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Don't
cry when state responds, Harare warns protesters
ZimOnline
November 23, 2006
http://www.zimonline.co.za/Article.aspx?ArticleId=511
HARARE – About
1 000 opposition and civic activists yesterday marched across Harare
demanding political reform and promising to take to the streets
every Wednesday until the government agrees to change – but the
government immediately warned that any future protests would be
ruthlessly punished.
The protestors
appeared to have taken the police by surprise, when they marched
into the city centre from three different directions.
Some blew whistles,
while others beat pots and pans as drivers joined in frantically
hooting from their cars.
They also distributed
fliers urging Harare residents to join the protests every Wednesday
during lunch-time.
Some of the
fliers read: "Our noise is a symbol of our distress at the way Zimbabwe
has been governed and a cry of hope for transformation."
At Market Square
bus terminus, on the eastern edge of the city centre, there was
commotion as bus drivers and rank marshals quickly joined the protests
which went on for about 20 minutes.
The demonstration
was organised by the Christian Alliance under the banner of the
Save Zimbabwe Campaign.
The Alliance
is a coalition of opposition political parties, the main labour
union, churches and students that is pushing for a resolution of
the country’s seven-year political stalemate.
Tendai Biti,
the secretary general in the main faction of the opposition Movement
for Democratic Change (MDC) party led by Morgan Tsvangirai said
the protests marked the beginning of "democratic resistance"
against President Robert Mugabe’s government.
"This is only
the beginning of an incremental process in which Zimbabweans shall
continue to express their displeasure against this government,"
said Biti who was part of the protesters.
"We shall continue
to mobilise the people because everyone is now agreed that we are
dealing with a stubborn dictatorship that can only buckle to people
power."
But State Security
Minister Didymus Mutasa promised a tough response from the government
to any future protest, adding that the opposition and its civic
allies should not "cry" when the state reacts.
"If they
fail to restrain themselves we will make them do so and if we do
so, they shouldn't cry," said Mutasa, who also claimed the
protests were sponsored by the West in its bid to topple Mugabe’s
government.
The Harare administration
insists the West is out to remove it from power as punishment for
seizing white-owned land for redistribution to landless blacks.
The police had
however not arrested organisers of the protest by late yesterday
afternoon.
Zimbabwe state
security agents have in the past violently put down protests by
civic groups and labour leaders over worsening economic hardships
in the country.
Zimbabwe is
in the seventh year of an economic meltdown, described by the World
Bank as the worst in the world outside a war zone.
The economic
recession, critics blame on state mismanagement, is marked by the
world’s highest inflation of 1 070 percent, shortages of food, essential
medicines, electricity, fuel, hard cash and just about every basic
survival commodity. - ZimOnline
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