Source: Blessings Mashaya, Daily News
The spirit of defiance sweeping across the country is showing little sign of waning, with two rights lobby groups planning to hold daring demonstrations against President Robert Mugabe and his ruling Zanu PF today, despite last week’s police ban on protests in Harare.
The National Vendors Union of Zimbabwe (Navuz) and radical pressure group Tajamuka/Sesijikile told the Daily News yesterday that they would hold a joint demonstration in the capital today, in total defiance of the two-week protest ban in the capital that stretched police announced last week.
The demonstration comes as High Court judge Priscillah Chigumba is set to hear an urgent application by pro-democracy groups and 18 opposition parties — who want the court to quash the police ban on protests which they argue is in violation of the country’s Constitution.
Navuz and Tajamuka/Sesijikile said today’s demonstration would be the first of many more protests to come this week, which they have lined up against Mugabe, who on Saturday lashed out at judges for allowing demonstrations to proceed.
“We are going to have a series of demonstrations in Harare this week. We are also going to move to all corners of the country. We can’t stop because we are hungry, there is nothing we can do.
“This is the start of a new phase as we are going to have a series of protests against draconian laws … We are going to have a mega demonstration today in the Harare central business district against the move to stop people from expressing their views.
“As citizens, we respect the Constitution and we want to teach the government to respect the rule of law. We protected a dictator for 36 years and we also allowed oppressive and draconian laws.
“The ban of demonstrations is against the spirit of the Constitution. That means it’s a dead law. We are calling upon all citizens to reject this bad law in justice,” Navuz president Stendrick Zvorwadza told the Daily News.
He said many other pressure groups, as well as “progressive citizens who are struggling to put food on the table as a result of the current economic problems” had committed to taking part in today’s demo.
“Zimbabwe is nose-diving because its political pilots lack the experience to rescue it. Tomorrow (today) we want to show them that their thinking is not the law.
“Solving the Zimbabwean crisis is as easy as cutting butter with a red-hot knife and the methodology is simply replacing the current government with a completely new one,” the firebrand Zvorwadza, who has been beaten and incarcerated countless times by police over the past few months, said.
Last week, police invoked Statutory Instrument 101A that bans demonstrations in central Harare. This occurred a few hours before opposition parties were to hold a mega demonstration in the capital.
The ban followed bloody clashes in the capital on August 26 when police defied a court order and bludgeoned thousands of protestors who had gathered under the auspices of National Electoral Reform Agenda (Nera), to protest outstanding electoral reforms, ahead of the country’s eagerly-anticipated 2018 national elections.
The heavily armed riot police — backed by armoured trucks and water cannons — indiscriminately fired volleys of teargas at all and sundry, battering and chasing around groups of determined opposition supporters to the shock of Zimbabweans.
Previously, police had also used force on protesters demonstrating against the government’s plan to introduce bond notes and Zanu PF’s unrealised promise of 2,2 million jobs.
In all these cases, the protestors had been granted court orders to go ahead with their demonstrations.
But addressing Zanu PF youths on Saturday, Mugabe threatened judges for granting these court orders, suggesting that they were being negligent in allowing the demonstrations to go ahead — which he said were aimed at toppling him from power.
“Of course, we can’t allow them (the opposition) to continue with these violent demonstrations unimpeded. Enough is enough,” Mugabe thundered.
The attack evoked bad memories from 2001 when the government purged white judges from the Bench, including the then chief justice Anthony Gubbay, for ruling against Zimbabwe’s chaotic land reform programme.
His rant came as the High Court will this morning hear an urgent application filed by pro-democracy groups against the police ban.
But Zvorwadza, who is among the applicants in today’s hearing, said demonstrations were allowed by the courts and were the only way of extricating Zimbabwe from Zanu PF’s misrule, a party he said was “clueless” about resolving the country’s deepening rot.
“A free Zimbabwe is possible only after we replace the current murderous leadership with genuine men and women,” the fearless activist said.
Tajamuka activist Sylvanos Mudzvova also urged “long-suffering Zimbabweans” to turn up in their numbers to support the demo and fight the police ban.
“We are going to participate in today’s demonstration as the ban is unconstitutional. We especially want to urge Tajamuka members to come in their numbers. We have nothing to fear because the conditions of being outside or inside the jail are the same due to the current economic woes.
“We won’t give this regime space to breathe. We want to press them until they meet all our demands,” Mudzvova told the Daily News.
Since the economy began experiencing serious turbulence, including witnessing banks running out of cash, this has put the government under growing pressure on as angry Zimbabweans have mounted seemingly unending demonstrations.
The country’s dying economy has also hit government revenues which have declined at the same pace as the shrinking production levels.
Mugabe, in power for 36 uninterrupted years, is facing the biggest challenge to his rule as civil unrest grows on the back of the worsening economic problems, as well as the seemingly unstoppable factional and successive wars ravaging his ruling Zanu PF.
In July, riots also broke out in the border town of Beitbridge when angry traders protested against the government’s ill-advised decision to ban the importation of basic consumer goods.
More than 70 people were arrested in the aftermath of those riots which destroyed property worth hundreds of thousands of dollars, including the burning of a warehouse belonging to the Zimbabwe Revenue Authority.
The riots later spread to Harare where police once again used force to break a demonstration called by commuter omnibus drivers and touts to protest too many police roadblocks on the roads which they said had become extortionate.
Source: Blessings Mashaya, Daily News