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Disturbances rock University of Zimbabwe campus
Lance Guma, SW Radio Africa
December 06, 2005

http://www.swradioafrica.com/news061205/university061205.htm

All is not well at the University of Zimbabwe following the double suspension of the entire student leadership in defiance of a High Court order. Following a meeting at the campus dining hall on Sunday which denounced the suspensions, some students took their frustrations out on nearby parked cars, smashing windscreens and scuffling with university security guards. According to the Students Executive Council (SEC) Secretary General, Mfundo Mlilo the students are not happy with the suspensions which were prompted by their resistance to paying for hostel refurbishments.

Justice Ben Hlatshwayo sitting in the High Court ruled that the suspensions were null and void as the students had a right to express their grievances. Undeterred, the Vice Chancellor Levi Nyagura re-suspended the students for allegedly plotting another demonstration soon after the judgment. A disciplinary hearing scheduled for November was deliberately postponed to make sure the students could not sit for their November-December exams. According Mlilo they have filed another application in the courts to reverse their suspensions and now, at the very least, to sit for supplementary exams next year.

Turning to their petition to the European Union seeking the imposition of travel sanctions on the Vice Chancellor, Mlilo said he is reliably informed university authorities are already drafting expulsion letters even though no hearing has taken place. The Vice Chancellor is alleged to have said the petition had tarnished the image of the university and the student leadership - wholly responsible for it - had to be punished.

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