Anti-Mugabe strike paralyses Zimbabwe

Zimbabwe was shut down yesterday in the biggest mass protest against President Robert Mugabe's regime in three years.

Factories, banks and shops in all main cities and towns closed after hundreds of thousands of workers responded to a call by the main opposition Movement for Democratic Change (MDC) to join the two-day mass action.

Only a few government offices and banks were open in the capital, Harare, in the morning. But even those closed later when Zimbabweans showed their anger at economic hardships, underlined by inflation that soared to 221 per cent this week, and brutality directed against Mr Mugabe's opponents.

Police arrested more than 60 opposition supporters amid reports of violence in some overcrowded townships. Those arrested included a Daily News photographer and three lawyers. A bus was burnt while mobs threw up road-blocks in the townships.

A police spokesman, Assistant Commissioner Wayne Bvudzijena, said in a statement that at least 63 people had been arrested, and vowed to close in on "the ringleaders" of the strike. Mr Bvudzijena said the strike had flopped, and added that "a disturbing feature of the strike action has been the use of petrol bombs to coerce people into staying away from work.

"They are paying youths 5,000 Zimbabwe dollars [£6] each to participate in this illegal action and we are revising our strategies to ensure the peace-loving people can go about their business.''

State media outlets also said the strike had been a "complete flop" and only white-owned businesses had closed.

An MDC spokesman, Paul Nyathi, dismissed Mr Bvudzijena's allegations that his party was buying strikers as "desperate talk" from a spokesman for a "crumbling regime" astonished by the success of the strike action. He said the possibility of his party buying an entire nation to stay away from work could make sense only in Mr Bvudzijena's fertile imagination.

"Today the people of Zimbabwe are sending a strong and unequivocal message to the Mugabe regime that enough is enough," said Mr Nyathi. "They are sick and tired of oppressive and illegitimate rule that has provoked an unprecedented crisis in Zimbabwe. The events of today demonstrate that the people of Zimbabwe desire change."

Business leaders said they had supported the strike and urged their workers to observe it because the position in Zimbabwe was no longer sustainable. The business leaders warned of a backlash by Mr Mugabe's government, which would take advantage of the world's focus on Iraq to press on with its campaign of persecution against its opponents. Eight million of Zimbabwe's 12.5 million people are on the verge of famine, which has been blamed on the drought and Mr Mugabe's seizures of white-owned farms.

The Commonwealth has decided to extend a one-year suspension of Zimbabwe until December, but the ruling Zanu-PF party dismissed the move as a "huge non-event".