EDINBURGH — As violence between the government and hungry citizens erupted in Zimbabwe this week, South Africans have come forward to pledge support for protestors. Critics of the Zimbabwe government include, perhaps ironically, South Africa’s Economic Freedom Fighters party, which has been pushing heavily for the Zimbabwe-style anti-white policies of the 1990s to garner votes. The consequences of land grabs, corruption and ill thought-out short-term economic policies that favour an elite are being laid bare in the streets of Harare and Bulawayo. Most people are unemployed, businesses are shutting down and the bare necessities of life – from food and medicine to fuel – are running out. President Emmerson Mnangagwa has ordered a shutdown of social media as he struggles to contain the anger that is erupting across a nation of people who have lost hope that the future will be brighter after the Mugabe era. – Jackie Cameron
There is a total internet shutdown in Zimbabwe. VPNs are not working. All websites are down. The techie gurus got me back on for few minutes to get this message out: Zimbabweans in the diaspora and our friends throughout the world, please keep up the campaign to #SwitchBackOnZw!
— Doug Coltart ✊🏽🇿🇼 (@DougColtart) January 15, 2019
We strongly condemn the switching off of internet in Zimbabwe as well as the brutalization and killing of citizens demonstrating against the highest fuel prices in the world. #Mnangagwa is now resorting to his tried and tested repression tactics of his ugly past
— Zwelinzima Vavi (@Zwelinzima1) January 15, 2019
EFF Statement On Zimbabwe's Government Brutality Against Protesters pic.twitter.com/0iJzeexIf3
— Economic Freedom Fighters (@EFFSouthAfrica) January 15, 2019
By Mike Cohen and Brian Latham
(Bloomberg) - Disgruntlement with falling living standards spilled onto the streets of Harare, the capital, and other towns on Monday with thousands of people heeding a call by the country’s largest labour group to strike against massive fuel-price increases. Eight people were reportedly killed in clashes between the police and demonstrators and 200 others were detained, according to Amnesty International, a London-based human-rights group.
“You can’t blame people for being angry when there’s no money and the struggle is so real,” Nyarai Kumira, 32, an unemployed Harare resident, said Tuesday. “People are suffering. They’ve got only one avenue and that’s anger because so many can’t afford to eat properly.”
Under Mnangagwa’s predecessor Robert Mugabe, the seizure of white-owned farmland by ruling-party militants slashed agriculture production, triggered hyperinflation and a decade of economic stagnation, and forced the country to abolish the use of its currency and switch to the US dollar. A turnaround looked conceivable after Mnangagwa, 76, took power in November 2017 and won a disputed election in July last year, but his pledges to create jobs and draw billions of dollars in foreign investment remain unmet, with businesses and consumers crippled by the lack of foreign exchange.
Mnangagwa’s decision to proceed with a planned trip to Russia, Kazakhstan, Belarus, Azerbaijan and a World Economic Forum meeting in Davos, Switzerland, in the midst of the crisis to drum up investment and loans has drawn the ire of his struggling countrymen who consider the former spy chief insensitive to their plight.
“About 90% of us are self-employed or unemployed,” said Jessica Moyo, who works as a seamstress in Harare. “Even if you have a job, you’re probably earning about $300 a month and transport already costs you about 20-30% of your income. Now it’s going to be three times as much, so who suffers? The poor, because the ruling elite aren’t feeling hardship.”
While the official inflation rate stands at 31%, economists say that figure is probably understated, and there are big price discrepancies depending on whether goods are paid for electronically or with banknotes. Shops regularly run out of goods such as bread and coffee, and motorists line up for hours or even days outside filling stations to buy fuel. The government has ordered mobile-phone companies such as Econet Wireless Zimbabwe Ltd. to suspend all Internet services in an effort to quell rioting that broke out in several cities and towns Monday.
The main opposition Movement for Democratic Change says Mnangagwa’s administration has mismanaged the currency, failed to bring corruption, inflation and the budget deficit under control and unfairly raised taxes targeting the poor. Security Minister Owen Ncube in turn blamed the MDC for organising the three-day strike against the fuel-price increases and the chaos that ensued.
Tendai Tobaiwa, 48, who sells vegetables and fruit from a wheelbarrow in the city centre, said while the situation had become untenable for ordinary people, the ruling elite seemed to carry on as usual.
“Some drive Porsches, can you believe it?” he said. “The ruling party doesn’t even think of our suffering, only their bank balances, their cars, their big homes.”
