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From: flybywire@my-dejanews.com
Newsgroups: soc.culture.zimbabwe
Subject: Protests lead to riots in Harare
Date: Wed, 04 Nov 1998 19:29:05 GMT
Organization: Deja News - The Leader in Internet Discussion
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Riots broke out in HARARE to today.

Companies closed down around 1pm o 3/11 to let workers make their way home in
daylight as public transport shut down around 9am.

The main access roads into the capital were quiet from nine in the morning as
discontented people made thier way into town, throwing bricks and stones at
passing motorists, shops and offices. Comfirmed reports have been recieved of
cars being set alight in the industrial Msasa suburb, and uncomfirmed reports
are that there have been worse troubles in Chitungwiza and Willowvale.

The main cause of protest is the escalation in first, food and latterly, fuel
prices. Staple foodstuffs are rapidly moving out of the price range of the
low paid and rural communities. The price of parafin, which is used as a fuel
for cooking rose over 300% on 1/11 before national newspaper The Herald on
3/11 carried articles saying the government had  reduced prices back to $1.80
- an increase of  80%.

Direct observation of the protestors was that most were young people, school
leavers and just older. The government has consistently financed education
but has been unable to put policies in place which create jobs. It is not
surprising that there is a growing "lawless" youth in the country, comprisng
the unemployed, part-eduacted people- a situation not dissimilar to South
Africa's "Soweto  generation".

Compounding the issues, rumours of Zimbabwean human losses in the Congo
abound in Harare's high density suburbs. "I went to a funeral in Bindura
which buried a leg..."; "A head was all that came back from DRC..." etc. etc.

Common support for Mugabe's position on DRC is virtually nil, and the anger
looks set to intensify.

The IMF has still not delivered funding to the country, no doubt Finance
Minister Herbert Murerwa is still struggling to convince international
analysts that the money will not be spent in the Congo.

Meanwhile, the poor in Zimababwe  get poorer by the passing day as government
increasingly fails to combat looming hyperinflation and provide policies
which allow citizens to enjoy freedom from hunger, disease and oppression -
economic. politic, global, whatever.

The budget analysis provided to this forum some days ago is bearing out.
Unless Mugabe's ZANU-PF henchmen wake up and sort the problems out, the next
Chimurenga may well be against the 1980 liberators. And it will be their own
troops that satnd against them.

Anger and tensions are mounting across the racial and tribal spectrum against
a government that is increasingly being seen to be partial to its members
pockets and not much else.

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