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Riot Police runs riot at UZ as vagabond police loot from students
Students Solidarity Trust
July 09, 2007

After independence, African post-colonial governments did not dismantle the oppressive colonial state, rather they maintained and expanded its scope . . . Gradually, a mafia state evolved, a state that has been hijacked by vampire elites, hustlers and gangsters, all who operate within their own ethic of self aggrandizement and perpetuation in power
~ George Ayitte

Riot police stormed the University of Zimbabwe on Saturday night and caused damaged of astronomical proportions. The riot police beat up students indiscriminately, and in the process ransacked students' halls of residence and looted from the poor students in the ensuing melee.

Scores of students were injured and many had to seek medical attention, whilst some students literally deserted their halls of residence and sought refugee in the bushes - and had to contend with the rigors of a cold night.

Students had demonstrated against the plans by the University administration to stop providing food to the students on the premise that the students had not paid the top-up fees that the students have been asked to pay. The University is demanding that students pay $1 million Zimbabwean dollars to cover the extra weeks they are on campus, caused by the lecturers strike.

Students hold that it is not their obligation to compensate the government for its intransigence and its failure to deal decisively with the lecturers' strike. As it were, the students also feel that the amount being asked of them is too exorbitant as they cannot afford it. As anger boiled over, some halls of residence and cars were damaged, allegedly by students. Students deny the allegations.

However, the response by the riot police was extremely heavy-handed; they stormed halls of residence, broke the doors and assaulted students with no restraint. Other students were rounded up in foyers and told to lie on their backs and were beaten with button sticks and butts of riffles. One female student sustained serious injuries, and some students have broken limbs and arms.

The riot police also made away with students' property that included cell phones, radios and lap-tops.

Unconfirmed reports show that about 4 students have been arrested and are currently in police custody at Harare Central Police Station.

As an Organisation, the Student Solidarity Trust strongly condemns these wanton acts of terror and victimization. Such acts barbarism and totalitarian behavior should be unequivocally castigated under no uncertain terms .These attacks appear to be mainly aimed at fostering, as well as perpetuating the use of violence as away of silencing the voices of dissent

It should also be highlighted that such bizarre and atrocious acts of terror are out of sync with the prevailing conventions governing the conduct of democratic societies, which the present regime has continued to blatantly disregard as a signatory to these treaties.

Also of concern is the magnitude of thievery and looting tendencies that have become highly characteristic of these uniformed thugs. On the fateful day in question, it is alleged that property worth millions was stolen by these elements while some other things were vandalized.

Riot police evict students out of halls of residences

Meanwhile, in yet another case of the regime's intransigence, reports emanating from the University of Zimbabwe show that Riot Police have again besieged the campus and have ordered every student out of residences. The administration contends that the students have not paid the top-up fees of $1 million and should therefore be chucked out halls of residence. This latest terror tactic on the students by the government is an indictment on the ruthlessness and vampirism of the state on its own students. The students are due to start exams in a week's time - yet some of the students have nowhere to go in Harare.

Victimisation continues

Abisha Dube, a student activist at the University of Zimbabwe and former Secretary General for the Students' Representative Assembly (SRA) has been suspended from the College for one year. The decision has been endorsed by the Vice-Chancellor, grey-haired Levy Nyagura. He has been suspended on allegations of 'inciting other students to join him in disrupting or possibly looting of the EMD supermarket by banging supermarket doors and making some unnecessary noisy' (sic).

Interestingly, Nyagura signs off the letter by claiming the act to suspend Dube is intended 'to help you and all other students to appreciate the need to make this University a reputable institution, reflecting on proper image to the outside world and the University Community'. Yet the image of the University that is inherent to the outside world is that of a University whose lecturers are perennially on strike, a University that has a serious shortage of lecturers (600 instead of 1200), a University that serves its students Sadza and beans on a daily basis and whose infrastructure and general standards are deteriorating at an accelerated pace.

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