Rioters March in Zimbabwe Streets

Angus Shaw
AP International / 17 Oct 2000

HARARE, Zimbabwe (AP) – Riots sparked by rising food prices spread Tuesday as crowds stoned cars, trashed suburban shops and marched through the streets. Police fired tear gas in response and soldiers patrolled the poorest neighborhoods.

With Zimbabwe’s economy in tatters, the government last week announced increases of up to 30 percent on bread, sugar and soft drink prices. Bus and taxi-van fares rose Monday. The new higher prices followed a series of increases in the cost of gasoline, milk and corn meal – a staple food in the country.

Police spokesman Wayne Bvudzijena said police arrested 26 people after clashes early Tuesday across the southern and western suburbs.

There were no reports of serious injuries. In rioting Monday, 25 people were arrested for public violence, he said.

Armored personnel carriers fanned out from an infantry barracks north of the capital. The troops were part of a so-called national reaction force and were sent only to “problem areas” in impoverished districts, Bvudzijena said.

Mobs trashed a police trailer used as a mobile command center in southern Harare, where two food stores were attacked and looted and cars were stoned.

Protesters in Harare’s poor western suburb of Mufakose threw up barricades of rocks and lumber and hurled stones at riot police, witnesses said.

A military helicopter swooped overhead, apparently directing police operations and occasionally firing tear gas into cramped residential streets.

Police also fired tear gas to disperse a crowd marching toward Harare’s largest bakery in the suburb of Mbare. A news crew from the state Zimbabwe Broadcasting Corp. fled the suburb after rioters pelted their vehicle with stones, smashing the windows.

Police chief Augustine Chihuri, quoted by state radio, said security forces were placed on full alert Tuesday and were taking stern measures to quell the unrest.

Witnesses in the eastern township of Tafara said troops were deployed there soon after dawn and began conducting house-to-house searches. Some residents were force at gunpoint to clear makeshift barricades blocking streets.

In Mufakose, witnesses said police used riot sticks and “sjamboks” – leather horse whips – to disperse rioters manning barricades.

“We have no jobs. We are hungry. We have nothing to eat. Yes, we are looting,” said one youth who identified himself only as Ephraim.

Police spokesman Bvudzijena said mobs rampaged through a market at a bus depot, stealing food and vegetables.

Sporadic clashes erupted as police patrolled Harare’s southern townships.

Rioters responded to price hikes Monday by rampaging through eastern Harare, looting a bread truck and food stores, attacking other shops with stones and torching a bus in the eastern suburb of Mabvuku. Mabvuku was quiet Tuesday.

Zimbabwe is facing its worst economic crisis since independence in 1980, with inflation reaching a record 70 percent and unemployment exceeding 50 percent.

The last food riots, triggered in 1997 by a 25 percent increase in the price of corn meal, left five people dead. President Robert Mugabe deployed troops to end civil unrest for the first time since independence.

The main opposition party, the Movement for Democratic Change, said Monday it will call for mass protests to pressure Mugabe to resign. The party’s 57 lawmakers also plan to call for Mugabe’s impeachment.

Mugabe’s ruling party controls 92 seats in the 150-seat Parliament. The opposition’s impeachment motion is expected to take several days to be placed on Parliament’s agenda.

Zimbabwe police fight food price protesters

Cris Chinaka
Reuters
Tuesday October 17

HARARE (Reuters) - Zimbabwean riot police fired teargas and fought youths brandishing stones and sticks in three Harare townships on Tuesday as food price riots appeared to spread around the capital, witnesses said.

In Glen Norah township, about 20 km south of the capital, police withdrew after a clash with about 300 youths, some apparently as young as 12, who barricaded roads with boulders.

The crowd turned private cars back and began walking towards the capital as police appeared to wait for new supplies of teargas and other riot-control equipment.

Witnesses said police had moved against a huge crowd in Mufakose, west of central Harare, after youths started stoning vehicles and setting old car tyres on fire. Roads in the high density township had been barricaded with rocks, logs and dustbins overnight.

“The police are firing teargas and people are fighting back with stones and sticks, and there is chaos in quite a number of areas here,” one resident said.

In Mbare township, southwest of Harare’s central business district, residents said police had fired teargas at protesters near the second largest state radio broadcasting studio after they tried to march to the city centre.

“They are chasing people all over, but the people are coming back at them with stones,” one said.

In Mbare, home to some of Harare’s poorest residents, a truckload of soft drinks was looted near a market called Mupedzanhamo, which means “fighter against poverty”, witnesses said.

Inflation Running Over 60 Percent

Soft drink prices rose by up to 30 percent early this month.

According to government figures, annual consumer price inflation is running at 62 percent and more than half the workforce is unemployed.

President Robert Mugabe, whose 20-year rule in the former Rhodesia has come under pressure from the new Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), was out of the country when the violence erupted on Monday.

MDC leader Morgan Tsvangirai was questioned by police last week and could face prosecution for warning that Mugabe could be ousted in a popular uprising if he did not step down.

MDC legal secretary David Coltart said on South African radio the riots had not been triggered by the MDC, but were a spontaneous popular reaction to inflation and economic mismanagement.

The official Herald newspaper quoted Information and Publicity minister Jonathan Moyo as denouncing MDC calls for a mass protest.

“Right now the only mass action that the people need is the five million hectares of land that must be acquired before the rainy season,” Moyo said in reference to government plans to seize over 3,000 white farms for a black peasant resettlement scheme.

Police maintained a heavy presence in Mabvuku and Tafara townships where they had also used teargas in running battles against thousands of rioters on Monday.

Public transport operators halted services after at least three buses were burned in Monday’s rioting, which forced schools and shops in the affected townships to close.

The Consumer Council of Zimbabwe has criticised the food price riots, and urged people to register their anger by boycotting specific products.

“Consumers should register and exercise their power through passive but effective resistance,” it said in a statement.