Anti-Mugabe protesters face tear gas in battles with police
PROTESTERS brought the centre of Zimbabwe’s capital to a standstill and fought running battles with police yesterday in one of the biggest demonstrations for decades against President Robert Mugabe.
The chaotic scenes came after 18 opposition groups and parties called their supporters to march for reform of the country’s widely discredited electoral system before national elections in 2018.
The authorities in Harare had tried to block the protest, but the High Court gave it the go-ahead. Even so, police used tear gas and water cannon against marchers in Freedom Square within 20 minutes of the court order.
Morgan Tsvangirai, the leader of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC), fled the rally in a car while protesters ran for cover.
Joice Mujuru, a former vice-president and now opposition leader, also made a hasty departure.
The repeated use of tear gas meant that far fewer than the 150,000 people who had been expected to attend the march actually turned up.
Instead, a dedicated band of 200 or 300 protesters took on riot police and soldiers.
They barricaded roads with rocks, tore up paving slabs and set fire to cardboard boxes.
Shops closed early and drew down their shutters, while a bus stop and a popular market were burnt to the ground.
Riot police pursued the demonstrators and threatened journalists cover- ing the rally, as a military helicopter hovered low overhead.
Douglas Mwonzora, the MDC secretary-general, said the regime should expect no peace in the coming weeks.
Brighton Chavanduka, 45, an unemployed father of four, said he had been sacked from his secretarial job six years ago because of his support for the MDC. “They hate this today because the opposition is getting together. We will be stronger together,” he said.
Ignatius Chombo, the home affairs minister, labelled opposition leaders “foreign agents” and accused them of using protests to cause chaos in order to justify international intervention in Zimbabwe.
“Those regime-change agents bent on trying to remove a democratically elected government will face the full wrath of the law,” said Mr Chombo.