, pedestrians and motorists were caught up in the melee as anti-riot police moved in with their batons, maintaining a heavy presence in the city centre after the demonstration was dispersed.
Protest leader Promise Mkwananzi said Wednesday's demonstration was just a build-up to a “national shutdown” on August 31.
“There will be no business as usual,” he told AFP. “Everybody must participate.”
The demonstrators are also protesting against the plan of the country's central bank to re-introduce local banknotes, which they fear could trigger inflation and wipe out people's savings and pensions.
Mugabe said last week that protests “don't pay because usually they end up being violent protests”.
Mugabe has ruled Zimbabwe for 36 years.
But as his cash-strapped government struggles to pay civil servants and the military on time, the veteran leader has faced mounting opposition fuelled by internet activism using the hashtag “ThisFlag” – a reference to wearing the national flag in public.
Several war veterans' leaders, long seen as loyal allies of Mugabe, have also been arrested after issuing a strongly-worded statement last month calling on the president to step down.
Mugabe, 92, is increasingly fragile but has vowed to stand for re-election in 2018, though party seniors have long been jockeying to step into the role when he dies.
Mugabe's wife Grace and vice-president Emmerson Mnangagwa are among the possible successors to the world's oldest president.
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It is a pity for this African country with intellectuals, doctors, professors and so called members of the parliament who are there just for their own self interest and do not exercise their legal power even they are so corrupted as one can say and do not have ambitions to take over and not letting a very old wood sacrificing a great people of Africa including their own children who will suffer this long term poor management of their country. Why some members of President Mugabe political party don’t have ambition to suggest some political changes good for their own country and why Zimbabwe’s generals do not take over by a peaceful Coup d’Etat or putsch for few months before giving back power to weak politicians as the democratic process does not work in this country?
What is unthinkable is the fact that UK, former colonial power put too much pressure on President Mugabe to get changes in this country but the corrupted politicians helped the old man to stay in power until today. Moreover, African Union that could help by backing UK is also full of corrupted head of states that cannot step in for implementing some changes as they are not different from Zimbabwe afraid to be gotten in the same trap.
Finally, why the international community, the UN and the World Bank for instance do not think about passing a resolution or adopting a decision imposing some measures as a conditionality to get assistance and loans to Zimbabwe for helping its people to get the retirement of this old president even his tailored constitution does not stipulate it as lawmakers of this country did not care about putting some limitations to the presidential term. However, the last word belongs to the people of Zimbabwe that can take back its power and stop being manipulated by corrupted politicians who are enjoying good life with access to all material advantages while the majority of the population of this country is suffering.