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Zim police detain scores of teenagers
Mail & Guardian (SA)
April 01, 2007

http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleId=303528&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__africa/

A police crackdown in Zimbabwe moved into well-to-do residential suburbs in the nation's capital where scores of teenagers were detained in a raid on a popular disco, witnesses said on Sunday.

Some of the teenagers were hit with riot batons and slapped by paramilitary police who said they were clamping down on alleged underage drinking, witnesses said. Others were not carrying identity cards required under security laws.

Several of the youths were treated for shock after at least 100 were taken in two police buses to the feared downtown central police station from the Glow nightclub in Harare's affluent Borrowdale district in the early hours of Saturday.

The raid came after police shut down bars and beer halls in impoverished townships in an undeclared curfew during a surge in political tension since police violently stopped an opposition-led prayer meeting in western Harare on March 11.

It was the first on upmarket bars and clubs patronised by the nation's dwindling white community. The government has routinely accused whites, mainly the descendants of colonial-era British settlers, of backing its opponents. An estimated 30 000 whites live in Zimbabwe, down from about 270 000 at independence in 1980.

Opposition leader Morgan Tsvangirai and top colleagues were hospitalised after being beaten by police while in custody after the township prayer meeting was crushed.

On Saturday, nine opposition activists who were to be arraigned on charges of attempted murder and illegal weapons possession all required medical attention for injuries sustained since their arrests, doctors said. One was carried from the Harare magistrates' court on a stretcher.

Doctors and staff at private medical facilities where the detainees were taken under police guard said the nine -- who were detained on Tuesday and Wednesday -- appeared to have been assaulted while in custody. Police later on Saturday removed the detainees, saying they were being taken for government treatment, said medical staff who asked not to be identified.

Keith Murray (20) a witness at the Borrowdale nightclub, said about 20 paramilitary police armed with automatic rifles and batons stormed into the nightclub and forced revelers to sit on the dance floors in silence. Three who protested and kept talking were assaulted, he said. Most of those detained were teenage girls and were released after daybreak.

Revelers cars were searched outside. The youths were jostled in lines and frog-marched into a nearby cage wire enclosure. One who tried to get onto a police bus to help his girlfriend was dragged off and hit. Another girl asking friends to call her parents was slapped for not remaining silent, Murray said.

"I was distraught," said one parent.

"One way to drive more of us out of the country is to arrest our children," he said, asking not to be identified for fear of reprisals.

On Friday, Zimbabwe's ruling party endorsed President Robert Mugabe as its candidate in next year's presidential elections, shrugging off international criticism of the clampdown on opposition activists and papering over internal divisions about the country's economic meltdown.

The 145-member decision-making body also agreed to bring forward parliamentary elections, scheduled for 2010, by two years to coincide with the presidential poll.

Next year's poll would allow Mugabe to stay in power until 2013, when he would be close to 90.

He has vowed to go ahead with the elections even if the opposition does not contest.

The endorsement by the central committee of the Zanu-PF party of Mugabe -- the only leader since independence -- followed an emergency Southern African summit that gave its public backing to the 83-year-old leader.

Thursday's summit in Tanzania ended with the appointment of South African President Thabo Mbeki to mediate in Zimbabwe's crisis and a decision "to promote dialogue of the parties in Zimbabwe".

On Friday, Mugabe acknowledged that police used violent methods against Tsvangirai and other opposition supporters and killed at least one activist last month. Referring to injuries suffered by at least 40 others in custody, Mugabe warned perpetrators of unrest they would be "bashed" again if violence continued, a reference to government accusations that the opposition is to blame for a wave of unrest and petrol bomb attacks, allegations the opposition has repeatedly denied.

The state Sunday Mail said Mugabe told regional leaders of the Southern African Development Community last week that authorities had taken action against "politically instigated terror" waged by the opposition.

"I told SADC that he [Tsvangirai] was indeed beaten up," the paper quoted Mugabe saying.

Mugabe said the government moved to restore order and Mbeki agreed Western countries backing the opposition were "against liberation movement parties" in the region, including their two countries' ruling parties.

"So we got enough support [from regional leaders.] Not one condemned our actions. SADC ... is not a court. We are brothers, we cooperate with each other and we have love for one another," Mugabe said, according to the newspaper, a government mouthpiece. - Sapa-AP

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