Government Forces Stymie Labor Protests, Arrest Scores in Zimbabwe
Witnesses said police beat union leaders with batons and rifle butts as they took them into custody
Zimbabwean police bottled up attempted protest marches in Harare and Bulawayo on Wednesday by the Zimbabwe Congress of Trade Union, the main trade union, while in Mutare and other provincial cities and towns turnout was light as officials maintained a heavy presence of police, soldiers and ruling party youth militia, sources said. Police in Harare arrested ZCTU Secretary General Wellington Chibhebe and union President Lovemore Matombo along with 21 other activists. Reporters and others who witnessed the arrests said police beat Chibhebhe and the other officials with batons and rifle butts. The union leaders were being held late in the day at Matapi police station in the Harare's Mbare suburb, an opposition stronghold. Police in Bulawayo arrested 48 protesters according to union and other sources. But a correspondent there said turnout was light in the face of numerous security forces. Protests also failed to gell in Mutare, where authorities arrested a half dozen officials of the opposition Movement for Democratic Change the night before the march. A report from the opposition MDC said army units with tanks deployed in Chitunwiza, 25 kilometers southeast of Harare, where about 50 people were arrested. in Chinhoyi, police arrested 15 protesters; 16 were detained in Gweru and 15 in Chegutu. Elsewhere in the capital, authorities deported a delegation of eight youth supporters of the ZCTU from neighboring South Africa upon their arrival at the Harare airport early Wednesday. Some were affiliated with the African National Congress, the Congress of South African Trade Unions, or COSATU, and the South African Communist Party. Whether Wednesday’s trade union protests are judged a success or a failure, more demonstrations are to be expected with the National Constitutional Assembly civic organization promising a “massive” public action next week. A spokesman for the Zimbabwe National Students Union said it will organize protests soon after the NCA to press the issue of soaring university and school fees.The MDC is expected to sponsor mass action the week after next.