Armed police force anti-Mugabe
protesters to lie on the ground in Harare. Many were whipped, an action
reminiscent of apartheid South Africa. Photograph by AFP
UN News Centre
Annan voices concern about reports of possible violence in
Zimbabwe
2 June - Reacting to developments in Zimbabwe, United
Nations
Secretary-General today said he was concerned about reports of
the
possibility of violence in connection with the mass action planned by
the
opposition against the Government this week.
The Secretary-General
urged the organizers of the mass action, the Movement
for Democratic Change
(MDC), to ensure that their action remained peaceful
and within the law,
according to a statement released by a spokesman for Mr.
Annan Monday
evening.
"He urges the Government of Zimbabwe to respect the basic
principles of
freedom of expression and assembly as well as the human rights
of those
participating in the mass action, and to exercise maximum restraint
in
dealing with the situation," the statement said.
"The
Secretary-General reiterates his continued support for and readiness
to
contribute to the search for a negotiated solution of the
serious
difficulties facing the country," the statement added.
Telegraph
Mugabe crushes protest marches
By Peta Thornycroft in
Harare
(Filed: 03/06/2003)
President Robert Mugabe's ruthlessly
efficient security forces yesterday
crushed protests aimed at driving him out
of office by arresting opposition
leaders and firing tear-gas at
demonstrators.
His army and riot police arrested hundreds of opposition
supporters and
protest organisers countrywide, including at least eight
Movement for
Democratic Change members of parliament, and beat up one so
badly that he
was critically injured.
At least three activists were shot
and injured in the poor Highfields
township close to Harare as riot police
hurled tear-gas and fired live
ammunition into a peaceful crowd of opposition
supporters gathering before
marching to town.
While commerce and industry
was paralysed in the two main cities, the
opposition leader, Morgan
Tsvangirai, was sitting in the dock at Harare High
Court instead of leading
his supporters.
He had avoided arrest the night before by sleeping away from
home, but
detectives picked him up the following morning when he returned
home to
dress for court.
He was taken to Harare central police station and
charged with contempt,
accused of ignoring an "invalid" order issued late on
Saturday banning the
demonstrations and strike.
His solicitors appealed
against the order early yesterday, before any
demonstrations had begun, and
said in an affidavit that the banning order
had been handed down based on
"invalid" documentation and was therefore null
and void.
Police drove Mr
Tsvangirai to the High Court, where he and two colleagues
are on trial for
treason, accused of plotting to assassinate Mr Mugabe.
Before the hearing
could begin, the state then lodged papers calling for Mr
Tsvangirai's bail
conditions to be tightened.
The state asked for two paragraphs to be added,
restricting him from making
"inflammatory" statements or "inciting" people to
strike and protest.
Judgement on the application for tighter bail will be
given today.
So it was late morning before Mr Tsvangirai was released into
Harare's
deserted streets.
From early yesterday thousands of opposition
supporters loitered in Harare's
city centre in front of closed banks and
shops, waiting for messages from
organisers to begin marching behind their
leader. But the call never came.
Mr Tsvangirai was in court, other leaders
were being arrested, and marchers
outside the city centre could not get in
because every entrance was closed
by road blocks manned by the army and
police.
Two military helicopters patrolled Zimbabwe's second city, Bulawayo,
for
several hours, and another hovered over the University of Zimbabwe
in
Harare, where about 50 riot police tear-gassed and beat up hundreds
of
students. At least 20 were detained at the campus.
ABC News Australia
Zimbabwe situation catastrophic: Downer
Foreign
Minister Alexander Downer has described the situation in Zimbabwe as
tragic
and catastrophic.
The nation's opposition leader, Morgan Tsvangirai, was
last night released
after being arrested and charged with contempt for vowing
to lead a banned
protest against the Government of Robert
Mugabe.
There have also been clashes between would-be protesters and
security agents
in two of Zimbabwe's major cities.
Mr Downer has told
ABC TV's Lateline program that Zimbabwe's economy has
completely collapsed
and the political situation is extremely precarious.
"No freedom of
speech, no freedom of demonstration or articulation of views
contrary to
those of a dictatorship, it's a tragic situation," Mr Downer
said.
On
the first day of a week of planned protests, police in Zimbabwe have
fired
tear gas and warning shots to disperse anti-Government demonstrators
in
several cities.
The turn-out for the rallies was small. Heavily armed
troops dispersed the
protesters.
Riot police armed with live
ammunition fired shots into the air during
confrontations with opposition
activists in the Harare township of
Highfield.
Several opposition
officials, including Bulawayo Mayor Japhet Ndabeni Ncube,
were
arrested.
The Government says the five-day opposition protest is illegal
and it is
warning that anyone who participates will feel the full wrath of
the law.
Reuters
02 Jun 2003 22:49:11 GMT
Zimbabwe opposition vows
to push on with
protests
--------------------------------------------------------------------------
By
Stella Mapenzauswa
HARARE, June 3 (Reuters) - Zimbabwe's main opposition
vowed to continue with
street protests against President Robert Mugabe on
Tuesday, a day after the
government crushed attempted marches in main urban
centres.
In what appeared like a plea to its supporters to return to the
streets, the
opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) congratulated
itself for
shutting down the country's industry and commerce, suggesting
street
demonstrations failed only due to a heavy police clampdown.
In
New York, U.N. Secretary-General Kofi Annan, concerned about
possible
violence, called on the protest organizers "to ensure that their
action
remains peaceful and within the law", a U.N. spokesman
said.
Annan urged the government to respect the basic principles of
freedom of
expression and assembly and to exercise restraint in dealing with
the
situation, the spokesman added.
Although MDC leader Morgan
Tsvangirai had told Reuters he did not expect
street marches to take off
after Monday, his party said demonstrations
against Mugabe's government would
continue during the week as planned.
"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. People must all
remain resolute. The end is in
sight," the MDC said in a statement.
Earlier, Tsvangirai said the police
crackdown appeared to have stopped many
supporters from participating in the
planned marches -- described by the
government as an illegal attempt to
provoke a coup d'etat.
"I don't think there will be any marches because
they will not allow it," he
told Reuters.
Zimbabwe state television
dismissed Monday's protests as a flop, saying
business went on largely as
usual and that army and police patrols had
maintained peace around the
country.
DISPERSE PROTESTERS
Police fired teargas in some areas to
disperse protesters and said they
arrested over 150 MDC activists and
supporters.
"The police will remain vigilant and alert to deal with any
acts of
sabotage, banditry and general lawlessness," Assistant Police
Commissioner
Wayne Bvudzijena said in a statement.
Police briefly
detained Tsvangirai on Monday, charging him with contempt of
court for
refusing to comply with a judge's order to call off
the
demonstrations.
An MDC spokesman said the High Court would hear an
application by Home
Affairs Minister Kembo Mohadi on Tuesday compelling
Tsvangirai "not to
incite the public to engage in unlawful activities and
illegal
demonstrations" or "make inflammatory statements likely to lead to
public
disorder".
Riot police fired tear gas at a crowd of university
students attempting to
march into Harare's city center, driving them back
onto their campus.
The MDC says Mugabe should quit over an economic
crisis that has triggered
soaring inflation, record unemployment and acute
shortages of food, fuel and
foreign currency.
Mugabe, in power since
independence from Britain in 1980, denies mismanaging
the country and says
the economy has been sabotaged by his domestic and
international opponents in
retaliation for his seizure of white-owned farms
for distribution to landless
blacks. (Additional reporting by Irwin Arieff
at the United Nations)
The Times
Mugabe's forces fire on student
protesters
From Michael Hartnack in
Harare
POLICE firing teargas and supported by
helicopter gunships and
armoured vehicles moved to crush the start of "mass
action" yesterday aimed
at forcing the resignation of President Mugabe after
23 years of rule.
At least three demonstrators were shot as
armoured vehicles with
rotating machine gun turrets patrolled city streets.
There were unconfirmed
reports that two protesters had been
killed.
At the university campus, troops made student
protesters lie on
the ground before flogging them with sjambok whips, an
action reminiscent of
paramilitaries in former South Africa under
apartheid.
Earlier police detained Morgan Tsvangirai, the
opposition
Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) leader, charging him with
contempt of
court for refusing to comply with a judge's order to call off
the
demonstrations.
The MDC said dozens of party officials
and MPs had been arrested
or assaulted yesterday, the start of a week-long
series of demonstrations
dubbed a "final push" to force Mr Mugabe, 79, to
step down. Mr Tsvangirai,
who was later released, said the police crackdown
appeared to have stopped
many supporters from participating in the planned
marches - described by the
Government as an illegal attempt to provoke a coup
d'état.
Despite the security force crackdown, the strikes
brought
business and trading activity to a virtual standstill in an economy
already
near collapse. Riot police fired teargas at a crowd of about
6,000
University of Zimbabwe students who were attempting to march into the
centre
of Harare, driving them back on to their campus.
The city's central business district - where shops, banks and
offices were
largely closed - saw more violence as police beat up dozens of
protesters and
arrested others. In Highfield, a township on the capital's
outskirts, police
fired warning shots into the air and teargas at a crowd of
500 protesters. A
reporter at a local hospital saw one protester being
treated for a
bulletwound to the leg. Police denied being responsible for
the man's
injury.
Welshman Ncube, the MDC's secretary-general, said
that progress
had been made, but gave warning that there was hard work
ahead.
"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," Mr
Ncube said. "People must all remain resolute. The end is
in sight."
Mr Mugabe's feared former guerrilla war veterans,
in radio
contact with security force units, stood sentry on street corners
throughout
the capital and in provincial centres, summoning lorry-loads of
uniformed
reinforcements at any sign of people grouping together. Gregory
Linington, a
law lecturer, said that police and troops, aided by a helicopter
gunship,
had cornered thousands of students.
"They ran for
dear life. I am shocked that this could happen
even if the pilot had orders,
maybe, not to fire. They have always had
teargas, but this is the first time
we have had armed helicopter gunships
used," he said.
Police brought Mr Tsvangirai to the High Court later after
saying that he
would be charged with contempt of court over the ban imposed
by Judge Ben
Hlatshwayo on Saturday against the five-day protest. Mr
Tsvangirai was
cautioned and released.
The Government mouthpiece, The
Herald, declared that "the time
has now come for Tsvangirai to pay the price
of his sins against the people
of Zimbabwe" and be "put into protective
custody".
Nathan Shamuyarira, Mr Mugabe's propaganda chief,
alleged that
the British and American Governments had contrived the strike in
a
last-ditch effort to block the redistribution of 5,000 white-owned farms
to
350,000 black Zimbabweans. United Nations agencies and human rights
groups
accuse Mr Mugabe of responsibility for the crash in agricultural
production
that is putting eight million people at risk of famine and for
a
state-sponsored reign of terror that has claimed at least 200 lives in
three
years.
Zimbabwe's 30,000 remaining whites heeded MDC
advice to "keep a
low profile", as pro-Mugabe militants intended to target
them.
In London, the arrest of Mr Tsvangirai was condemned by
the
Government and opposition politicians. Jack Straw said that he was
extremely
concerned. The Foreign Secretary spoke after the European Union had
issued a
joint appeal for the demonstrations to be allowed to go ahead
peacefully.
Michael Ancram, the Shadow Foreign Secretary,
condemned the
Prime Minister for not using the G8 summit to put pressure on
Mr Mugabe.
"This is an outrage against democracy. It is unthinkable that G8
should not
regard this as a major issue in relation to their discussions on
good
governance in Africa."
